I’ve only broken one bone in my whole life. I had never had stitches until a few weeks ago. I’ve never had surgery or a cast. Even when I broke my heel I only had crutches for a week and a boot for a few months. When I fell and cut my leg open to the bone I stayed surprisingly calm. It had been a chill day of snowboarding through powder. I didn’t even realize it was cut at first. As soon as I noticed I told my brother’s friend to get ski patrol and called my mom. I told her I was going to the hospital and I needed stitches. Once the ski patrol got there they wrapped my leg. I almost passed out when I first saw it but I didn’t cry. I tried to stay rational because I knew I had to be an adult. The only time I cried was after I had been waiting for 2 hours to get stitches and they started to numb my leg with the needle. It didn’t hurt that bad, it was mostly just scary.
The year-ending and New Year’s holidays are always very busy. Three weeks fly by and I wish I had one more week off. I saw my family and many friends during my vacation. I feel a sense of relief when I go back to my home country. Eating delicious food, going shopping, and sleeping in my own bed all make me happy. At the beginning of this year, I participated in my old school’s New Year’s kickoff party, and it was a great time to see friends I haven’t seen in a year and teachers I haven’t seen in a long time. The most fun thing I did during this vacation was going skiing with my family. My brother and I went snowboarding and my sister, dad and mom went skiing. I hadn’t skied since the 6th grade, about 6 years. At first I was very worried if I could ski well, but when I finished the first run, the old feeling came back. I had a few sore muscles, but more than that, I was able to spend time with my whole family, and everything was fun and we had good times. Next time I see my family, I want to go on another trip to a different place. I have wonderful memories of this vacation to see not only my family but also a lot of friends. When I was in the second year of junior high school, I had a takoyaki (octopus dumpling) party with five of my best friends from the same class. I also met friends from my current school when I went to my grandmother’s house. It was such a busy vacation that no matter how much time I had, it was never enough. I am already looking forward to going back to my home country and seeing my family again.
Snowflake after snowflake is tumbling down on my shoulders, my gloves, my helmet, down my neck where it slowly melts and stains my skin pink. The air in my lungs is so much warmer than the air around me, but I can’t see my breath within all the white and grey falling through the space here.
Photo Credit: Mason Mashon Photo
I can’t see my skis, the snow is now all the way up to my knees. I try and dig a hole down my legs to tighten my boots one more time. I look around, look up to my siblings that are beside me, the only spots of color within my vision. One more time, my brother throws a snowball at me. I laugh and get a little mad internally, but now is not the time. Now is the time to be happy.
We all get out the handles for our ABS avalanche backpacks and connect them to the left shoulder strap. Our guide looks at us, and says “Geht schon!”, meaning “Okay, let’s go!”. We all push our poles into the snow in front of us and hop out of the deep powder as if it was nothing.
Here it goes.
The first second is nothing but exhilarating. I feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins as I float down the mountain, constantly fighting the curves and dips in the snow in order to not face plant. Stay away from the trees, stay away from the edge, don’t cross here, you might set off an avalanche. Just go, you love this.
The powder is fresh; we are the only ones here. This was definitely worth the long hike.
I am cold, but I can feel myself starting to sweat. My boots are too loose, don’t lose focus or you’ll twist your ankle. The snow is melting on my mask; the cold air is freezing it into solid ice. My braid is now white and covered in snow crystals. My breath is now in sync with my dashes, it’s cold and hard through my mouth and it hurts to breathe in; my nose is nearly closed up with ice. Just keep going. You don’t get to do this every day.
There is a steep part ahead. Look at your guide, your siblings, follow their lead. They’re better than you. It’s okay, you’re still doing it. The path is narrow, don’t hit the trees, watch out for the branches, the snow on top of them. Focus, use your legs, stay strong. We haven’t stopped this entire time and my feet and thighs are hurting. It’s good. Look ahead, there’s a lip. Jump, try not to fall, think of how hard it would be to get back up. You don’t want to make everyone else stop for you.
There it is, the bottom of the hill. From now on, it’s flat. There are some bumps, we try and jump and push each other over, race each other, spin around and go backwards. We did it.
We have to cross a stream; there’s a fallen tree trunk to walk on. The stomped-down snow on it makes it slippery and, with tired knees, we all make our way across. Now, all that’s left is a long way back to the town, an hour of walking and pushing through the trees in the valley. I’m really getting hot now; I have to open my jacket, unzip the sides of my pants, but it’s good. I feel good.
We get back to the ski lift and catch one of the last rides. Looking out through the slowly darkening alps around me, I see the mountain we had hiked up this morning in the distance. I feel tired, I feel hungry and sore, but the feeling of victory and accomplishment you get when you finally get to take off your heavy boots and cold, wet gloves makes up for everything that has been aching for the past few hours.
You know that feeling when you’ve been going strong, getting everything done in time, and doing a bang-up job of it, and then all of a sudden, BAM, you’re sick, exhausted, run down, and ready for a break?
Yeah, well that happened to me about two days ago.
I’ve been doing pretty well in school, and I’ve actually been ahead of my work for once, which never happens. But all of a sudden I got really run down, and now I can not wait for break. Thankfully, there’s only one more day.
