Have you ever done something just because your friend suggested it? Or maybe you felt pressured to do it? It might not always be easy to reject their idea, but sometimes you might have to. In this situation, I listened to my friend when I shouldn’t have. The ending result didn’t go so well. . . .  

     It was a bright and frigid afternoon down at Maple Ski Ridge, and my dad wanted to take me down a mountain for the first time. We had just taken the cold, snowy chairlift up to the mountain.  We glided over the shining, icy snow.  It felt like we were at a skating rink; it was amazing how slippery it was. We stood at the top. Knees trembling, hands shaking, my nose was as red as a tomato. We glared at the bottom of the tremendous mountain. Standing there made me feel weird. I had never stood at the top of a mountain before, and I now was. As I was standing there for a minute, I looked at how small everything looked at the bottom. The lodge, skiing lessons, and even the bunny hill. After looking down the majestic mountain, I started to go down. 

     My dad and I, full of vigor, started zipping through the rough snow, listening to the snow build up behind us. As soon as we reached the bottom, we had then made our way over to the bunny hill. We took the rope tow up to the top and moved slowly over to a hill called The Crossover, which was a hill that’s steep and wide. As I was at the top of this gigantic, glowing hill I looked down to find that one of my friends, Lily, was at the bottom. Since Lily was there, I went straight down The Crossover. Exhilarated, I slid over to her, and we headed towards the lodge.

     Right after lunch, we headed outside with our bubbly mindsets.  We started off with the bunny hill as a warm up. Soon after, we were on the chairlift again, going to the top of the mountain. As we headed towards the gleaming mountain ahead of us we decided just in the moment that we wanted to go straight down the mountain. No turns or anything. Slicing and dicing we would move down the majestic mountain. Afterwards we would speed down the bright, icy Crossover. 

     As we finished off our first round of going down the mountain, we wanted to go on our thrilling adventure again. But we only wanted to do one part, The Crossover. We didn’t want to go all the way back to the distant bunny hill, so mindlessly we decided to climb up The Crossover. Ears burning, hands frozen, we started climbing up the monumental hill in front of us. Of course the outcome of doing this wouldn’t be the best, but we still had hope. The ending result wasn’t the best. 

     Lily and I had just finished coming down from our first round of skiing down all of the mountain, and decided we wanted to go back up the gigantic hill in front of us, so we did. We started our journey up this immense hill. One by one, we started climbing. Lily went first. She was in luck. She had a bit of help as she climbed up the enormous hill. She had her skiing poles with her. They helped her to get a better grip on the mountain and gravitate up. On the other hand, I did not have poles, so it was much harder for me to climb up this towering hill. 

     Luckily, Lily offered to give me one of her poles. Since I was new at skiing, I didn’t quite understand how to use them. Holding on tight to the one pole my friend had offered me, I stuck it in the ground and tried to pull myself up. As I started to pull myself up, the pole started to slip; it wouldn’t stay in the ground! As I noticed this, soon after it wasn’t too long until I started slipping too. First the pole went; I watched as it slid away slowly. Then soon after I started to slip. At this point I was already falling backwards.  Lily was nowhere near me to help. Faster and faster, I fell. Soon enough I started to roll. Petrified, I tried to get up, but the force of gravity already kicked in. It was too late.  

     As I reached the bottom of the massive hill, I started to slow down. As I slowed down, my arm started to twist. It kept turning, and my elbow bent back in the weirdest kind of way. Once I was at the bottom, I was in excruciating pain. My elbow had buckled. No one was near me. All I could do was scream for help. Luckily my dad heard me and rushed over. Heart racing, he quickly examined my elbow. After a quick 60 second assessment he helped me up, and we headed to the car. I was trembling as we traveled to the doctor’s office. 

     As I find myself back at The Crossover, I realize that I learned a very valuable lesson that day. Thinking back on this memory, it reminds me that I should really think through each situation. Being careless and not thinking about what could happen can really hurt me, and potentially others in the future. So from now on thinking before actually doing is really a better idea. No matter what the ending result could be, it’s always a great option to use. 

-Madison T.