“The Legend” by Sean Michael
Drew stared up the sloping bowl to where he dropped in moments before, his eyes tracing the tracks in the fresh powder. He had been the first down the slightly concave hill, and now stood sideways, looking up to his friend above.
He shouted, "Come on man, snow's fine!" and with a laughing "Whoop!" jumped, pivoting his hips, and spinning his skis in midair. They caught the snow, parallel and straight down, and Drew took off. The fresh powder sprayed upward as he connected each turn, one after the next, smooth as butter.
Drew had started skiing several years earlier, rapidly becoming an expert. But even though he could navigate his way down the extreme terrain of a double-black diamond run, he knew he had plateaued. He would never be as good as his friend, Jack, who watched him descend from the lip of the cliff above.
Jack had been skiing since he was old enough to strap into boots and had been the one to convince Drew to enter into the sport, teaching him and pushing him to his current skill level. Jack gave out a "Whoop!" of his own in response and pushed off the cliff with a spin. His skis crossed behind his back as he executed a pristine 360-degree turn, grabbing the tail of his left ski with his right hand. In a flash, he corrected his stance and balance, leaning forward and landing in the soft snow fifteen feet below. The powder splashed upward as he shot out from the explosion of white and Jack began to draw his own fresh tracks beside his friend's.
They had left early and with little notice. The storm rolled in suddenly and took the meteorologists by surprise. They called it a bomb-cyclone, a kind of land-bound hurricane that could bring feet of precipitation in just hours. Drew’s phone rang at 10:00 PM and the two had agreed to meet up five hours later to make sure they were on the lift early and could lay down those coveted first tracks in the back bowls of Arapahoe Basin.
"Be careful…have fun," Hannah had said sleepily, before she kissed Drew goodbye as she lay in bed, barely awake. He'd replied that he would and that he loved her. Then he was off, packing into Jack's car just ten minutes after 3:00 AM.
"Just you wait," Jack had told Drew as they drove up the mountain switchbacks in the blizzard conditions, “There's nothing like it."
"Whatever you say man, let’s just get to the resort in one piece," Drew replied, clenching his fist as they fishtailed after a particularly tight bend.
The engine whined against the incline as Jack pressed the accelerator further downward, and continued, "Bro, you've never had a true powder day, this is it, man, it's indescribable."
The darkness began to break as they neared the top of the pass, and when the SUV crested around the final bend, the first light of the day illuminated the storm. Jesus, Drew thought, as the swirl of white caught the daylight, and he realized their visibility ended about thirty feet beyond the hood. As the car pressed onward, now down-hill, he thought that they should be arriving soon. They'd been driving slowly since they arrived at the pass, but it was already 5:30 AM.
The Legend, a local colloquium for the resort, towered over nearly every other resort in the country. At a peak elevation of thirteen-thousand feet, the smaller resort offered some of the highest elevation skiing in the country, as well as some of the best snow. He’d been to the peak before, but this storm felt different – it surrounded them, and for the first time in his life Drew felt claustrophobic. He turned to Jack and asked, "How much longer?"
"Just can't wait, can you?" Jack replied with a grin.
"Yeah, something like that," Drew said, peering into the storm and thinking the outside looked whiter now if that was even possible.
"The pull-off should be coming up any second now, keep an eye out for the overflow lot —"
Just as the words left Jack's throat, the sign for overflow parking materialized out of the noise just ten feet ahead to the right, and the car slowed and passed the turn.
"Damn, the visibility is worse than I thought," he said as he slowly pressed the brakes and brought the speed down to just ten miles per hour.
The bend ahead was very tricky, especially for those who were unfamiliar, but the two skiers knew it was coming, and they took it with ease. As they rounded the corner the old wooden sign appeared from the nothingness like the overflow lot before. It read, Arapahoe Basin, then below, The Legend, in cursive script.
Jack pulled into the main lot and the visibility seemed to increase slightly as they could now see the end of the lot just 50 yards away. Jack smiled as he saw that they were, indeed, the first people there. They pulled up to The Beach, and the lift came into view. These were the hardest spots to secure, and here they were — right on the snow, not even a minute walk to the lift, which Drew saw was running. He squinted. That couldn't be right, the resort didn't open for at least two hours, he thought as his eyes glanced down to the clock on the LCD panel on the Subaru’s dash. It read 5:55 AM.
"No fuckin' way," Jack almost yelled, as he, too, saw the running lift. Chair after empty chair came into view through the blur of the storm, each carrying a healthy pile of snow.
