Entry posted by Sumiki
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The snow here has been strange. The first layer - a good five inches - was a dry snow of the kind I'd never seen before. Around 8:00 on Wednesday the snow turned to sleet, which ceased at around 2:00 Thursday morning. This sleet froze over the soft snow and provided the base for the second layer of snow, which lasted until around 4:00 on Thursday afternoon. Strangely enough, this snow was the wet, thick, packable kind of the kind that I'm used to.
Perfect sledding conditions.
A few runs down our driveway hill packed the top layer down even further and created an exceptionally smooth surface. The only problem was that the layer below - the soft, powdery snow - was still there.
One of my sledding runs was cut short by riding up onto a small hill, with the intention of coasting off of it to gain speed for a longer run. The only problem was that the sled - which was coming apart on its first few uses - decided to catch somewhere on the ice, catapulting itself through the layer of nearly impenetrable ice and through to the soft powder below.
What this meant for me, riding with my chest on the sled, was that the ice that the sled was now under was heading straight for my chest, and I blacked out for a few seconds after it knocked out every particle of air in my lungs. When I came to, my dad was beside me, laughing uncontrollably. I staggered to all fours and looked at the sled.
Huge chunks of ice - ice crushed by my sternum and ribcage - had buried the upper half of the sled (which is as tall as I am) completely. The surrounding surface was cratered, as the reverberations of my inertia had dispersed, imploding the general area.
I grabbed the sled and proceeded back to the top of the hill, ready to do it all again.
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