And even more exciting, I’m not going home to Aspen, Colorado, but to Santa Monica, which let me tell you, is a heck of a lot warmer right now. My plans for break aren’t anything crazy, but my dad is driving out with my dog, who is a total sweetheart and who I can’t wait to see.
I can’t wait to see my dad either of course.
I plan on relaxing as much as I can, and eating a ton of food. And then the week after break, I’m going on the Honors Ski Trip. The ski trip is led by the headmaster, and we spend a week in Yosemite cross-country skiing and hiking. It’s a blast, and turns my one week vacation into two. By the time I’m back in school, I’ll be ready to kick my schoolwork’s butt for the next five weeks, before I break down again right before spring break.
Break is quickly approaching, and on Friday the campus will begin to empty out. Students will go home, or to friends and family, for the week long winter break. And then, on Sunday, they will return.
However, there are the lucky few that leave the morning after boarding students return to campus. They will load bags and bodies into the school vans in order to make the trek up to Yosemite. These students get an extra week of break on Honors Ski Trip.
The Honors Ski Trip is a week long excursion with the headmaster and a couple other teachers, and a handful of students who put in the work to keep their academic and effort grades up to standard.
Last year I went on the trip and I had an amazing time. In the mornings we would cook obscene amounts of bacon before loading into the vans and driving to the nordic track.
Last week, I had one of the best weeks I’ve had so far this year. I took a trip with 18 of my classmates and close friends along with 4 faculty members to Yosemite for the Honors Ski Trip.
Now, I’ve been to Yosemite before when I was younger and I do remember parts of it. But it was so different than I had remembered and so amazing. It was a completely different experience and a really great one at that.
Day #1:
After arriving the night before when there was hardly any snow, we woke up unsure if there would be good skiing conditions. Nevertheless, we went up to Badger pass, rented our skis, and set off on our first cross country skiing journey. The skiing itself was extremely difficult for me, and I fell over at least every 3 minutes. It was so frustrating and I wasn’t really having the best time. about 20 or 30 minutes in, it started snowing lightly. It got colder, then began to snow harder and harder until I could hardly feel my hands or see very far ahead of me. We stopped for lunch at a campground, which was about 3 miles from where we started, and took a break in the cold snow storm for about 20 minutes. Then, we headed back the way we came to make a 6 mile trip. It wasn’t that far, really, but it seemed like it to be because I was terrible at the skiing, but being surrounded by beautiful scenery definitely enhanced the experience.
Day #2:
It wasn’t as hard for me the 2nd day because I had gotten used to the hang of the skiing, but I was still really slow. We went the same way as we did the 1st day, but part way through, we cut off the main path and went a few miles out on a side trail. It was so beautiful, with many less people, and it was sunny and warm (well, compared to the first day). At our stopping spot, we went up a really steep hill onto a flat area where some of us (including myself) stopped and ate lunch as a small group continued on to another destination. We stayed at this spot for an hour or a little bit more, making snow forts, having a snowball fight, building a snowman, and sleeping in the snow with the warm sun beating down on us. It was a very peaceful and beautiful experience. When we got back and were loading up the vans, a group of us saw a coyote that was so close to us we could almost touch it. Its eyes were extremely greenish-yellow and vibrant, and he was so much more calm than I would expect.
Day #3:
This was by far my favorite day. We split into two groups, one that went on another ski trip and one that went on a hike by half dome and the huge waterfall. We walked a while through the trees until we spotted a beautiful bobcat that was only about 20 feet away from us. It wasn’t scared or nervous, and just went about doing whatever it wanted to. I had never seen one before and it was probably the best part of the day – it’s not very often people see bobcats roaming around, even in Yosemite. We took a very nice hike about 4 more miles out to a location called Mirror lake. It wasn’t a very full lake when we were there, it was a bit more dried up than I imagined, but it was still beautiful. We stopped and ate lunch here and did some rock-climbing, if you could call it that… it was more of a sad attempt.
At the end of the day, we went back to where the hike started and took an interesting journey into what are called the “spider caves”. It’s pitch black, cold, rocky, and the spaces to fit through are extremely small. We weren’t allowed to use lamps, so we were all helping the person behind us through. I only made it through the first half of the cave; I chickened out and found a way to get out. The rest of the group, however, crawled through more small spaces for about 20 minutes until they made it out at the other end.
Overall, I would say it was an extremely valuable experience. I saw so many things that I hadn’t ever seen before, and we had SO much fun in our cabins at night playing charades, twister, and cooking dinner together.
To be honest, I was extremely sad for this trip to end and I wish I could do it at least one more time. All I can say is, I’m thankful for the time I spent with those people and that I had the opportunity to experience these new things. It was truly great.
I’m sure that plenty of people will be blogging about this soon, but last week eighteen students, including five students from this blog, went on the honors ski trip.
We all packed up Monday morning and made the six hour drive to Yosemite in two school vans filled to the brim with snacks and camping equipment. I hadn’t been to the snow in five years, so needless to say I was ecstatic.
I had also never skied before. Here is where my actual blog starts.
OVS Journalism Blog 
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