them about my stunt on the chair lift. "I know you're going to tell about your friends about it," I said. "Oh yeah!" he said.
I landed my butt on the chair for my second attempt and I wrapped my arm around the bar. But the ride up wasn't actually as frightening as I expected. Dan started rattling about how he sometimes experienced vertigo on the lift, especially when it slowed. When he started to tell a story about the time he was stuck for about a half-hour on a lift, I politely cut him short. "Oh, sorry," he said. The rest of the ride was smooth and I was able to appreciate the view.
At the top of the run, I stumbled my way off, falling on my knees and crawling over to the side. It wasn't graceful but it wasn't nearly as embarrassing as my effort to get on the lift. The lesson picked up from there. It was snowing—enough for it to feel very winter wonderlandish but not so much that visibility was affected. I mastered the falling leaf motion pretty fast and found I only had to stop because my thighs were burning. Stopping was easiest for me when I just fell down on my butt (hey, it worked). I was relieved to find the waterproof pants I bought before the trip were really waterproof (I had my doubts). I'll have to work on stopping while still standing the next time.
It dumped ten feet of snow during the weekend and few of the lifts were running on the day after my lesson so we made it a Scrabble day. Then we went out on the day we were planning to leave. Some of the beginner slopes were closed because of avalanche warnings and my friend Andrea agreed to ride with me. We took a lift up and found a green trail but it wasn't the friendly and gentle Hansel and Gretel beginner trail I took for my lesson. This was the first snow-free and clear day and when I got to the top I finally had my vertigo moment. I was swish-swishing falling leaf-style several
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