Lover's Leap

I whacked my poles on the cornice and yelled “I’m gonna rip the shit out of this!”

A demonstration of my wannabe radness and 400 G.N.A.R. points to boot.

In actuality, it took me a few tries to actually achieve the radness. A few years, actually.

On our very first date in January of 2021, Greg and I were deep in the getting-to-know-you-here-are-all-the-reasons-why-I’m-awesome-and-you-should-dig-me conversation, and the topic of hobbies came up. Both of us had mentioned skiing in our profiles, so we talked about it some more and realized that skiing is something that we both really love and spend a lot of doing in the winter.

We also established that he is an infinitely better skier than I am. He was born and raised in Colorado and has been skiing his whole life. He is very, very, very good. Great, even.

Only other hand, I learned to ski when I was 28 but didn’t start skiing regularly until I was 40. I try really hard to get better - I take lessons, I ski with friends who are better than I am, I always push myself out of my comfort zone so I can constantly improve. There is no truer maxim than, “skiing is easy to learn but hard to master.” But I do my best.

On that very first date, which was on a Monday, he invited me to go to the mountains to go skiing that weekend.

When you know, you know.

We love sking together. I mean, we love doing everything together. We always have fun together. And skiing is really high on the list.

The pattern is this: We get to the top of a run or a section of a run that looks a little scary to me. He stops and looks over at me. I make a little high pitched “uuh” sound and take a deep breath.

“No?” he says.

“It looks scary,” I say.

“Piece of cake for a woman like you,” he says.

The first time, or even the first 20 times, I might say, “I’ll go around and meet you at the bottom.”

He goes down the scary part like it’s nothing, and I go around and meet him at the bottom.

And then one day, I feel more competent and more confident, and so I do the scary part.

“You rock!” he says.

This has been happening more and more over the years. It makes skiing so much fun.

There have been a couple of hurdles that I have not been able to clear, though.

One is this little curlicue of a chute that takes you about twenty feet down from the top of a rocky ledge straight down to a path below. Twenty feet isn’t all that much and it goes quickly, but it’s still a chute. It’s very steep - you’re basically going straight down. There’s one way down, and it’s around a narrow curve with rocks on either side. I don’t like chutes. If you fuck up, there’s no way to avoid a hard spill.

So when we get to that point, Greg does the chute and I go around and meet him at the bottom.

The other white whale is Lover’s Leap.

Lover’s Leap is a run that starts with a 4 or 5 foot drop off a cornice, and then through terrain that is steep, with moguls and rocks and trees. Ever since we started dating, Greg has been trying to get me to do Lover’s Leap.

My answer has always been, of course not. Never. I’m in my fifties. Too late for me to try something like that for the first time. That’s the kind of run you start to do when you’re in your twenties, before you realize that you’re mortal.

Every time we go to that part of Vail, he says, “today’s the day for Lover’s Leap!”

“Hmm. I don’t know about that,” I say with a smile.

I mean, look at it! It’s preposterous.

But then a couple of weeks ago we were skiing with another friend and we had a cracker of a day. The snow was incredible - soft and forgiving. The weather was sunny and warm. And I skied better than I had ever skied in my life. We were ripping through glades and bowls, bombing down fast steep runs, swooping and swirling all over the mountain. It felt amazing.

Greg said that he had never seen me ski so well, or with such glee.

Mid-afternoon, I said, “I want to do Lover’s Leap.”

“Really??”

“Yes! I’m ready.”

We made our way over to the lift that would get us there. Unfortunately, it’s a lift that closes earlier than others. By the time we made it there, they had just shut it down.

But still. I knew I could do it. It’ll happen before the end of the season.

In the meantime, we were back at Vail on Sunday. We arrived at the curlicue.

I decided it was time.

I stood up at the top looking down, trying to calm down and get out of my own head. I stood there for at least a minute.

But I couldn’t do it. I went the easy way down and met him at the bottom.

We went to the lift and rode back up. The lift takes you to the starting point of 4 or 5 different runs, and no matter which one you take, you pass the curlicue at the end. I decided to try again. I stood at the top looking down, contemplating my fate. I took deep breaths and exhaled slowly. But I felt myself shaking.

So once again, I bailed. I was irritated with myself.

As we got on the lift, I said, “I’m going to do it this time. One more attempt.”

“You don’t have to do it,” Greg said.

“I know. But I can’t stand failing.”

The third time, I stood at the top looking down. I could still feel myself shaking. I was still hesitating. I was still scared.

My solution was to scoot down a little bit until there was no option but to do it because I couldn’t get back up.

I looked down again. Come on, Wendy. Go.

I took a deep breath, planted my pole, and pointed my skis down. I went.

Greg met me at the bottom. “You are awesome,” he said. “You totally rock.”

I was so happy. Still shaking, but proud to have conquered the demon.

“When we come back, if the conditions are decent, it’s on to Lover’s Leap,” I said.

“Fuck yeah!”

“Will you go down ahead of me so I can follow your line and know where to go?”

“Absolutely.”

He gives me confidence. I cannot express how amazing it is to be with someone who believes I can do anything, and who encourages me and cheers me on.

Vail got 13 inches of snow last night and is projected to get more this week. The forecast for Sunday is sunny.

I don’t want to jinx it, so suffice to say I’ll keep you posted.