(Second) Worst. Ski. Day. Ever.

Some people say that any day on the slopes is a good day. Those people probably have never been taken down the hill on the sled by the ski patrol. My worst day skiing was the day I tore my ACL. My second worst day skiing ever was yesterday.

Saturday, I took the Boy and one of his friends to Snoqualmie. It was the first day Central was open. The boys had wanted to go to Alpental, but I wanted to stay on one of the smaller hills. I started my morning on the green run, Holiday, at Central while the boys went on the blues and blacks.  Holiday was one of the steeper green hills I’ve been on since I tore my ACL.

After about fifteen runs, I was bored. I watched several new skiers head over to the steeper terrain and thought I can do that. I've done it before. After lunch, I decided to go down Alpine. Alpine is a blue run that I have done dozens of times before I tore my ACL. I was feeling good on the greens. I figured I was mostly afraid and fear was holding me back. I did fine on the main runs at Crystal two weeks earlier.

I got on Central Express, the chairlift to the top of Alpine. The chairlift was a four-seater, and it flew up the mountain. The lift to the green hills are often fixed grip and they crawl and creep up the hills. I had forgotten how fast these new lifts are. As I was riding up, I thought about the Ski Patrol guy I met on the lift last week at West. He tore his ACL twenty years ago and was now going to skin up the mountain and ride through the back country. Cool, I thought. This guy is my inspiration.

Alpine has four main parts to the run: first, a downhill curve then a second steep part, then a third part which is not that steep and then the flat run-out at the bottom. The first part is a soft gentle curve. I manage this part just fine. It was a little bit harder than I remembered but nothing impossible. The cover on the mountain was thin, so they might not have groomed this run. There were more bumps and unevenness than I would have liked. I almost lost it once, but I recovered before I hit the ground.

The second part nearly killed me. I felt like I was going down to straight vertical drop. The snow was on groomed and it had small moguls in spots. I was terrified. How am I going to get to the bottom of this hill? I thought about taking off my skis and walking down the mountain. I nixed that idea because I'd have to get to the edge of the run and to get to the edge I have to ski there and I didn't want to do that.

Fear was kicking my ass.

Fear = 1

Lauren = 0

I was in the middle of the hill and stuck. I couldn't go back to the top and beg the lift ops guys to let me download. Instead, I turned my skis perpendicular to the fall line and marched down the hill sideways. I flattened out all of the bumps in my path, as if I were a one-woman grooming machine.

When I made it down the second part, I thought I was in luck. I didn't remember the third part being hard at all.

I was wrong.

Fear = 2

Lauren = 0

The snow cover at the edges of the run was thin. Instead of being wide open with flat parts, this was a narrow chute with bushes and ice puddles on the side. I sidestepped down this part, too. Last week, the Boy told me I should ski faster and harder, so when I crash my skis will come flying off and I won't tear my ACL. He thinks I tore my ACL because I was going to slow when I crashed two years ago. This is coming from a fourteen year old who thinks he is indestructible.

As I was slowly sidestepping down the mountain, I watched old pros fly by with grace and ease. I watched elementary school aged children turn and pass me. The only people going slower than me were a dad and his five year old daughter. As I watched people of all ages and abilities ski by, I thought of my physical therapist, Evan. I love Evan. He is a great guy and I would recommend him to anyone. But I never want to see him again. Ever. Falling is part of skiing, but I don't want a fall that will cause me to struggle walking for a year.

The fourth, flat part I managed okay. Because it was flat.

It took me almost an hour from when I left the lodge after lunch to when I skied past the lodge. I was ready to hang up my skis forever after my run on Alpine. Maybe life in the lodge isn't so bad, I thought. No, the other voice in my head fought back. Sitting the lodge sucks. You need to do another run. Go back to Holiday, even if it is dull. So I went to Holiday.

Why couldn't I do the Alpine run? Did I lose that much leg strength over two years since I tore my ACL? Even with all of my physical therapy? I couldn't believe that I had the weakest legs of anyone on the mountain. That couldn't be possible, or could it? Were my legs drained like a battery after my accident, and they have never fully recharged? Will they ever fully recharge?

In the end, the greens were too easy and the blues were too hard. Where was my "just right" run? After skiing greens all day, my thighs didn't burn at all. Usually, after a good day of skiing, my quads are on fire in a good way. If I don't need a salt bath or twenty-minutes in a hot tub after skiing, I really haven't skied. Likewise, I want sore muscles, not torn ligaments or broken bones.

I wish I could design my own ski runs. The Boy has a video game where he creates his own race tracks. My neighbor designs landscapes for gold courses. Unfortunately, ski runs are harder to modify and change, otherwise, I'd make a run that got a little bit harder every time I did it until I was as good as I once was.