I accidentally went down the “expert” skiing lane, when I was 10 years old in Japan.
Tags: Skiing, Japan, Storytelling, Childhood Memories, Adventure

I could hear ‘Last Christmas’ faintly playing in the distance of the ski resort as my uncle, cousin and I skied through the deep green trees, all which reminded my 10 year old self of the Christmas tree in my front living room. The paths were narrow and there were sharp turns every 50 m. The snow had a soft buttery/fluffy consistency unlike the fake snow that’s made back home in the desert that is Australia. (btw I’m half Japanese and I visit my Japanese family once a year) My cousin, Ayano, was suddenly scared and wasn’t able to move any further so my uncle went to go and help her and told me to just keep skiing. Little did I know that my uncle only wanted me to ski 50 m down one corner and not go all the way down myself.

Growing up I've always been adventurous, competitive, curious, I want to say brave but it’s probably more reckless. You know, that kid that climbs to the top of every playground or tree? Yeah that was me. So, when my uncle told me to go by myself, a small part of 10 year old Sarah probably wanted to prove to the rest of the family that she could ski by herself.

I quickly learnt that I couldn’t do everything on my own, despite wanting to believe so, when I was presented with two paths and a sign I couldn’t fully read. The sign was written in Japanese with one side painted green and the other side in red. Because I attended a Japanese school every Saturday I was able to read the part that said “course” but the difficult kanji that was placed before “course” I was not able to fully read. So I wasn’t sure which wrote “beginners course”, “intermediate course” or “expert course.” Of course, instead of waiting for my uncle to hedge my bets I decide that i’d rather take the 50% chance with either the red side or the green side.

In primary we’d have these posters that would have green, yellow, red. Green being good and red being bad. Similarly when we got a green card it was a good thing but when we got a red card it was a warning. Not to mention that even the traffic lights have green and red, green being go and red being stop. Anyways, I think you see where i’m going with this. I had always associated green with good and go, so I veered off to the left where the green side pointed towards and skied for about 10 m until I was out in the open. I wasn’t in the narrow path surrounded by cozy Christmas trees anymore, I was at the top of what felt like a cliff. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go back into the forest section because gravity was laughing at me.

I literally couldn’t see below. I couldn’t see the ski lifts, the resort, people, anything. I couldn’t see down. At this point I was pretty much hugging the mountain side, one ski had clipped off was like 4 m away from me and my left ski pole was buried in snow with only the hand strap peeping through. My pride, adventurousness, curiosity or whatever had possessed me to decide to ski on my own was out the window. I just wanted to be on horizontal ground.

10 minutes passes, I’m still on the mountain side, now crying underneath my foggy green ski goggles thinking of the worst things that could happen to me. My imagination was going hay wire as I ran through what I thought would be my potential outcomes. *I could get eaten by an animal* *I could starve* *I might become frozen in time* My dad had also told me a story about a guy who skied into a tree and died, prior to this day, so that definitely didn’t help my mindset.

Another 10 minutes pass and I’m trying to grab my other ski without sliding down, but my feet push more snow down causing my ski to slide further away.

I was suddenly tapped on the back. I turned around to see this man in his forties or fifties with rays of sunlight radiating from behind him. Okay yeah i’m exaggerating, but he seemed like an angel to me in that moment. He asked me if I was okay and got my left ski. He did the “cool turn thingo” where you swiftly turn back into a halt, so I knew I could trust him. He helped me put my ski back on which took quite a while, because there was so much snow stuck in the clips of my shoe from all the mountain hugging I had been doing.

He asked me if I was okay and I miserably replied with “I can’t ski.” Apparently 10 year old Sarah decided that she couldn’t ski at all after one bad incident, very resilient of me I know.

I finally got my skis back on, recovered my buried ski pole and was somewhat standing upright. He told me to ski down in a zig zag motion since it was steep. I kept losing control and speeding into the thick thigh high snow on the sides where no one skied, so he had to keep fishing me out like some cat that just kept leaping back into the water.

Eventually I got through the steepest parts of the course thanks to this angelic stranger and was able to ski down to the main resort. He skied behind me until I was at the bottom and the last thing he said to me was “see, you can do it.” It crazy how it’s been 7 years since this happened, I never saw his face beneath his ski mask and goggles, and yet I still remember him so clearly.

I was met with a mixture of anger, relief and worry when I went back to my family. I didn’t show it, but I was also relieved that I had made it back, also because I had managed to make it back down without being eaten by an animal or freezing to death.

You’d think that this experience would’ve taught me to be a little more cautious and a little less adventurous but I don’t think too much has changed to be honest. 17 year old Sarah is now able to ski down the expert course, so hopefully someday she’ll be able to angelically save an adventurous and miserable child too.