The helicopter blades were making a noise so loud you could barely think to yourself. I turned and looked at Arthur. He seemed to be trying to tell me something but the helicopter was making so much noise I couldn’t hear him what so ever. I just nodded and he smiled. He then got out a sticky note and a pen and wrote, “You can’t hear me can you?.” on it. I then replied by writing “no” on the piece of paper. He then sort of acted out that the helicopter would be landing by pointing to it then sort of mouthing helicopter while pointing to one hand and then sort of moving it slowly to the ground. I then nodded actually understanding this time. As the helicopter hit the ground the noise stopped. Just a second ago the helicopter was making a lot of noise but up here on this mountain it was a quiet as a graveyard. As we got our skis and poles off the wall that they had been sitting on I took a 360 degree look around. We were on the highest peak around. Nothing but snow, trees, rocks and mountains as far as the eye could see. As Jonathan and Arthur got out of the helicopter they must have seen me smiling because Jonathan said, “Pretty amazing isn’t it?” I didn’t even need to reply just the look on my face gave it all away that this was heaven. As we clipped into our skis we discussed which way we would go. We also put our backpacks on that had, water so we didn’t dehydrate because when you are at the elevation we were at you are always losing water, we also had some food incase we got hungry even though we had just ate before we went on the three hour helicopter ride, the last two things but they could be the most important things were a walkie-talkie to call for the helicopter and communicate with each other in case we got lost and a flare gun. The flare gun is kind of self explanatory right? As we got everything on I looked down. Nothing but three feet of powder snow down the whole mountain. Jonathan and I were going to ride down first and ski down halfway then there was some rocks that had some snow in front of them, we would jump off that and (hopefully) land and then wait for Arthur who will be filming the whole thing from behind us. As I pulled down my goggles I looked at Jonathan who was just making sure he knew the path he then looked at me, then he nodded and hopped of the mini cornice that he was on and I followed.
The thrill of going that fast on skis is just amazing. You aren’t really able to go that fast down a resort because there are people and people might call you ‘out of control’ or ‘reckless and dangerous to other people’. I wasn’t a dangerous skier if I was skiing on a mountain I was probably the best person there. As me and Jonathan skied down he hit the jump, just kind of spun around once and landed in the powder. As I went of I did sort of a side flip kind of thing. As I rotated I knew as soon as I did I wasn’t going to land it. As I fell into the snow I rolled a few times but stopped. I checked myself for any broken bones, none. The powder had been so deep I had only a few bruises to show for it. Jonathan who hadn’t skied with me that much had a look of worry on his face like I wouldn’t be able to ski the rest of the day. As Arthur came down he was laughing his head off. He smiled and as soon as Jonathan saw that he knew I was okay. Arthur came over to me and showed me the footage of me crashing. As I saw it the crash actually looked kind of bad like I could have really hurt myself but I was fine. Jonathan still had sort of a look of worry on his face like he wasn’t sure if i was just faking it or if I was really okay. As I got up and shook all the snow off of me that had gotten on me which was a lot I hopped out of the massive hole I had created and asked, “Okay where to now?” With that said Jonathan just sort of had a laugh of relief like okay now I know this guy is okay.
As we got farther down the mountain there were some more funny crashes like when we were going off a jump Jonathan tried to do a backflip but when he came into land his ski tips stuck into the snow so he clipped out and was just standing there with his skis in the snow behind him. But the best part about going farther down the mountain was that we had made it through to the tree line and skiing through the trees at a high speed through powder is probably the best skiing. As we came out of the trees there was a big opening and that was where we stopped to talk about our next route, get some water and talk about the footage that Arthur had taken. As I was getting water Arthur and Jonathan were saying that we would be going out in the open this time because the tree footage didn’t have very good lighting. And just as they turned to tell me a big gust of wind came and all I heard was, “He We are gonna Go through..”
