Alyssa

11/15/04

LA

Lost Mountain

“Kylie, Calm down,” whispered Alison.  I was squirming in my seat as we drove up to the mountain.  Me, Kylie Bartine was going snowboarding!

“Sorry, I just can’t keep my excitement in.” I murmured.   As we got closer and closer I got more and more excited.  I was all tingly inside.  It was my first time snowboarding at a big mountain like Lost Mountain.  I had no idea why it was called that.  Alison and I thought that it meant that people lost their belongings up there.

“Mrs. Bartine,” Alison mumbled under her morning breath. “Why is Lost Mountain called “Lost Mountain”?”

“Alison for the first time I don’t know the answer,” said Mrs. Bartine.  My mom always knew the answer to everything.  She never got anything wrong.  I was surprised that she didn’t know the answer.  We drove up to the lodge.  Alison and I got out. My mom gave us money plus a compass and we headed up to the lodge. Here we go!

            We got up to the ticket booth and paid $20.00!  We headed up to the chair lift and buckled in one foot so the other foot was free to use on the lift. There was no line so we got on. It pushed off so fast that I almost fell off.  As we headed up the mountain Alison whispered, “Hey Kylie, are you nervous, because I sure am.”

“Of course I am nervous!  I can’t even move!”  I screamed back to her. As we got farther and farther I got scared, we were so high up! The poles were enormous! I thought I was going to fall off the lift. Finally, we got to the top.  The hill that we had to snowboard down to get off the lift was really small.  I was so amazed! We buckled in our second foot and started on the easiest trail we could find.  Here goes nothing!  I pushed off and started down the trail.

            The snow was gorgeous! I felt like I was sitting in a field of sparkling diamonds! I felt like I was in a fairy tail.  I looked up at the sky and it was clear blue.  I could hear the kids laughing and having fun on the slopes. I looked back down and saw that Alison was way ahead. How did she get that far ahead?  I yelled to her “ Wait up Alison!”  I snowboarded as fast as I could and finally caught up to her.  We kept going down the trail when all of a sudden these enormous trees lay in front of us.

“Hey Kylie, I dare you to go in there.” Alison said grinning.

“I will.”  I quickly, took off my snowboard, put it into my frosty hands and headed into the woods.  Alison followed me in.

            As we slowly and steadily headed down the dirt trail in the woods it got darker and colder. I thought my fingers were going to fall off!  I regretted coming in here in the first place! The woods were dark and scary. The trees were tall and hovering over me. Every shadow I saw made me jump.  I took out my compass that my mom had given me before I left the car.  It read that we were going west.  We came into the trail from the west so we needed to find our way back going east.  Alison was way behind.  I yelled back to her “Alison, all we have to do is go east and then we can find our way back.”  Alison started to run to catch up to me.  No offense to her but she looked like a penguin when she was sprinting toward me.  Once she finally caught up to me we headed east.

            Five long hours passed and it was ice cold.  I told Alison that we should at least try to make a fire.  We went to go get the wood, which took another hour. We piled the wood in a circle and rubbed some rocks together. I saw a couple sparks. It worked. We sat near the fire for at least and hour. Then we started down the trail again.  I saw and opening in the clearing.  I started to run, limping as I slowly ran over to see if it was the snowboarding trail.  Alison followed.  Once we got to it, it was just a big stupid pile of snow.  Alison and I walked over it and kept going.

 Another hour had passed and Alison and I walked on slowly until we came to a stop because we saw people!  Yay!  I ran toward them and saw the trail!  I was so relieved!  We found our way back!  We started back down the trail and ended up a half a mile away from the lodge. So we walked all the way back on the flat ground because we couldn’t snowboard.  I didn’t care how long the walk was. I was just relieved that we found our way back.

            Once we got to the lodge we called my mom and asked her to come pick us up. We waited for about an hour drinking hot cocoa and then my mom came. We got into the car and told her all about what happened.  We told her that we had learned a lesson not to go off any trail into the woods.  She told me that she was glad that I learned a lesson that the woods weren’t safe. After her lecture Alison and I fell asleep and woke up right as my mom was driving in the driveway of my home.

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