"I can't believe it, they turned them on early; come on we've got to get up there," Jack said in a higher pitch than his usual register, the excitement creeping into his voice.
"Why would they open a full two hours early?" Drew asked, as his friend turned in his seat and grabbed his ski jacket from the back seat.
"Who fuckin’ cares, dude? Let’s get up there!" Jack said, jacket already zipped, as he squirmed to pull his ski pants on while still upright in the driver’s seat.
He continued, "Come on man, this is once in a lifetime, even if they're just running it for maintenance, maybe we can convince them to let us up early. Let’s just go see if anybody's up there and —”
But he was cut off mid-sentence by the light above the ski-lift operator’s shack. It blinked on, followed by the light in the shack itself. Then, through the snow, a silhouetted figure materialized in the frosted window of the small structure, seemingly waving to the parked car. Jack and Drew looked at each other, hesitated, then tentatively waved back. "Whelp, that’s all the validation I need," Jack said grinning as he pulled his ski boots around from the back and strapped in. He looked to Drew and gave him a wide-eyed head tilt toward the back seat.
"Fine, let’s get it, I guess," said Drew.
As he began to gear up, Jack remotely opened trunk and a gust of frigid air swept the warmth from the vehicle. He opened the door and stepped out into the storm.
They'd made their way up to the main lift without seeing anybody. Their passes were out and ready to be scanned, but nobody stopped them. A chair approached, still covered in snow, and as it descended to sitting height, the chair came to a stop. They looked at the lift operator, still shrouded behind the opaque glass, then to each other. They shrugged, and with their gloved hands the two quickly brushed off the chair.
As soon as they sat down, they felt the pull of the lift as they were pushed forward, around, then up into the air. Drew looked back down at the shack and again saw the operator's silhouette as the figure looked upward out the big plate glass window at the two steadily ascending the peak. Just before the snowy noise overtook the building, Drew could have sworn he saw a smile crack across the darkened face, but then a moment later the person and the building were overtaken by the storm, and the two friends sat alone in the white void. Behind the two skiers, now far outside their visibility, the tall light which had been so inviting just moments before, flickered, then fell into darkness along with the rest of the shack.
They had taken a second, equally empty lift further up the mountain to access the back bowls beyond the summit. As the second lift approached the peak, they broke through the vertical limit of the storm. One second, they were engulfed in white; the next, they emerged and saw freshly illuminated blue skies as the warming rays of sunlight washed over them. They quickly made their way to the peak of the summit and peered over the back side of the resort. The storm must have just passed through this side, Drew thought, as the fluffy powder coated the entire landscape before them. The evergreens at the base of the run were only identified by the few specks of green that hadn't been coated. They passed through the gates that marked the extreme terrain, then traversed the bowl further to the right as the width of the pass began to narrow.
They slowed, as Jack yelled back, "Just pick a spot and drop in!"
Drew quickly chose his line and hockey stopped. The snow sprayed upward as the edges of his skis dug into the soft powder and he peered down the steep incline. After a moment’s hesitation, he took off.
The earlier oddities were far from Drew's mind as he barreled down the run weightlessly. He'd heard Jack's whoop after he kick-turned and began shredding down the remainder of the bowl. Jack was right, there is nothing like this, Drew thought as he gently pivoted his weight from one foot to the other, and began to arc in the opposite direction. He was flying — the snow beneath him so porous and airy he felt he could do anything with zero consequences. This was Drew’s first mistake. He eyed a small lip and adjusted his weight to focus on the jump and landing. He shot off the lip and landed softly, adrenaline surging through his veins.
Feeling invincible, he spotted another lip about thirty feet ahead. Again, he corrected and bent low, readying for the jump. As he crouched though, he saw the tips of his skis exit the powder and he felt himself start to skid on ice. Drew made to shift sideways, pushing the inside edge of the right ski and outside of the left into the snow to halt his forward momentum. But it was too late. He launched off the jump, this one far larger than the last, with his right leg now fully extended.
Don’t lock your knees, Jack had told him the first time Drew struggled to keep his balance on his crappy, thin racing skis.
He’d bought them on Craigslist, and everyone had laughed as he made his way to the lift for the first time. He wasn't embarrassed, but it was annoying being the subject ridicule.
Damn, haven't seen those skis since the 80's, the lift attendant had said, as Drew felt the seat lift him into the air for the first time.
Drew just rolled his eyes. He wasn't even sure if he'd like skiing, and he'd gotten the boots, skis, and poles for just fifty dollars, so he wasn't upset. He could always rent a pair or try to find a newer set if he ended up liking the sport, but he wasn't convinced.
