Skiing was amazingly fun at Winter Park. The sun was shining brightly as I started skiing down from the peak of Mary Jane, a summit in the park.

We were supposed to take a blue trail down to go on the highest, high-speed, six-chair lift that had just opened two weeks ago.

A blue trail was a trail that had a medium or intermediate hardness. I could easily ski blue trails, but surrounding it were black routes, and I didn’t want to take those.

Well, the blue trail was all the way the way to the right, and there were more black trails covering the area on the left. In total, about five ways to get down, but only one I wanted to go down.

I started to ski down but I actually accidentally went too low.

“Higher!” my dad cried, and he joined me. But no avail. I slid into the sparse forest, in an vain attempt to get to the trail.

“I am going to try and get to the trail,” I said, and went deeper into the forest. Although there weren’t many trees, we couldn’t see a single trail.

I started skiing more, and the trees got slightly denser. Above me, it was more sparse, but down below, a vast area of trees.

My dad stopped me.

“This is very dangerous. Do you realize? We are not near any trail at all. Very dangerous.”

I skied forward some more, but I halted at my dad’s shout. He took off his skis and grabbed mine.

“We’re walking up.”

Holding the poles (they are very heavy [sarcasm intended], aren’t they), I started walking upwards.

One foot sunk into the ground deeply. I pulled it out and took another step upward.

Walk. Yank (foot out from snow). Walk. Yank. Step. Yank. Walk. Yank.

My dad started walking on his knees, and I imitated him.

Pretty soon I saw an expanse of pressed snow. Beyond the path, I could see the sign for the blue path.

Amazing.

Twenty minutes later, I was on America’s first high-speed six-person lift. At the top, the mountain looked like it was balding. Not a tree was in sight.

Beautiful.