I Coulda Stayed Home Tonight

Snow has been a rarity this winter around these parts. It's a shame that I take up a winter sport and we have a winterless winter. The sport is tobogganing, in case you're new here.

It started snowing today and, although there were reports of numerous accidents on slippery roads, my son and I went tobogganing at Mount Pleasant (not a real mountain, just an old landfill site but a significant hill for the large person nonetheless.)

The air was still and the temperature mild. It was perfectly still out there on the fresh powder. We had the mountain to ourselves. Wafts of wood smoke from fireplaces filled the air. Everyone else was keeping warm and dry in their homes. To punctuate the magical and surreal atmosphere, we could continually hear coyotes in the distance, not uncommon for our neighbourhood on the edge of town. I guess they were trying to find each other in the falling snow.

I can see why skiers love fresh powder and will pay for a helicopter to go up a mountain to get it. It's so quiet, so peaceful. Cutting into the fresh, virgin snow was a thrill for us on our sleds. You go down in a wavy but unbelievably soft motion, like skipping along the surface of a cloud.

Laying on my back, watching the snow fall from the sky, I noticed a light. My son told me it was the moon shining through the clouds. I didn't have my glasses on.

The lesson is obvious. Get out and enjoy life. Don't let anything stop you. You're missing so much if you stay on that couch. The greater the reasons not to go, the more amazing the experience will be.

My First Run Tobogganing Tonight

"National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation"

She stood above me, majestically, and I paused my approach. "This isn't 'The Bowl,'" I thought, remembering the fun and relative safety of my last run with a sled, New Year's Eve at a family tobogganing hill. But her peak seemed to kiss the clouds and her light at the top reminded me of an angry moon, coming down and in close to have a stare-down with me face to face. Its beeming halogens were like eyes peering through me, baring witness to my every weekness and fear.

The wind blew hard and the snow cascaded across the slopes, backlit from ahigh. 'The Bowl' seemed big too, at the time, but I began to think I was wrong about that. This slope had twenty bowls in it, if it had one. Child's play this was not, I warned myself, as a waft of cheep teenager cigarette smoke caught my nose.

I climbed her slowly but with intent. I had been here before and survived I told myself, yet I could feel her heart and soul beneath my feet and was in no way reassured. At the summit, there were Asian students trying out yellow rain coats as sleds. They giggled and chortled until their rides disintigrated beneath them, just a quarter way down the slope.

I paused to let Amelia start her run, just part way up the mountain on what seemed like a gentle, less slick, less used portion of the hill. She picked up speed and headed right for me. I darted aside as she rocked past with a stearn look on her four-year-old face. I must have imagined the flames I thought I saw shooting out from behind her. She disappeared beyond the light's reach and finally stopped too far for my unspecticalled eyes to see.

I proceeded to climb, my heart now stronger than previous ascents, so strong I didn't feel the need to check my heart rate watch. I sat upon my trusty new sled after ripping it from the grasp of the wind's strong hands, unrestrained at top of the hill. I glanced around at the lights of downtown below, far below, in the distance. It would be okay, I thought. This wasn't the slickest part of the hill. Hell, this wasn't even a section I'd bother to go on on any other night. I'd take it easy, I told myself, catch up with Amelia who was somewhere in the abyss beyond the normal sledding range of the hill.

I nudged myself forward and the compressed snow started to creek below me.  With my son at my side and before I even picked up speed, I said aloud, "This ain't no bowl any more. This ain't no bowl!"

I quickly accelerated beyond any speed I had previously achieved, and, as I the broke the sound barrier, a loud double boom deafened me and echoed off the now-towering slopes. I leaned forward in a vain attempt to save my spine but something was wrong. The hill was faster than it had ever been. Was it the wind creating some sort of black ice like it does on the highways? Was the slope just faster at night?

I tore down to toward the base of the mountainside and tried to dig my hands into the snow to slow my ascent but it was pointless. It was like trying to touch a running fan blade without getting hurt. By the bottom of the hill, I had no sense that  I was slowing down. If anything, I was picking up speed. The sight of my daughter's face flew past me, aglow from the lights and already rosy from the cold wind. The sight of her loving face was comforting, I thought, as the severity of the situation escaped me for a moment.

Just when I thought there was no end, I suddenly started to slow, far past any part of the valley I had ever penetrated before, at any time in my life. And then, finally, thankfully, I stopped. I was alive and relieved, feeling that exhilaration one feels when you cheat death, but it was short-lived. My heart started to sink, along with the rest of me. Apparently, I was teetering at the edge of some sort of drainage  ditch or culvert that I wasn't aware existed, and I began to plummet again.

Tobogganing Video (my family at "The Bowl")

We joined some friends at a smaller hill in the center of the city. The benefit of a smaller hill is you get lots of shorter runs and, in this case, can park closer to your vehicle.