It was an early afternoon in a little ski resort in the northeast of France, it was snowing heavily, and the sun had disappeared. My brother and I had just finished our last ski lesson of the week and of the year. We were exhausted but happy with ourselves since we had finished the little race organized by the club even though we were both very skeptical about it at first.  

                                                                                                                                                     As we were making our way towards our parents, staggering through the snow in our heavy ski boots and carrying the even heavier skis on our shoulders. We noticed our instructor catching up to us and following us towards our parents. We did not think much of it, we assumed he just wanted to update our parents on the progress we had made in the recent week. Now we were finally next to their parents and waiting for the teacher to wave them off but instead he suggested that he thought we were ready to take the lift and do a slope on our own. We both agreed immediately, without thinking through the idea. Our parents seemed a little hesitant to leave us alone but eventually agreed, after telling us repeatedly not to do anything reckless and stick to the slope we knew the best. We nodded and promised to be as careful as we always were if not more.  

Finally, we were both sitting on the lift, admiring the view, and dangling our feet in the air, awkwardly whispering as to not disturb the people next to us. As we approached the mountain top, we could not help but feel a lot colder and suddenly become a lot more aware of the upcoming snowstorm. We confidently jumped out of our seats before we had enough time to think about it. Carefully and quickly putting our gloves back on, we made our way down the slope. We had not skied for long before I noticed the opening of the off-piste path in the woods. We had only taken it a couple of times and always with the instructor in much better weather. I, however, did not pay much attention to all the obvious reasons not to go there alone and suggested to my brother we try it instead of the “boring” one as I called it. He, being a lot more sensible than me at the time, seemed hesitant, realizing it was not going to end well.  

‘You’re right,’ I finally answered, sighing exasperatedly. ‘We’re too young for this.’ 

Just as I was making my way towards the main slope Olof grabbed my shoulder as strongly as he could.  

‘Wait.’ 

‘You changed your mind?’ I joked, not believing my luck. 

‘Let’s do it, what can really go wrong?’  

‘Exactly,’ I agreed with a grin on my face. 

We slowly and cautiously slid into the forest, careful not to get lost. Everything seemed to be going well and I was feeling confident with my choice, happy I had made this whole ordeal a little more exciting for both of us. Suddenly Olof stopped and told me he needed to pee. I told him to hurry up and disappeared behind a tree, leaving his skis next to me. I debated sitting down but decided to lean against a rock nearby instead. When Olof came back, and we started putting our skis back on, we came to the horrifying realization that they were completely covered in snow and every time we moved, they just went deeper. I could feel my hands start to sweat and my heart was already beating faster, I was panicking, glancing in my brother’s direction, I realized he was struggling too. In a desperate attempt to pull my skis out of the snow, I took them off. Big mistake. Once they were off, I realized there was no way I was getting them on again. Now we were both knee-deep in the snow, trying to keep our skis clean and smooth so we could put them on again. After struggling for what felt like hours, I told my brother our parents would get seriously worried if we didn’t come back soon. We decided to carry our skis out of the forest and walk down the rest of the slope. And we did. Struggling down while everyone else skiing was watching us was certainly a humiliating experience but seeing our parents' relieved faces when they saw us was worth the shame.