Eddie and the Ice Wall (1-27-09)
Its a place Ive heard about countless times over the years from friends and others; Chestnut Ridge. Growing up as a poor kid in the inner city we never talked about going skiing or sledding at beautiful suburban locales. It wasnt in our culture and wasnt anything we missed because wed never done it. If we wanted to sled, wed find a 20 foot mound of plowed snow in a parking lot and shoot down on a piece of cardboard or the top half of a radio flyer that went kaboom. If we wanted a bigger thrill wed wait for a cold icy night and hitch on the back of a car sliding along the ice which was a lot of fun, but boy those sudden stops could be trouble.
Id heard the names of these places, Kissing Bridge, Holiday Valley and Chestnut Ridge but they really didnt mean anything. To me they were as far away as the Rockies. Even those times when my father had a car I didnt jump up and down and plead for a trip to any of those places. I was a simple kid. I went outside and ran around all day playing sports, climbing all over the neighborhood and in more relaxed sessions, playing with my G.I. Joes in the driveway or backyard. I had everything I needed.
As I got older and began to understand and appreciate the huge world beyond my neighborhood I would occasionally ponder what it might be like to sled down or ski a huge hill. The few times where Ive had a car Ive never considered doing these things because what fun is sledding alone? If a friend had mentioned it to me I probably would have jumped all over it but no one ever did and the idea lay dormant in the back of my mind.
About 3-4 weeks ago a friend of mine and a large group of people he knew went sledding at Chestnut Ridge in Orchard Park and he couldnt stop talking about how cool it was. I would have gone but that was when I was sick with the breathing troubles. When I heard they scheduled another session for last Saturday I couldnt sign up fast enough. My friend told me he had 2 sleds so I didnt even have to go buy one. Needless to say I was excited about the new experience and as we got within a few minutes of the place I could feel the butterflies stirring.
As we approached up the road I could see little specs of people shooting down the hill and marching right back up to do it again. The closer we got the cooler it looked. My friend mentioned happily that there were less people than last time. Thats fine with me as I hate crowded places and being a first timer if Im not shooting down the hill worried about running into people that makes everything that much better. It was 10 degrees so maybe that had something to do with the small turnout. After all it was 42 the day before and such a dramatic drop in temperature probably keeps a lot of people away from outdoor activity. It usually does for me. People will often say theyll get sick when there is a significant shift in weather or temperature, perhaps this principle kept bodies on the couch rather than on the hill.
We parked and then went inside the cabin but not before I spun my glance around the parking lot a few times taking in the natural beauty. There were snow covered trees in almost every direction and if it werent for the biting winds I might have spent more time to take it all in. Instead we made our way to the cabin nearby and met up with the other people we were meeting there. One female in the group was having a great time and mentioned she had gone down the hill over ten times already!
We stepped out of the cabin and right out to the top of the hill and I was floored. The view was beautiful. Visibility wasnt as good as it could have been but I could easily see the skyline of Buffalo off in the distance. Trying harder I could make out the shapes of another skyline much further away which must have been Niagara Falls. What a view it was. I wish I had photographed it. I can still close my eyes and see it 4 days later. My eyes were focused on the amazing view but as we walked closer to the top of the hill my eyes came down to see how steep it looked and how fast people were shooting down that thing. People were flying down the hill and some even bounced into the air a foot or so when they hit a little bump. After a few more minutes of watching, including watching my friends go down, it occurred to me why it looked so fast. It was fast!
As I mentioned earlier, just 24 hours earlier the temperatures were 30 degrees warmer. The many many inches of snow were melting and then suddenly it re-froze in a very short timeframe. Now the world was a shiny slippery mess and these people were achieving both crazy speeds and serious bumps because of it. I began to have second thoughts. I thought about recent times where Ive had serious injuries and there was this fear inside of getting hurt because I didn't know what I was doing but about 95% of the people going down were having a ton of fun and not spinning or flipping off their sleds.
The presence of so many kids made me think about when I was a kid. If I had ever come to a place like this I probably would have had to been dragged away by the police. I would have been going down with no hands, posing like a goof and acting like a ham. Now this same situation has me sweating. If my younger self were there hed kick me in the shin call me a wuss or something worse and take off down the hill figuring I wouldnt pursue me. A few friends went down the hill and here I was with the best sled of the bunch at my disposal. These guys were going down in Pintos and here I now had the big blue Volvo (the sled was good but not great) in my hand. I couldnt take it anymore. I told my mind prepare for takeoff, either help out or log off. My mind has never let me down before once a decision is made and it didnt start here. My mind decided to help by reminding me of the few tips people mentioned to me earlier: hold on to the sides, it will help you steer. I guess I was ready.
As I sat down in the sled and got comfortable I could hear Monique from Better Off Dead giving me a final instruction: Go zat way really fast. If something gets in your way, turn.
