Memior

The Last Run
I can hear the snow crunching and compacting underneath my snowboard as I coast over to the ski lift. Only one of my bindings is secure – my right foot is pressed securely against the inside of the binding for support. It was the last day of my 6 day trip to Lake Tahoe, Nevada. This was my first out of state ski trip and up until today the snow conditions had been quite average; however, the night before had dumped about a foot of fresh powder onto the mountain. Needless to say, I was quite excited to get out on the slopes and take advantage of the fresh snow before everyone else got to it. This is exactly what I did. I hit the slopes as soon as they opened; which was around 9am. The conditions were perfect, the sun was up so it wasn’t too cold, the visibility was perfect, and the powder was amazing.
As I ready for my final run of the day I sit on the chairlift, talking with my best friend Jay, who had came down for the weekend. As the lift reaches the summit we slowly disembark and kick our boards over to the run we had planned out on the lift. The lift operator calls over to us, “We’re shutting the lift down for the night, last run guys.”
We nod off his comment and quickly repeat the routine of slamming our boards on the ground to clear out the snow from the unoccupied binding, before finally strapping our loose foot into the binding. The sun has already set, and the temperature had dropped quite considerably. The only light on the mountain came from the lights on the chairlift and from the moon. We weave through the course, our weight shifting mechanically back and forth. We traverse over to the hardest run on the mountain, it is a rather steep slope filled with vertical drops and tons of powder. We were ready for this run; excitement and adrenaline charges through us as we fly down the mountain. The course was very familiar to us, as this was our favorite run and we had done it countless times that weekend.   We near the point where we know is...