The Adventure Story Contest
Add to Del.icio.usWe read every story you sent in, from lightning strike scares to aquarium fish fiascos, and picked a winner
by The EditorsWe spent countless hours poring over some of the most (and least) interesting stories sent in by our readers. Divining inspiration to pick a winner from the submissions was a tough job: it required flogging interns with computer power cords (not to mention our CEO), playing countless hours of ping-pong, and generally skiing our butts off. Well…the flogging was just for fun. Thanks to everyone who submitted an adventure story!
Here are the winners:
3rd Prize $50 Gear Certificate
Sub-Zero Boy Scouts
Ernest Moeller, Otisville, NY
2nd Prize $150 Gear Certificate
Feel the Bzzzzz
Becky Johnston, Albuquerque, NM
1st Prize $300 Gear Certificate
Strawberry Ice Cliffs
Dann Byck, Ogden, UT
Snowbasin, UT
Strawberry Ice Cliffs
It was a cold pea-soup day at the top of the Strawberry lift. Jed wanted to
cross under the cliffs to meet some folks down at the Needles lodge. As we skied
down towards the cliffs through the waist deep powder Jed motioned to go left
through a break in the trees.
The weather was still thick, and as I hit the trees the world seemed to launch into the air and I became weightless. I reached back and felt the mountain racing upwards. All I could do was lean back into the mountain. Suddenly my downhill ski caught and instead of tumbling down a huge cliff I came to a very fortuitous halt.
I could see better now and realized that I had stopped about ten inches from an 80-foot rock face with no exit. My left ski had crossed under me and to move it would have resulted in a personal encounter with the rocks at the bottom of the cliff.
The only sensible, albeit embarrassing, thing to do was call ski patrol. Jeff started down toward me from about 70 feet up. All at once a wave of snow hit me. I was surely going to be swept off the mountain by my rescuer's avalanche, but somehow the snow careened over the cliff without me.
Jeff reached me and had only room enough for the toes of his ski boots between my ski and the cliff. He was cool, but as he maneuvered my ski broke loose and as I fell I grabbed Jeff's rope and hung on for dear life (literally). We both fell onto the cliff face and slammed into each other. We brushed it off and commented on how intimate two perfect strangers can become on the face of an icy cliff. Somehow Jeff was then able to belt me in. We threw off my skis and together rappelled down an ice-covered cliff face.
After a lot of slipping and banging into each other and the rocks, we made it to a deep snow bank and safety. I wanted to kiss Jeff, but managed to restrain myself. I thanked him and offered to buy the first few rounds, but he declined. Just about then his partner arrived with his skis and off they went into the sunset. We followed behind with a bit more respect for the precious things in life.