With that I was off. What a rush it was. I was going fast, really fast. I kept my hands on either side and had good control of the thing. As I reached the bottom of the hill I was still zooming at a high rate of speed. I was flying past people who crashed, flipped out or had small flimsy sleds. I guess if you look at the physics of the thing, with my weight and a hard icy hill I was bound to fly down that sucker. I was still going along very quickly and I waved to my two friends at the bottom as I passed them. They were standing there taking it in. They were yelling at me, probably cheering me on since I finally worked up the nerve to go down.
With the super cold conditions and the high rate of speed my eyes were watering like crazy and my vision was getting blurred. I was able to see this blur of a little kid getting up off the ground after his run. With my hands in the right spot and with me going really fast and something getting in my way, I did what I remembered to do, I turned. I turned very slightly; more like veered and didnt even lose any speed. My eyes were really getting watery at this point and the last thing I thought was about how much further I was going than almost every sledder coming down the hill. I felt a sense of pride and thats when it happened.
I saw it at the last second coming up on me very quickly. It was a one foot tall wall of ice stretching across the sledding area. It was perhaps a border from where the area may have been plowed at a recent time. Now it was a hardened wall of doom and I was reduced to a crash test dummy. Now it occurred to me why no one was going out this far. The sled struck it and although for a split second I thought the sled would hit it and just lift up off the ground and go over it, but unfortunately it was a little too high for that to happen.
Did you ever see the movie Spaceballs? You know the scene where Spaceball 1 is going at ludicrous speed and then Dark Helmet, who hasnt buckled his seat belt, orders Colonel Sanders to stop the ship despite warnings that its too dangerous to stop because of how fast they are going? Well, it wasnt quite that bad but I flew about 5-6 feet in the air like Dark Helmet did and when I landed, ouch. It was like landing on solid ground. The ice had little give to it. I laid there in a heap for about 30 seconds. The first thing I did was a systems check. Is everything okay? After a few seconds I knew I was fine albeit a little sore. The next thing I did was stare up at the sky while doing this interesting laugh/grimace thing for a bit. My friend came over to see if I was okay and said didnt you hear us telling you to bail out? I believe the answer was pretty obvious but I answered the question anyway; I heard something but I couldnt make it out. I turned to my inner child and thought; are you happy now?
Overall the whole thing was exciting and funny and Ive lived to crash another day but I know Monique would not have been happy I forgot to turn.
Its a place Ive heard about countless times over the years from friends and others; Chestnut Ridge. Growing up as a poor kid in the inner city we never talked about going skiing or sledding at beautiful suburban locales. It wasnt in our culture and wasnt anything we missed because wed never done it. If we wanted to sled, wed find a 20 foot mound of plowed snow in a parking lot and shoot down on a piece of cardboard or the top half of a radio flyer that went kaboom. If we wanted a bigger thrill wed wait for a cold icy night and hitch on the back of a car sliding along the ice which was a lot of fun, but boy those sudden stops could be trouble.
Id heard the names of these places, Kissing Bridge, Holiday Valley and Chestnut Ridge but they really didnt mean anything. To me they were as far away as the Rockies. Even those times when my father had a car I didnt jump up and down and plead for a trip to any of those places. I was a simple kid. I went outside and ran around all day playing sports, climbing all over the neighborhood and in more relaxed sessions, playing with my G.I. Joes in the driveway or backyard. I had everything I needed.
As I got older and began to understand and appreciate the huge world beyond my neighborhood I would occasionally ponder what it might be like to sled down or ski a huge hill. The few times where Ive had a car Ive never considered doing these things because what fun is sledding alone? If a friend had mentioned it to me I probably would have jumped all over it but no one ever did and the idea lay dormant in the back of my mind.
About 3-4 weeks ago a friend of mine and a large group of people he knew went sledding at Chestnut Ridge in Orchard Park and he couldnt stop talking about how cool it was. I would have gone but that was when I was sick with the breathing troubles. When I heard they scheduled another session for last Saturday I couldnt sign up fast enough. My friend told me he had 2 sleds so I didnt even have to go buy one. Needless to say I was excited about the new experience and as we got within a few minutes of the place I could feel the butterflies stirring.
As we approached up the road I could see little specs of people shooting down the hill and marching right back up to do it again. The closer we got the cooler it looked. My friend mentioned happily that there were less people than last time. Thats fine with me as I hate crowded places and being a first timer if Im not shooting down the hill worried about running into people that makes everything that much better. It was 10 degrees so maybe that had something to do with the small turnout. After all it was 42 the day before and such a dramatic drop in temperature probably keeps a lot of people away from outdoor activity. It usually does for me. People will often say theyll get sick when there is a significant shift in weather or temperature, perhaps this principle kept bodies on the couch rather than on the hill.
