I've Been To The Mountaintop
...and, just below it, I found this gaping hole in the earth:
This is a picture I took last Thursday of Corbet's Couloir, the jumping into of which was my intended goal in last week's trip to Jackson Hole for the Steep and Deep Camp. I did not accomplish my goal. I did almost pee my pants. (This was the first full, verbal, intentional "oh sh*t" that I had uttered in quite a while. And it was followed by several more of the same).
Those "CLOSED" signs on the poles you see to the upper left are about four feet tall; thus, the wall of snow that one would have to leap down would be at least 20' high, and the slope that one would be landing on would be about 50 degrees. If one could slow down without falling, before hitting one of the cliffs, then one would be having a good day; if one fell, one would slide about 500 feet, and one would probably be stopped in such a slide by something extremely hard and unforgiving - or possibly one would go off of another cliff, and then they might put up a prayer flag for one (if the locals knew one's name and cared enough).
This is all stipulating that the landing is as seen above - firm-packed snow. If the snow were deep enough, one could land pretty much any way one wanted, and then one could giggle into one's cell phone "Hey - I just skiied Corbet's!" But one would not really have SKIIED Corbet's, now, would one?
Almost a year ago, I decided that I was ready to make a run at Corbet's.
I had wanted to do so since at least 2005, as a real idea; I had dreamed about it as a fantasy since the early 90s, when I started skiing.
What happened to me last year was, after years of knowing - accepting, and admitting - that I wasn't really good at anything, I decided (as a result of skiing Taos and Crested Butte during spring break) that maybe - just maybe - I was really a good skier.
Within just a few hours of starting Steep and Deep Camp, I found out that I was originally correct - I am still mediocre at pretty much everything, and the idea that I was a good skier was unfounded (I now realize that, while skiing Upper Stauff at Taos, that if I had fallen on that hard snow when making my landing, I would have bashed my stupid helmet (and possibly skull) on those rocks just beneath).
At the camp, I was in Grant's Group -
The cheerful, patient saint with the Ski School logo on his parka is Grant; standing to his right is Jeff, the Scot who was just as up-and-down emotionally as I was during this ordeal, and then there's Yeonah, a nice Korean from New Jersey who seemed absolutely unflappable, and then your's truly who had by the time this picture was taken rebounded somewhat from the shock of finding out that, no, I'm not a good skier, now shuddupabbouddit.
(To give them their due, my groupmates were very supportive; however, they were not used to the hard-headed honesty folks like me have to stay rooted in in order to stay alive. I've been to the gym and heard "Hey, you are looking good!" often enough to know when people are being honest, and when they are being supportive enough to be willing to bend the honesty just a little bit).
I have been to the Mountaintop, and snuck back down w/my tail between my legs.
However, I sorta expect to go back up to the Mountaintop next year.....
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