Cinderella In The Snow

Her glass slipper flew off her foot as she dashed through the thick winter snow. In her hurry she didn't even realize the precious slipper was missing. All she knew was that quite suddenly her balance had become dramatically thrown off, and before she could stop herself she had done an undignified face plant into the cold, white world below. There she lay, not caring to get up, realizing that there was no way she could have bested her prince. She hated defeat. And though the same outcome greeted her every time she dared challenge her athletic prince, somehow she couldn't help but to insist on racing. In the joy of the adventure Cinderella had to run!

The End

Cast

Cinderella? Me
The Prince? Michael
The glass slipper? My right snowshoe

For months now Michael and I have been wanting to go snowshoeing. We finally got the invitation that pushed us out the door and onto the mountain. If any of you have been to Mount Hood you will have heard of Timberline, a fun-filled ski destination and resort. But we were not there to ski, we had gone to "shoe".

It was late Saturday afternoon by the time we pulled into our slippery parking spot at Timberline and piled out for our little hike. We knew we wouldn't be out long, but none of us really seemed to care. It was a very overcast day, and as the temperature fluctuated we were the constant
victims of light rain and snow.

We crossed to the sloped side of a small ravine and trudged happily upward. We stopped when we reached what looked like the end of the world. We stood atop the cliff, looking out over the steep walls that tumbled down, down, down to the little valley below.

Michael instantly wanted to leap off the edge and land in the thick powder below, a fun game he learned in our days in Canada. And since we were waiting for our friends April and Jeff to meet us there we had a little bit of time on our hands. So, before we knew it Michael had jumped.
Next thing I saw was his smiling face, beaming ear to ear from about half way down the long embankment.

Apparently it had been worth the tedious climb back up the sharp incline, for after a short break to snowball fight with the others, he did it again. This time he took Ed and Kirk with him, all three sledded down the mountain on their rumps. I was kind of surprised that they would try sledding since the hillside was very steep and it was fairly difficult to stop yourself from plummeting to the very bottom. But they seemed to enjoy the fast ride and before you could say "Bob's your uncle" the rest of us were trying it too.

We careened down that mountain at break neck speeds, snow flying every which way as we tried to stop ourselves about half way down the long slope. It was marvelous fun, even with the long climb back up. The way we did it was to start out in a sitting position as we pushed off from the safety of the ledge. Once we were on our plummeting journey there was no turning back. When we were ready to start slowing down we had to quickly flip over in mid fall and drive our knees and elbows into the snow as hard as we could to act as breaks. It took several seconds to slow down this way at the rapid clip we were traveling at, but it did the trick. And everyone was all smiles at the bottom.

The afternoon was quickly melting into dusk as we trekked back to the parking lot. We took a little more time to play before we said goodbye to the mountain for the day. It was such a nice little time that I wouldn't be surprised if we do it again some time.