We parked and then went inside the cabin but not before I spun my glance around the parking lot a few times taking in the natural beauty. There were snow covered trees in almost every direction and if it werent for the biting winds I might have spent more time to take it all in. Instead we made our way to the cabin nearby and met up with the other people we were meeting there. One female in the group was having a great time and mentioned she had gone down the hill over ten times already!
We stepped out of the cabin and right out to the top of the hill and I was floored. The view was beautiful. Visibility wasnt as good as it could have been but I could easily see the skyline of Buffalo off in the distance. Trying harder I could make out the shapes of another skyline much further away which must have been Niagara Falls. What a view it was. I wish I had photographed it. I can still close my eyes and see it 4 days later. My eyes were focused on the amazing view but as we walked closer to the top of the hill my eyes came down to see how steep it looked and how fast people were shooting down that thing. People were flying down the hill and some even bounced into the air a foot or so when they hit a little bump. After a few more minutes of watching, including watching my friends go down, it occurred to me why it looked so fast. It was fast!
As I mentioned earlier, just 24 hours earlier the temperatures were 30 degrees warmer. The many many inches of snow were melting and then suddenly it re-froze in a very short timeframe. Now the world was a shiny slippery mess and these people were achieving both crazy speeds and serious bumps because of it. I began to have second thoughts. I thought about recent times where Ive had serious injuries and there was this fear inside of getting hurt because I didn't know what I was doing but about 95% of the people going down were having a ton of fun and not spinning or flipping off their sleds.
The presence of so many kids made me think about when I was a kid. If I had ever come to a place like this I probably would have had to been dragged away by the police. I would have been going down with no hands, posing like a goof and acting like a ham. Now this same situation has me sweating. If my younger self were there hed kick me in the shin call me a wuss or something worse and take off down the hill figuring I wouldnt pursue me. A few friends went down the hill and here I was with the best sled of the bunch at my disposal. These guys were going down in Pintos and here I now had the big blue Volvo (the sled was good but not great) in my hand. I couldnt take it anymore. I told my mind prepare for takeoff, either help out or log off. My mind has never let me down before once a decision is made and it didnt start here. My mind decided to help by reminding me of the few tips people mentioned to me earlier: hold on to the sides, it will help you steer. I guess I was ready.
As I sat down in the sled and got comfortable I could hear Monique from Better Off Dead giving me a final instruction: Go zat way really fast. If something gets in your way, turn.
With that I was off. What a rush it was. I was going fast, really fast. I kept my hands on either side and had good control of the thing. As I reached the bottom of the hill I was still zooming at a high rate of speed. I was flying past people who crashed, flipped out or had small flimsy sleds. I guess if you look at the physics of the thing, with my weight and a hard icy hill I was bound to fly down that sucker. I was still going along very quickly and I waved to my two friends at the bottom as I passed them. They were standing there taking it in. They were yelling at me, probably cheering me on since I finally worked up the nerve to go down.
With the super cold conditions and the high rate of speed my eyes were watering like crazy and my vision was getting blurred. I was able to see this blur of a little kid getting up off the ground after his run. With my hands in the right spot and with me going really fast and something getting in my way, I did what I remembered to do, I turned. I turned very slightly; more like veered and didnt even lose any speed. My eyes were really getting watery at this point and the last thing I thought was about how much further I was going than almost every sledder coming down the hill. I felt a sense of pride and thats when it happened.
I saw it at the last second coming up on me very quickly. It was a one foot tall wall of ice stretching across the sledding area. It was perhaps a border from where the area may have been plowed at a recent time. Now it was a hardened wall of doom and I was reduced to a crash test dummy. Now it occurred to me why no one was going out this far. The sled struck it and although for a split second I thought the sled would hit it and just lift up off the ground and go over it, but unfortunately it was a little too high for that to happen.
Did you ever see the movie Spaceballs? You know the scene where Spaceball 1 is going at ludicrous speed and then Dark Helmet, who hasnt buckled his seat belt, orders Colonel Sanders to stop the ship despite warnings that its too dangerous to stop because of how fast they are going? Well, it wasnt quite that bad but I flew about 5-6 feet in the air like Dark Helmet did and when I landed, ouch. It was like landing on solid ground. The ice had little give to it. I laid there in a heap for about 30 seconds. The first thing I did was a systems check. Is everything okay? After a few seconds I knew I was fine albeit a little sore. The next thing I did was stare up at the sky while doing this interesting laugh/grimace thing for a bit. My friend came over to see if I was okay and said didnt you hear us telling you to bail out? I believe the answer was pretty obvious but I answered the question anyway; I heard something but I couldnt make it out. I turned to my inner child and thought; are you happy now?
Overall the whole thing was exciting and funny and Ive lived to crash another day but I know Monique would not have been happy I forgot to turn.
VIEW 3 of 3 COMMENTS
sonja:
damn id be the first to die, cause obviously i wouldve to sit in the front...id fly hiiiiigh haha
sonja:
i know,right? you know later on that guy actually got 10,000 dollars for his spider........