Slide-For-Life In The Beartooths
I wasn’t rag-dolling anymore, but I was still sliding down the snowy slope at a high rate of speed. On my back. Headfirst. This was not how I had imagined this ski day would go. Nor would I have imagined how formative for my life path this experience would be.
Earlier that day, we had awoken in camp on a fine spring morning, driven into the Beartooths, and donned our ski gear. The five of us, four of them lifelong friends and practically born on skis, were eager to head down this committing line. I was the exception, of course, and felt like an outsider—suffering from imposter syndrome and wanting desperately to feel like I belonged. I had yet to learn that true belonging comes from the inside, not the outside.
My body trembled and a knot of dread filled my chest; in vain, I wished for an outhouse at the top as we geared up. I hadn’t skied much that year, had learned to ski as an adult, and the slope we were approaching was nearly vertical. “What am I doing here? Why am I doing this?” I quietly wondered.
Afterwards, I remember sitting squarely in victim mentality, wondering why my friends would let me do something like this at all (similar things had happened before). I wanted someone, anyone, to take responsibility for me and my decisions, so I didn’t have to. Since then, I’ve reclaimed my sense of autonomy and empowerment, vowing never to do this run again, or any run this steep. Not because I can’t—the skill is there, but my fear neutralizes the skill I possess, and then bad things happen. And it’s just not fun for me. It’s made me scrutinize the fine line between personal responsibility and what responsibility lies with the team have (hint: all of it, and very little, respectively… at least for non-guided adventures).
Back on the mountain, after successfully skiing the initial headwall, we made a traverse across the mountain and stood at the top of a narrow, very steep chute. I watched as they confidently dropped in, made barely any turns, and quickly disappeared. Knowing I was going to take much longer to ski the line and not wanting to hold anyone up behind me, I told the last person to go ahead; I would be fine. This was the second bad decision of the day.
I had gotten a few turns in, and then did my typical move when I’m feeling afraid: I “got in the backseat” on my skis. As my weight shifted backwards, the tails of my skis slipped out from under me in the corn snow as I leaned too far back, and that’s when I found myself tumbling head over heels, the perfect blue sky spinning in and out of my vision, contrasting with the white of the slope every 180 degrees.
Once the rag-dolling stopped a few seconds later and I was simply sliding (albeit headfirst on my back), I was glad to perceive that I was unharmed. When I glanced over my shoulder though, what I saw stopped time: I was sliding headfirst at a big fin of rock on the sidewall of the chute.
Faster than I could think, my nervous system took over and engaged an emergency life-saving procedure. As though I’d been an acrobat all my life, I flipped my legs over my head and, because one of my skis was still on, was able to stomp the landing like a gold-medal gymnast, stopping a mere three feet from the rock. I could almost reach out and touch it from where I stood.
After staring in disbelief at the rock, then down the slope, I sat down abruptly in the snow, shock taking over. I was quaking like a leaf on an aspen as the full realization that I had almost died hit home like a sledge hammer. Even now as I type, a slight tremble runs in my system as I imagine what would have happened if I’d hit that rock; that it likely would have been the end of life for me in my fragile meat-suit.
I gazed fearfully down the remainder of the run to where my friends were just arriving at the meeting spot about a half mile away—backs still to me, blissfully oblivious to my plight. I was alone, still shaking uncontrollably, and barely able to move out of fear, but alive.
I could see my friends starting to look for me, and someone pointed. It was rather comical, I thought, that all they knew was that I was sitting halfway down the chute in the snow, missing a ski, not moving, and talking to myself.
Because that’s what it took, you know, to get myself down. I was so shook up that I needed to talk myself through every precise movement calmly, and out loud. I was still in a very precarious position with the rapidly warming spring snow; another slide-for-life was a very real threat.
“Take one step down. You need a platform—stomp. Now, make a bigger platform, keep stomping. Steady... steady... put one hand down, take off your ski. Now we’ll climb up and retrieve your other ski. Step, kick. Another step, kick. Good job. Don’t grab your ski yet. Stomp out another platform,” and so on.
Skis finally on, I realized (oh, horror of horrors) that I was really going to have to ski the rest of the way down. I fought paralysis, my nervous system fully in freeze mode. Knowing this was the only way, I drew upon my deepest reserves of courage and talked myself through the process of pointing my tips back downslope, coaching myself to LEAN FORWARD, and go. Once I was actually moving, muscle memory took over, the angle of the pitch quickly decreased, and I rejoined my friends without further incident. They were understandably confused and still don’t fathom the gravity of what happened, I think, and how close to death I was, and therefore so shaken up.
Years later, taking a professional training to further my knowledge as an adventure trauma coach, I would learn that near-death experiences occur on a spectrum: anywhere from “seeing the light” at one extreme, to believing that death might be about to occur at the relatively less extreme end (but still really f-ing scary).
I would also learn that trauma isn’t just something that war veterans, natural disaster survivors, or assault survivors experience—there are “Big T” Traumas, and also “little t” traumas that most people think shouldn’t be affecting them, but are.
I learned that for trauma and PTSD-like symptoms to occur, the formula = a perceived threat + strong fear + helplessness.
I’ve experienced this formula numerous times; not only in this slide-for-life, but also during other ski falls, horseback riding falls, and scary whitewater swims in high water on the Gallatin River’s Mad Mile and the Gardiner run on the Yellowstone River. I learned that trauma (or “stress injury,” as it is beginning to be known in the adventure community) is cumulative; the stress of trauma adds up in a person’s nervous system until it becomes overwhelmed and they begin to exhibit symptoms. No wonder I now failed to find joy in skiing and boating, finding that high anxiety awaited me instead.
I learned that stress injury is an injury to the nervous system, and that since it is a physiological injury, talk therapy doesn’t typically heal it; it’s essential to see a practitioner who is trained to work with the nervous system if healing has been elusive.
I learned that because of how the nervous system is wired, humans feel threat if they are separated from their social group. Hello, FOMO! This explains why I put myself at such risk and overrode my body telling me “No.” I was in a double bind: I wanted to be with my friends, and I also didn’t want to ski this line. That time, for the last time, I chose the discomfort and risk of skiing in lieu of the discomfort of being left out.
Over the years, I’ve finally learned how to listen to the voice that says, “This isn’t for you...” because in not abandoning my friends and their chosen plans, I was abandoning myself instead. It’s been a hard-earned and necessary lesson to learn.
Accepting and respecting my own limitations as an adventurer—whether physical or mental—has been and continues to be a bittersweet journey. Honoring who I am and what I need to feel good in my own skin, as well as how to communicate that to others, has been a challenging route to learn—especially learning how to say, “No.” Of course I want to be able to do everything! And, everything just isn’t for me.