I am loving snowboarding!

What a day! We got a skiff of new snow and the sun was out today. I was pushing myself a bit harder than usual and the legs were feeling good. Just before noon, before I had to head out for a lunch meeting I thought I'd try a less traveled route in search of remaining fresh snow.  The reason it's less traveled is because at the bottom of the first initial slope the terrain flattens out and gets thickly wooded, which means you're usually walking it. I have found that by gaining enough speed one can rip through the flats and into the cliffs beyond. I take a different route than usual to get there but as I get to the bottom of the initial slope I see the dense trees, letting me know that I'm about to reach the flats. I pick a narrow opening into the trees and blast through it as fast as possible. Before dropping a cliff I usually pause for a moment to pick my line and make a mental note of any obstacles. On this particular occasion I didn't have the luxury because I had unwittingly thrown myself off the cliff at top speed blind, thinking that I was approaching the flats. Immediately I noticed the tree at 12 o'clock. I was still in the air, flying towards it. Immediately my adrenaline is firing. As a younger man I might have panicked, parachuted open and thrown myself into an uncontrolled wipeout. What happened next went like this:

 

Step one. Surrender.

 

Accept immediately the fact that I'm flying towards a tree at fatal speed. My feet are not on the ground so in that moment I had no control. Get under control.

 

Step two. Commit.

 

Counterintuitively tuck myself downhill towards the tree. Land with the board under me pointed straight downhill. Crouch deep.

 

Step three. Evade.

 

Shift my weight forward on to my toe side edge. Build the turn patiently and surely, miss the tree by a couple of feet. 

 

In no way was I out of the woods, literally or figuratively. I can begin to check my speed by carving around the densely packed trees on the very steep slope. Think Luke Skywalker on the speeder in Return of the Jedi. Eventually I got under control and found myself getting back on the chairlift like nothing happened. Nothing like a test to remind you of what you're made of.