If you lock your knees you can really hurt yourself, that’s rule number one, Jack continued, as he demonstrated, pumping his quads, and bouncing slightly on his skis, bending at the knee.
Drew hadn't been thinking of this as he tried desperately to slow himself, but the conversation flashed through his mind as he impacted with the hard ground, right leg still extended and locked in place. The most intense shock of pain that Drew had ever experienced rang upward through his leg, which for a split second bent sideways in the most unnatural way. The audible pop from his knee had dislodged the memory and Drew cursed himself as the red that flooded his mind cleared to white, and he tumbled. He came to a stop just a few feet away in a pillow of snow, his head now further down the slope than his feet. He inhaled deep, coughed and blinked, and instantly knew he'd messed up. He pushed himself upward with his arms and tried to bend at the knees to pull his legs up to his chest so he could orient himself on the hill, but his right knee didn't obey the command and the pain returned. Eyes wide, the strength fled Drew's arms as he collapsed into the snow. His scream muffled by the white powder. He looked back, expecting to see his leg twisted at some horrible angle, but only saw his right boot was somehow still connected to his new yellow ski. He saw its twin just further up the slope to the left. Drew could feel the joint in his knee all knotted and wrong.
Jack yelled down, "Are you okay?" and Drew could only whimper at first.
He inhaled, then yelled back, "No, I think I hurt myself."
He felt down his leg and realized it was twisted around. He flopped onto his back and felt immediate relief as the joint realigned. Reaching down, he tried to push the boot release on his binding but couldn't. Jack stopped next to him, eyeing the icy spot his friend had the misfortune of skiing across, and quickly dislodged himself from his own skis. He knelt down and pushed the ski release button, and Drew felt the heavy ski fall from his boot. He quickly spun around, no longer laying upside down on the run, and pulled his injured leg to his chest.
"Can you ski?" asked Jack, as he removed his helmet and goggles.
"I-I can try," Drew said, as he tried to stand, but he screamed again as he put his weight on the joint and dropped back to the ground.
"Well shit, I need to go get ski patrol," said Jack.
He looked around for the telltale red jacket that designated the mountain medics from the yellow-jacketed instructors. Seeing nobody, he said, "Stay here, I'm going to go get help. Are you in pain right now?"
"No," Drew said.
But he was lying. His knee pulsed with fire, but it wasn't like Jack knowing that would make him ski faster. If anything Jack would be more prone to hurting himself if he rushed down the extreme terrain.
"Ok," he said, as he placed his helmet back on and pulled his goggles down, "I'll be right back, fifteen minutes, tops..."
Jack trailed off mid-sentence as he peered past Drew.
"What?" asked Drew, as he looked out on the expanse before them, matching Jack's gaze.
There was another cloud of white rolling in. It had appeared almost instantly and was engulfing everything as it rolled towards them
"Shit."
Jack quickly looked back up the run, trying to memorize the path they'd taken. Drew saw him looking and said, “Please hurry.”
Then Jack was off and Drew sat in the pillow of snow alone, watching his friend descend the slope with furious speed. He saw Jack reach the bottom of the bowl and enter the forest of evergreens below. Then he disappeared as the white rolled over and through the trees. Drew shook his head. He was still relatively new to skiing, but he knew this was serious. He didn't feel any broken bones, but there was definitely damage, and he would probably need surgery —
"STOP!" he shouted to himself to stop the spiral of thoughts that would do no good now.
He needed to see if he could stand, and as he did, he began to put more and more weight on his right leg, which seemed to hold. Alright, Drew thought, at least there's that, and he looked around, eyeing his lost ski to his left, about twenty feet behind him. He got down on his hands and knees and began to make his way up the hill.
That took longer than fifteen minutes, he thought, as he finally dragged his lost ski back and tossed it next to its companion. Minutes after he started up the slope, he'd seen the blizzard appear to halt at the base of the incline, and there it stayed. He tugged his gloves off and pulled out his phone; it was now 7:15 AM, but there weren’t any missed calls or messages. That's strange.
He saw he had full bars, which never happened, and he quickly punched in Hannah's number and listened. He was greeted with static but thought he could hear a faint ringing behind it, so he kept the receiver to his ear.
"Hello?" the word broke through the noise as he was about to pull the phone away and end the call.
"Hey, are you there?" said Drew.
The white began creeping up the hill.
"Hello? Babe?" Hannah repeated, "I can barely hear you."
