There have been a few events in my life where I almost came out looking really cool. I've called them "Mark is Almost Cool Stories".

I had originally posted one of these almost 2 years ago, in January of '07. Now, the text of that story seems to have disappeared. Strange. There's just a title there. So, I'm going to start the series over. I don't remember which story I had told before, but I think it was the "snorkel fish" story. So I'll go with the "suicide hill" story this time.

It was the winter of '95, if I remember correctly, and I probably don't. I was still in college at Appalachian State, and Boone, NC was having one of it's typical snowy winters. Snowy winters apparently aren't as typical there nowadays, dang global warming. But I digress...

There had been a significant snow, more than a foot, perhaps two. Snow is awesome for a college kid living off, but near, campus. I think it was a Saturday, but I can't remember for sure. Gwen, my girlfriend at the time, and I went walking around Boone to enjoy the two-day-old snowfall. I decided we should take the trails through the woods behind Kidd Brewer Stadium to the secret little pond that was up there in the hills. We climbed the stairway that leads up into the woods behind Eggers dorm. The stairway continues climbing up to the top of the hill where some campus owned apartments had been built, and a road leading to Broyhill Inn. However, halfway up the stairs, was a trail leading off into the woods that would eventually take you to the pond. We made a left onto the trail and made our way around the hillside until we came to a small clearing which was the head of a narrower, much steeper trail that leads back down to the football practice field behind the stadium. This steep, curvy trail-way had earned the nickname "Suicide Hill" because it was a popular spot for sledding after big snows. The "suicide" aspect of it comes from the way the trail curves several times before it reaches the bottom, which makes sledding it seem rather dangerous. If you miss a curve, you plow into trees, probably at a high speed. On this day there was a large group of people testing the hill's reputation with their lives. Since it had been a couple of days since the snow had fallen, and there had been much sled traffic on this popular spot, the snow itself had actually been packed into a fairly hard sheet of ice. This made the hill much faster, and more dangerous. Offsetting the danger of the ice was the fact that all the previous sledding had actually caused snow-banks to build up on the outside of the two largest curves, creating somewhat of a Luge course which made it possible to hug the curves, and avoid plowing into the trees. At the time Gwen and I arrived, several of the insane sledders had brought out an inflatable raft, to attempt conquering the hill. It is important to note that, regardless the vehicle, no-one was making it to the bottom without wiping out in some horrible, and usually hilarious way. After Gwen and I both failed to make it safely to the bottom on our flat, roll-up sleds. I decided to take a turn in the raft. Everyone else was wiping out in the raft, but it's large cushioniness made it look as cozy as it was terrifying. Basically the challenge was for someone, anyone, to make it all the way to the bottom of the hill still in the raft.  So my turn came up. I climbed into the raft, and the others let it go. I went from 0 to about 640 MPH in half a second. The raft kept spinning around, so that I couldn't see where I was going. I could only see trees that barely failed to kill me whizzing away from me at nearly the speed of sound. Then I hit the first big, banked curve. The raft, fortunately, didn't fly off the path into the trees. But the bank did manage to hurl me straight up into the air. Up into the air I went, with no control over where I would land, and spinning around so fast I couldn't really even see where I was going. I landed hard, on my ass, on the packed snow, outside of the raft, still hurtling downhill at breakneck speed. "Great", I thought. "I didn't even make it past the first curve". I only then began to wonder what might become of me, now that I was streaking down an ice-hill, on my ass, backwards. I didn't have long to ponder, because I hit the bank of the second curve. Much like the first curve, the bank hurled me straight up into the air again, spinning me around, with no control over where I might land. Then I landed, back in the raft. It must have been a sight to see, in a matter of split seconds, me wiping out horribly, then being tossed like a rag doll back into the raft just after the second curve, with nothing but a deadly, slick, solid ice straight shot down the hill to safety. When I landed back in the raft, a loud cheer erupted from the people that were watching. As soon as I realized what had happened, I raised my arms triumphantly in recognition of the cheers. Then, just before reaching the broad, flat field below, I hit one last bump, and was thrown out of the raft again. I was mere feet away from, sort of, making it to the bottom still in the raft. I almost did it. I was almost cool.

Note: Suicide Hill no longer exists. What had been the football practice field is now the official baseball field, built into the hillside where suicide hill once plummeted. To sled it now would be to slam into a wall head on. So now I guess it's just "Certain Death Hill".

Note 2: Apparently, ASU campus has a new "Suicide Hill" behind the Broyhill Music Center. It is referred to here. Coincidentally, the article linked to in the previous sentence was posted on the same day as my original blog post referring to this story. Weird.