Off the rails on a crazy train

Being Frank, By Frank Ameduri

And out of the distance there arose a yell.

"Ha, ha," said the devil, "we're nearing hell!"

Then, oh, how the passengers all shrieked with pain

And begged the devil to stop the train!

-- The Hell Bound Train, J.W. Pruitte

One of my Christmas presents this year was a brand new pair of touring skis, boots and poles. It was to go along with the ski train tickets my fianc/e, Barb, had purchased earlier in the year.

"You ski, right?" she'd asked.

"Oh, yeah," I said. "Cross-country, off-road, downhill, uphill, slalom, moguls. I'm a skiing lunatic!" I said that before I knew about the ski train tickets. I have been on skis. I have also been in airplanes, but it wouldn't be 100 percent accurate to call myself a pilot.

With one fairly uneventful practice session under my belt, we headed out for the train at 5:30 a.m. I was feeling pretty confident. At 5:30 a.m., without any coffee in me, I'd feel confident about bungee jumping into the mouth of an active volcano. On the train we met up with a friend, Veronica, and her friend, Dave. Veronica is an experienced skier, and Dave is into telemarking -- which is to say he's in very good shape for a crazy person.

There was a lot of expensive ski clothing and equipment on the train. The people in all that clothing were a lot skinnier than me. Some of them were telemarkers, like Dave. I could tell that because they had deep scars on their faces and arms and they laughed insanely at shiny things whizzing by outside the train.

The trip down to Grandview was pleasant. We had coffee and good conversation. We'd managed to snag a table in the same car as the polka band, so we got to watch old men slipping into lederhosen, which was interesting and a little disturbing all at the same time. At that point everything was still lighthearted and festive. All that changed when an official-looking person came into the car to deliver our pre-ski debriefing. It went something like this:

"We'll be pulling in to Grandview in 10 minutes. Since you're on this train, I'm going to assume you're an excellent skier or you are hell-bent on suicide, so I'll keep this simple. There are no roads into or out of Grandview. The train leaves at 4 p.m. If you're not on the train, we've left a sandwich in a shack for you. There's also a pen and paper in case there's something you forgot to tell your loved ones. It's a free country; you can ski anywhere you want. If you get lost or crash into a tree, you will die. There are two glaciers out here. Don't go on them. If you go on them, you will fall into a crevasse, and you will die. There are lots of steep slopes, and there's been a lot of freezing and thawing. If you make loud noises or jerky moves, you will be buried under 70 tons of snow, and you will die. Other than that, have a super time out there, and we'll see you in the polka car later!"

The rest of the people at our table were talking, and some of them were looking at me. I couldn't hear them. I was too busy enjoying what I assumed were the last few pain-free moments I would experience on this planet.

As it turned out, the weather had been alternately warm and cold, so the snow in Grandview was something like a skating rink with broken soda bottles sticking out of it. I fell the first six times while trying to clip into my bindings right next to the train. By the time I got my second ski on, Dave was already halfway up the tallest mountain in the Grandview area, and Barb and Veronica were busy making excuses for me with some of the other skiers.

"He was born with no inner ears," Barb told one elderly couple. "His sense of balance is roughly that of a melting Jell-O jiggler."

"His body is rejecting the recent brain transplant," Veronica told three horrified children.

Finally, with my skis firmly attached, we headed for the trail. The trail is about 4,000 feet below the tracks and is only accessible by skiing down hills that look like lunatic ski jumps with trees and rocks all over them.

"Ready?" Veronica said.

"Ladies first," I answered. I knew that the moment I pointed my skis down that hill would be the end of whatever fleeting respect Barb had for me. My only consolation was that there was no way I'd survive the fall.

Veronica and Barb moved gracefully down the hill, bending their knees and making neat little turns. They stopped exactly in the places they intended to. It looked very easy, actually, and my spirits began to rise a bit. I pointed my skis down the hill and then screamed like a little girl for the next two-and-a-half minutes in what turned out to be the longest crash in skiing history.

At the bottom of the hill I stared up into a sea of faces. Some of them looked angry and disgusted, but most of them just looked alarmed. Behind me was a trail of carnage that looked like the train had derailed, dumping bodies and equipment all over the hillside. Some people were moaning, but others showed no movement at all. Somehow I was wearing three mismatched skis, and none of them were mine, and one of them wasn't on a foot.

A ski patrol person handed me a pair of snow shoes and a document that said I'm not allowed to wear skis in Alaska ever again.

I spent the rest of the day on the shoes, and it turned out pretty well. Veronica, despite her great skills, also managed to have an impressive crash that resulted in the sole of her boot blowing off. I helped her repair the boot with duct tape, and she skied on, the way only someone from the Valley could. Dave made several successful telemark runs down sheer cliff faces, and Barb did forgive me, though she canceled our hang-gliding reservations as soon as we got home. I do plan to ride the ski train again, but I'll be sticking to the brats and the polka car from now on -- as the terms of my probation require.

Frank Ameduri has often known the agony of defeat.