And that was all so I presumed that we would be going through trees because I though that the last word was trees. So as Jonathan went I thought that he was going to cut into the trees, so I just went right through the trees. I guess Arthur must have thought that I was going to hop out and come out into the open. As I skied through the trees I started to wonder where they were and why I didn’t see them. As time went on I went out of the trees to the left when the open area was on the right and they were no where to be seen. And as soon as I got out of the trees the wind started to pick up and clouds came overhead and it started to snow. Just like that the visibility had gone from Perfect to Can’t see ten feet in front of you as I skied on I thought that we would eventually meet up but I couldn’t see in front of me so I hit this ten foot drop at a high speed and completely ate it. Both my skis came of and I landed hard on my back crushing some contents in my backpack. As I checked to make sure everything in the backpack was okay I noticed that there was some metal bits in the backpack. I started to worry. The only thing that they could have come from was the walkie-talkie. As I rummaged through moving some oranges and trail mix our of the way I saw the shattered remains of what had been my walkie-talkie. Now I was lost and without my friends and had no contact with anybody. As I looked around I figured that if I ski down farther I will just meet up with them at the bottom of the mountain. I started skiing down but as I continued I started to think that maybe I wasn’t going the right way.
* * *
Arthur and I stop. We look around for Jay but we can’t see him. “Where do you think he went?” I ask Arthur. “Not sure” he replies. As I fish for my walkie-talkie out of my backpack Arthur starts calling for him. As I find my walkie-talkie I turn it to the third channel which was the one we decided we were going to use earlier. “Jay, Jay do you read me? Where are you?” As I speak into the walkie-talkie a chill goes down my spine. Jay could be anywhere on the mountain. As I turn to Arthur a look of grim comes across his face, I can tell he must have though the same thing as I did because I’m sure I’m making the same face. As I call into the walkie-talkie a few more times I decide it is useless. Either his walkie-talkie is broken or he just isn’t responding. As we wait and wait and wait we realize that Jay isn’t playing a trick but that he is with out a doubt lost somewhere on this mountain. As I think about this Arthur asks, “Should we call in for the helicopter?” “No” I reply having to speak louder because the wind is picking up and it is snowing. “There is no where to land and the helicopter can’t fly in these conditions!” I then take a look around feeling worse and worse about the situation each second.
* * *
I keep on skiing but start to realize the situation is hopeless there is now way that they are going to find me. For all I know they could be on a different mountain right now. I also conclude that it is to dangerous to continue in these conditions. As I take my skis off and take my backpack off I look around. Nothing but snow and trees. I start to try and pack snow together to make some sort of igloo that I can at least stay in for the night. As I started to pack snow together I started to think about how long I could be lost out here. I started thinking about it more and more. The more I thought about it the more scared I started to feel. I pushed it away. Right now I’m pretty much just trying to not freeze to death so I gotta stop worrying about emotion I thought. And with that I started to make my igloo. It took only about two hours but it was done. It wasn’t very big but it fit me well enough so that I could sleep in it. I had an extra sort of jacket in my backpack so I used that as a blanket and used my backpack as a pillow. I knew it wasn’t the most comfortable thing but it would have to do. As I started to drift off I started to think about what I was going to have to do tomorrow. I was so tired I could barely think. I decided I would worry about tomorrow, tomorrow. Off of that note I closed my eyes and was off to dream land.
I wake up the next morning to a windless snow wonderland. Unfortunately this wonderland could also be my grave. As I get out of the igloo I unbury my skis and start to eat some of the extra food and drink my water. I start to think about what I should do. I then think that I could just walk back up the mountain to where we were and just ski the other way. I start to get really excited like I should have come up with that earlier. I then start to pack up camp but as I do I remember that there was the mini cliff that I feel off and there is no way I could get up it with my skis and my ski boots. I then sigh and take my backpack off and sit in the snow. I look up at the sky. Even though there is no wind it is still cloudy, grey and snowing. I figure since that there is no more wind and the visibility isn’t terrible that I will ski down some of the mountain just so that I could end up at the bottom. As I start to clip in I hear something. At first it sounds like the wind, then almost like a helicopter. As I start yelling at the helicopter the sound gets louder and I know now that it is not a helicopter. I turn and coming down the hill is a huge avalanche. As I soon as I see it I start to ski down. Knowing that I won’t probably be able to out run it I have to find a place to steer out. But the next turn I make I find my self in a sort of gully. There are rocks on both sides of me and behind me a lot of snow, I figure the best way to go is down. I try to go as fast as I can but out skiing an avalanche isn’t really the easiest thing to do. After a minute or so I start to feel snow catching the back of my skis which means that the avalanche is about two feet behind me. I don’t bother to look because if I do I know that it will slow me down and right now I can’t really slow down. As I ski I see something, something that you could miss if you blinked and blended in with the snow. It was a piece of ice just big enough to make you fall. To bad I didn’t see it sooner. As I skied I hit a piece of ice, fell and got buried in about five feet of snow.