"I hurt myself, but Jack is getting help. It's not that bad, I'm just about in a blizzard right now, so I thought —"
Hannah frantically cut him off, "Ar-- ou--ok?" then static erupted in the receiver and the call-ending-beep cut her off as the white descended on Drew.
"Fuck," Drew muttered, starting to text his girlfriend until he saw he no longer had reception.
What the fuck is happening? He'd never heard of a cloud interfering with reception. He tried texting her anyway. He briefly explained what happened but felt the cold creep into his ungloved hands. He shuddered and put his phone back into his jacket pocket, the little sending circle still spinning as he darkened the screen. Drew pulled his gloves on and looked around, he couldn't see his outstretched hand before him and realized that Jack wouldn't be able to find him in this. He looked at his skis and then down the slope. He exhaled a breath that he didn’t realize he’d been holding.
He snapped into the bindings slowly, pain shooting up his leg when his right boot made full contact. Shit, he thought, the only way he'd be able to make it down the hill is if he kept most of his weight on his left leg, but that would, in turn, leave it more open to injury. There wasn't a right answer, so he began to make his way down the slope, left leg further down the hill, right leg barely touching the snow.
He went about ninety feet to the right, then pivoted and began to ski backward to the left. In this way, he slowly zig-zagged down the hill in the whiteout. As the slope leveled out, he gingerly applied more weight to his right leg, and it held, so he pushed forward on his poles into the same alpine into which he'd seen his friend disappear thirty minutes prior.
Or had it been forty minutes? Drew asked himself, as he slowed using only his left ski. He could barely make out the silhouettes of the trees around him. He stood in the noise and bit down on his gloves’ middle finger to pull his hand free. He removed his phone from his pocket and looked. That can't be right. His phone read 7:10 AM. Drew squinted at the screen and the air filled with snow, so much so that his fully illuminated phone disappeared from view before his eyes. In utter white darkness, he replaced the phone into his pocket and slipped his hand back into the glove. He pushed off again with his good left leg, into the white.
Drew skied. For hours or days, he couldn't tell. Each time he looked at his phone the time crept in the wrong direction. He was freezing and deep down, Drew knew he would die, lost in the storm. Once again, he began slowing his momentum to check the time and reception, but this time he saw a shining light, high up and suspended in mid-air. Without stopping, he propelled himself forward with his poles and felt a burning in his biceps and quads. He'd been going for so long and his knee was now stiff and swollen. With each push forward the fire shot through Drew’s body, but he kept moving toward the light. The shack materialized before him, and he looked up at the beacon. Quickly, he dismounted from his bindings and prayed the door was open.
The door was open, and he limped into the enclave feeling the opposite of cold. He had been frozen so long, he couldn't remember the word for it. Drew pulled off his helmet and goggles and looked around the small shack. To his right, he saw an operator control panel.
"What…Where am I?" Drew asked nobody but himself.
As if in response, lights flooded in the window as he squinted into two lights, thirty feet away. He recognized them for what they were. Headlights, he thought, as he approached the wide window. Never mind how far Drew was from any kind of road, or the fact that he'd walked into a forest that expanded outward from the backside of Arapahoe Basin. Drew didn't think about these things as he lifted his hand and waved to the vehicle.
He squinted and waited.
Eventually, two large figures emerged, gathered their gear from the trunk of the SUV, and began to walk towards the shack. Drew looked out the adjacent window and his eyes grew wide.
"Jack?" the words drifted toward the glass, as he saw himself and his friend dust off the snow from the chairlift.
Looking down, he saw there was a button flashing green. He looked up at himself, about to sit, and without thinking, pressed the button. The chair lurched forward, and he watched his friend and himself begin their ascent. He limped back to the door he'd entered from, and looked up through the window, trying to understand what was happening.
His breath left no condensation on the already opaque, frosted glass. He saw himself look back, and as Drew met his own gaze, he began to laugh. The laugh did not echo. It did not carry. The laugh grew hysterical, and he saw no breath escape his mouth.
He waved to himself, as he laughed in the shack, in the blizzard. Then the light above the shack flickered and everything went dark.
About Sean Michael
He/Him/His
Sean Michael is an author and creator. When not working his day job as a bartender and manager, he likes to spend his time outdoors skiing, hiking, kayaking, and adventuring with his fiancé, Kyrstin, and their two small dogs, Maggie and Marco. He can also be found curled up on the couch with a book and two cats, Billie and Theo. He enjoys story-driven video games, horror fiction podcasts, true crime, craft beer, board game nights with friends, and exploring the ever-growing and changing city of Denver and the state of Colorado, where he has lived for twenty-five years.