Suicide Train
Between a knoll and a hard place
By SEAN FELZ

At Nub's Nob, Michigan, you take what you can get. And by the looks of things, we were about to get our asses kicked. Fortunately the patroller was cool about it. He had seen Jason acting as spotter, yet he dutifully reminded us of the dangers of jumping off a knoll and hitting someone on the slope below. I guess he had a good point. To say that others on the hill were good sports about the Suicide Train, our name for the stunt, well that would be a flat-out lie. Fact is, people were pissed. I guess that was kind of our point.


"Either we're too drunk to be skiing, or we're not drunk enough. To the bar!" joked Joe, the only senior among us, about the Beer League races. Mike, Ben, Joe, Jason, and I were on the high-school racing team. The Beer League was for adults, but it took place on the same hill as the middle-school races.

We always got a kick out the adults racing down a blue-square run as seriously as their middle-school children. We had plenty of respect for the middle-school racers—we knew how those race courses looked at that age—but a bunch of GS suit-clad adult racers skating out of the start on a practically flat course? Never. We laughed as they passed by. We just couldn't take it. It was Suicide Train time.

Jason volunteered to ski down to the top of the knoll on Chute, a black diamond run, while we waited above. After about 30 seconds he waved to us and Joe immediately took off. After a few seconds Mike went. The train was comin'. Then it was my turn.

I remember making two wide turns and keeping a wary eye on Mike to gauge my own speed and to see if he was going to crash. He looked steady but didn't appear to get much air, so I let it all go.

Immediately my stomach lurched. I expected eight feet of air at most. I was startled to look down and find myself 20 feet high and climbing. My landing was much farther downhill than I thought. I was in a very, very bad way.

Yet I still smile when I think of it. Somehow I kept my balance and remained calm in the air. I tucked into a ball with my hands down at my sides, and as I approached the ground I opened up, allowing my legs to extend and meet the ground. I honestly remember thinking Time to lower the landing gear. I hit smoothly and immediately turned across the hill to avoid going head-on with a bump field.

"Shit! You almost landed in the moguls!" It was true.

"That was huge! I can't believe you landed that!" Joe and Mike were a mixture of disbelief and laughter.

I had jumped nearly from one side of the run to the other, 75 feet across the snow. I was still in the air when Ben, who started behind me, landed.


That day the Suicide Train almost lived up to its name. It also gave me a hunger for bigger air and bigger mountains. But in Michigan, you take what you can get.


 Discuss this story in our Workshop forum


Sean Felz is 17 and counting the days until he moves west.