That Just Happened: Zwei Blog

Back in the days when I was just a wee lad, I enjoyed spending time outside, preferably in some form of wilderness. My father was always an outdoor enthusiast, and so was his father. I pretty much enjoyed anything from hunting and fishing to four wheeling and snowmobiling, the nerd in me had yet to fully set in.

One summer the family decided to head out into the deep dark wilderness that is the Crystal Mountain ski resort. Ok, so it isn’t exactly the deep dark wilderness, but it did have a dark side we’d yet to fully encounter.

The way up to the mountain was like any other nice sunny summer day; nice, sunny, and summery. Birds chirped, bees buzzed, all the usual life that fills the Pacific Northwest forests in the middle of July. We were heading to the mountain to partake in an annual outdoors festival at Crystal Mountain. The main purpose of the week was a downhill mountain bike jam, however they opened all the other black diamond runs to joggers and hikers and various other flannel wearing western Washingtonians.

Basically the idea is this; the easier you make nature the more people you will attract. So Crystal turns on all the chair lifts and ships people to the top of the runs so they can hike joyfully down a dusty road that would be the grooming path during the winter. The hike down is not hard by any means, some of the runs are steep and the dirt can be somewhat slick, but anyone with better balance than an egg should have no issue.

That is until your father decides to take a short-cut through backcountry out of… to this day I’ve yet to determine why we ventured off the path. I think it had to do with slipping on the dirt, or general boredom fueled fighting between me and my brother. Either way, we cut through a pretty amazing meadow, all seemed well. I again had an onset of boredom however, and ventured off ahead.

I got to what was basically a cliff, but also a hill. I guess you could call it a very steep hill. Not steep enough for grass NOT to grow, but steep enough for it to not grow well. As I began to walk down, my speed increased considerably, gravity and all, until I was at a run.

At this point I’m fairly certain I’m doomed eventually, as I’m only half way down the steep face. Upon basically falling over a boulder, my fears confirmed themselves when face met ground. The tumbling that ensued would be admired by the most seasoned Olympic gymnasts. The dismount would have left room for improvement.

During one roll I saw a rock about 10 feet ahead of me. During another roll I smashed the top of my head into it. This repeated a few rolls later, when again, a rock was clearly visible in my path. Again the result was not in favor of my face. This one, and the general smoothing of the train, brought me to a stop. It took a few moments to realize what had really just happened, at which time I began to scream out of pain and anger … of falling down a mountain.

My parents got to the scene of my crash, we walked down to the next stage of the chair lift, where I was given an ice pack and had to sit as tens of onlookers stared in shock and asked pressing questions.

“Did you fall off the chair lift?”

“Oh my god what happened?”

“Does that hurt?!?” (No, the softball sized lumps on my face are totally in this year)

After a truck ride from mountain medical staff to the bottom of the hill, I was given a Popsicle and had to wait for my parents to get down to the medical center (which they actually had to open for me, apparently no one gets hurt in the summer). In the mean time, it turns out an onlooker called the news and reported that a child had fallen off the chair lift, and when they arrived we had to tell them they came out for nothing. That, and I was not going to give them permission to put my busted mug on television.

Two softball size lumps on my head and a minor concussion later I'd learned to not defy gravity, and that is why you don't ever go, or near, to Crystal Mountain.

Random Google Image Search for the word of the day: Goose Egg