I open my eyes, white, white all around me. I try to move around. Fortunately the snow hasn’t settled or I would be a dead man. I try to get up but I’m at the bottom of it all. It was like the feeling you would get if you were under about five guys in football when they all tackle the running back. I kept trying to get out because I could feel the snow hardening. I reached up and put my skis on top because they had clipped out and pulled myself up. As my head got out of the snow I took the biggest breath. I have never been more thankful to breath air (other than to live). I looked around and there was some pretty nice powder every where. What was nice was that this filled the gully up more so I was able to climb out of it and get into some snow where I could actually clip in. As I got out I looked around and saw where the avalanche had come from. It had come from a massive slap of snow that was three feet deep but then got bigger from then on. As I looked at the sky I saw some pretty threatening skies that were coming so I thought that I should get down the mountain as fast as possibly and get to a spot where an avalanche won’t come and if there is a helicopter that it can see me. I clipped in and pushed off with my poles and started skiing hoping that some miracle could save me.
* * *
As we got down to the the point where the helicopter was supposed to meet us I felt terrible that we had lost Jay. Arthur hadn’t taken any video the whole way down so that we could go faster. As we got into the helicopter the pilot asked, “Hey, where was that other guy that was with you?” “Doesn’t matter, lets just get to the nearest town as fast as possible. As he took off I had it all planned out on what I was going to do: When we got into the town I would go to the nearest fire station and tell them that one of our friends had gotten lost. Then we would fly up in two helicopters and search the whole mountain looking for him. We would find him he would laugh about it the end, everyone lives happily every after. Okay the last part maybe not but we had to try. The closest town was only a thirty minute helicopter ride and as soon as we got there I knew this wasn’t going to work. The town was maybe a village some homes didn’t even have electricity. But fortunately there was something that you could have called a fire station and we ran in there. “Hey we lost our friend on the mountain, we need to get some helicopters looking for him.” I said. “We would but as you see here we has no helicopter. There is a close by town that we could telephone that has to helicopters for there resort we could see if they could bring them.” He said. “Whatever works just make sure you do it fast.” I asked. He nodded and got too the phone and started calling. I looked at Arthur he looked worried but he seemed like he knew the plan was going to work and that we would find Jay. I just hoped that all this work that we were doing would pay off and we would find Jay. The man got off the phone and called for us, “Okay the other place says that they will be here soon but is it really important that two helicopters come?” He asked. “Yes, we have to find this guy.” I replied. He shrugged like it didn’t really matter to him because they weren’t his helicopters. As we stepped outside waiting for the helicopters I think those were the longest few minutes of my life. It seemed like everything was going in slow-motion and that our chances of finding Jay was slipping away. And right when I was about to lose it I turned around and heard the sound a helicopters. They both landed and called for us. As we got into them the wind started to pick-up. “Arthur you go in this helicopter and I’ll go in the other one.” I told him. “No way man I’m sticking with you.” he replied. It didn’t matter to me so I went over to talk to the pilot of the other helicopter. I told him what he was wearing and where they should search. After a few minutes we took off. The pilots looked concerned because of the weather but I could have cared less we needed to find Jay.
* * *
The visibility was getting worse and worse for every foot I moved on my skis. It seemed like mother nature was telling me to stay where I was. So I popped off my skis and started to make my little igloo. And just as I stopped skiing the snow seemed to come down so hard I thought that the ice pellets that were hitting my face would make imprints on my face. Even though it was only noon I made my igloo and laid down in it just to rest. As I put my head into the igloo I was thinking, maybe I’ll just lay down in the igloo and just relax for a while but as soon I put my head onto my backpack pillow I was out. I was so exhausted from the things that had gone on. The noise that woke me up was the sound of another avalanche. As soon as I heard the noise I got out of my igloo and looked up hill. Unfortunately I couldn’t even tell where the mountain ended and the sky began so I just prepared my self to get hit with a shit load of snow. But as I waited the noise changed this time it went from avalanche to helicopter not the other way around like last time. And this time I was positive that this was a helicopter. The only problem was that they couldn’t see me and I couldn’t see them. Then I thought of the idea of using my flare gun to signal where I was. As I scrounged through my backpack I found it and loaded a flare and shot it into the air. The next noise I didn’t expect to hear. The sound of something really big falling out of the sky. Then all out of no where the helicopter came down and crashed about a hundred feet from where my mini igloo was. As I went over to see the wreckage, not one of the passengers or pilots had survived. The flare that I shot must have hit them and blinded the pilots who then crash landed into the rocks and killed the passengers. I couldn’t believe it, the chance that I get to be rescued I ruin it by hitting the helicopter with a flare. The only good thing was that when I went over to see the wreckage I looked at all of the people on the helicopter and neither of them looked like a bloody version of Jonathan or Arthur. That was probably the only good thing that had happened since I had gotten lost. I sighed, and yelled up to the sky, “ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO THROUGH AT ME?!” WIth that I climbed into my igloo and slept like a dead man.
