By Cathy Li

I checked my equipment one more time. My skis were intact, my helmet was on, and my ski goggles covered my eyes. I lifted my poles as the lift slowly arrived, got ready to stand, then Bam! I fell on the snow the second my skis touched the ground.

Photo credit: Heath Alseike.

Timberline Mountain, located in West Virginia, is a three-to-four hour drive from Collegiate and a popular choice for skiing 4,000 ft. above sea level. 

There are 36 total trails: 34% for beginners, 32% for intermediate skiers, and 34% for experts. I wish I had known this before jumping on the lift, naively thinking I was heading towards a beginner slope. I ignorantly thought that I had done well in the beginner’s area, a slightly inclined, approximately 30-foot-long hill where the newest skiers try out their new skis. 

It was my first time skiing this past spring break in March, and I spent the first two hours trying out the beginner area, attempting to teach myself how to stop and turn. Since all the skiing lessons were full that day, my first ski lesson was scheduled for the following day, and all the knowledge I had for skiing was based on a less-than-ten minute video tutorial.  

After feeling more comfortable with the unfamiliar heaviness of skis, I decided to leave the beginner area and try a green slope accessible by a lift. I was still shaky with my turning abilities, but I wanted to lean out of my comfort zone.

I got in line for the chairlift and tried not to think of my aunt, who had fractured her leg on her first skiing trip because she went on an expert trail instead of a beginner trail. The lift ride was around ten minutes long and carried us to the top of the mountain, around one or two miles from the bottom. I found myself not as nervous as I expected for being airborne 30 feet above the ground, especially since I had company on the rides. Additionally, my fear of heights is considerably mild.

As I reached the top, I expected to stand up from my chair and leave before the next chair arrived, just like the way carousels work, but the second my skis reached the snowy ground, I lost my balance and fell for the first time (out of many falls to immediately follow).

After managing to find my balance, I took a random trail to my right without thinking.

It started out smoothly, since the trail was only slightly more inclined than the beginner hill. A few seconds later, I reached a hill that suddenly dropped steeply. Later, I realized that you were supposed to ski in “S” shapes to slow down your momentum, but I went in a straight line down the steep incline. Unable to decelerate using the triangle “pizza” method at that point, I fell off my skis before I could crash into the woods.

What was supposed to be perhaps a five-minute trail took me thirty minutes to finish. The extra twenty-five minutes were spent falling around. Somehow, I managed to reach the end of the trail in one piece. 

I felt thankful afterwards that I was able to stop myself by falling before crashing into a tree, because the speed that I gained from skiing in a straight line was so uncontrollable that if I had crashed into a tree, I would probably have ended up with more than just a fractured leg. 

Timberline Mountain. Photo credit: Emily Robinson.

My first day ended there, and on the second day I remembered to ski down Salamander, the longest and least-steep green slope. This was the trail I had intended to take on my first day. It had smooth, wide paths and was exceptionally beginner-friendly; I only fell once or twice on my first try (compared to 20+ times on the other slope). 

Timberline Mountain is also located two miles from the Canaan Valley ski area, with an additional region for snow tubing. We visited nearby areas at our resort and left the snowy mountains after these memorable two days.