“Race you to the bottom,” I yelled to Peter over the sound of the chair lift.

“OK so what route are we going to take?” Peter said pointing at the small map on the chair lift. The map had blue lines, green lines, and black lines. It looked like a 4 year old had scribbled on a picture of a mountain. It made it even more confusing  that I was FREEZING.

 After studying the map for a while I said. “How about… we take Frenchman down to Schoolmarm and finish off on Fox Run,” I said while adjusting my goggles.

“OK,” said Peter kicking the snow off his snowboard.

We were at Keystone Resort in Colorado.  It was a beautiful day, the sky was blue, the snow was falling, the Rocky Mountains in our view.  That was on the main side on the mountain…. We were on the north face which was windier, colder, and rougher.  We were both freezing and nervous but  we weren’t showing it.  We were in a standoff.  Neither of us would admit we were cold or nervous.

We jumped off the chair lift.  As we were tightening our bindings, I said trying to act casual, “Loser owes the winner hot chocolate back at the lodge.”

“Deal,” Peter said shaking my hand.

READY……SET……GO!

We were neck and neck and then half way down Frenchmen I slipped on a chunk of ice and face planted into a pile of snow and Peter took the lead.  I was frozen.  I got to a the intersection and Peter was still in the lead.  There was a sign with two arrows.  One said Schoolmarm- 1 mile to Fox Run. The other said, Sidewinder- 5 miles to Bottom.  This is my chance to get back in the lead, “I thought to myself. Peter took Schoolmarm but I could take Sidewinder and beat him to the bottom.”

I got to the Start of sidewinder and went down 10 feet.  Then there was a sign that read: “Sidewinder” and it had a black diamond next to it!  Now I have to go back to the intersection and go down schoolmarm.  Now Peter would definitely beat me. I jumped so I was facing to the top of the hill and noticed it was too steep to go up. Now I had to go on the black diamond but it was my first time and no one was with me.  I looked down “well I’m going to die” I thought to myself.

“OK. suck it up Nick, you have to go”.  I looked down at the steep angled slope. I felt my jaw drop.  I flipped back around and slowly started going down the slope.  Under my breath, I said a prayer. I remember what the first thing I learned was about snowboarding: “side to side, side to side,” I thought to myself. I had to use the whole slope to slow down but I was still going fast. I felt like one of the snowboarders from the north face commercials.  All I could hear was the sound of the wind and the board flying through the snow.

In the distance, I saw the end of the slope and the lodge.  I also saw Peter on the end of Fox Run . It was going to be a race to the finish.  I forgot everything I ever learned about snowboarding and did not slow down,  but just headed straight for the finish.  Peter came out of the trail and bumped right into me.  We were almost to the bottom, I could taste the hot chocolate already.

We raced head to head until the end of the trail and it was a tie.  “Ha, ha” we were both laughing. “Well who wins?” I asked Peter laughing .

“How about we do it again after lunch and have a tie breaker, but this time winner owes loser cake at dinner.

“Deal.” I said shaking his hand

“But this time no black diamonds,” Peter said sarcastically