Family skiing holiday
I must have been about 12 and getting really rather good at this whizzing-downhill-on-two-planks lark, so I wanted to go off and do a bit of skiing by myself. Mum set her face and insisted that I go with my aunt and take my little sister with me for good measure. I wasn't too happy about it, but agreed that we'd go down a few red routes together.

So there we were coming down a fairly narrow part of the run that snaked around the mountain, a rock face to the right and a sheer drop on the left. I was in the lead, with my aunt in the middle and my sister bringing up the rear when a couple who looked to be in their mid-twenties came bombing down the hill and managed to get in the middle of our group. I looked back and seeing that we were getting in their way, decided to pull up at the side and let them go past.

The bloke went past fairly sharpish, then his other half went to pull a parallel turn...exactly where I was standing, knocking me off the side of the mountain. According to my aunt, she came down the slope just in time to see me disappear completely - the woman didn't even stop but skied off.

Her heart sinking in her chest and panicking about how she was going to tell my mum that she'd lost her only son, my aunt told my sister to stay back and approached the mountain edge, where she found me - just like in the movies - hanging by both hands from a tiny, tiny tree. It was the only bit of purchase on the sheer drop for hundreds of metres in either direction, but I'd managed to grab hold of it as I plummetted. Some very careful scrambling later, I was back on my skis - all I'd managed to lose during my brush with certain death had been one of my poles.
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 12:32, 5 replies)

Classic Marshmallow.

( Dr. Shambolic je suis charlie, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 12:48, closed)

Great story!!!
I liked the bit where you disappeared completely.
( Monty Boyce, My cheese game is strong, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 12:50, closed)

A wondrous image!
And that's what we all want isn't it.
( mrlogic is copying your beard, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 13:26, closed)

...one of my poles
...and the contents of your lower intestine, no doubt!
(moon monkey is busy making memories worth repressing, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 13:44, closed)

I think a bit of wee came out
but at the time I was looking up and desperately trying not to think about the drop below me...it was only once I was back up and safe (and looking back at the very long way down) that the sheer bowel-loosening terror of the situation hit me
( emvee cruor deo cruoris, Mon 8 Jul 2013, 15:56, closed)