When I woke up I was covered in snow. Like my igloo had collapsed onto me and snow was inside my jacket and into my clothes. I got up and found myself in knee deep snow. I tried to get all of the snow out of my clothes but the attempt was useless in trying to get it out I just ended up having snow blown into my jacket which was ten times worse. So I just laid in the snow trying to stay warm. Then all of a sudden the loudest noise I have ever heard, “BOOOOMM!!” Came out of no where. First I got up as fast as I could. The second thing I did was check my pants to make sure I didn’t just crap myself. The last thing I did was go and investigate what the noise came from. At first I thought that it was the Ski Patrol guys blasting the cannons to cause the avalanches but then I remembered that I wasn’t on a resort mountain I was just on some random mountain. I then went over to the helicopter to see it even more destroyed. Then the idea that maybe the gas had leaked into something that lit it then creating the biggest noise that I had ever heard. I then walked back over to where my igloo had been, sat down not even bothering to attempt and re-build it or even care if the noise caused any avalanches just sat down and let the cold cover me like a blanket. But not a nice blanket, a blanket of ice.
* * *
“Hey did any of you guys hear that noise?” I asked the people sitting next to me. They turned and replied, “Yea it sounded almost like some sort of explosion where the other helicopter was supposed to be. He than spoke into this little thing that must have told the pilot something and said, “Ehh radio the other chopper to make sure everything is OK.” He gave us the thumbs up and then spoke into his radio, “This is Eagle scout 1, do you read me Eagle scout two? Do you read?” he then turned us saying, “Weird they didn’t reply should we go check in there area?” “Might as well.” I told him. He then steered the helicopter over to where the noise came from.
* * *
As I lay in the snow, snow building up on me and freezing to death I heard that noise again. The noise of a avalanche. I didn’t care. At least it would turn me into an ice cube faster so that I wouldn’t be in this frozen wasteland anymore. I just braced myself to get covered in snow. Then the same thing happened as before the noise went from a low rumble to the noise of helicopter blades. Then the shadow of the helicopter came into view. It must have heard the noise and came over to see what it was. I tried to call for them but my voice was to weak, my lungs felt like they would freeze I took another breath of that cold air. I put my arm up and waved it around a little. I guess Arthur must have seen it because he came jogging over to see what it was as the others looked at the helicopter wreck. As he got closer his blank expression turned into a smile almost. He then sprinted over to me and yelled over the the paramedics and Jonathan who came over immediately. The paramedics picked me up and brought me into the helicopter and put a blanket on me and it was the warmest I had ben in 48 hours. Then Arthur asked, “He want to listen to the plan next time?” He smiled, I smiled back. Then he hugged me saying, “Hey if you want to go on an adventure, tell me and I’ll video tape it.” And as he put me down I fell asleep.
The next time I woke up I was in a hospital. There wasn’t that much equipment around me for medical use but Arthur was video taping me saying, “And here you see the village idiot who decides to go off on his own and not tell anybody.” Then he turns the camera to Jonathan who waves and then he turns of the camera. I smile and shake my head. He and Jonathan leave the room because the nurse asked them. She comes in and asks, “How are you feeling?” “Good enough to ski later today.” I reply. She laughs like, ‘Yea if you doing that you be trippin homes’. Then she gives me some pills to take that will get my body back from being an ice cube. I take them with and then sit back and chuckle to myself thinking that maybe I should go skiing tomorrow. Then I fall asleep thinking maybe Jonathan and I should ditch Arthur next time.
