You start down the trail you saw the cutie and their friend heading towards. It's a blue trail, so you have the skill to catch up to them, which you may have to do. The two of them are a bit of the way down already.

With that in mind, you push off down the mountain. You get up to speed pretty quick, but you are holding back a little bit. It is your warmup run, after all. But, you also don't want to catch up too fast and end up looking like a creeper. 

You're moving pretty well, though. Your form is good, your skis feel right on the snow, and the body feels great this morning. 

You ponder for a moment, however, how this morning could feel anything else but great. You enjoyed the beautiful weather on the drive to the hill and on the ride up the lift. It's likely that it's going to stay beautiful for the rest of the day. That, combined with the feeling of riding down the side of the mountain, is just a high.

It's not just the feeling of the air and the sun on your body, either. It's seeing everything around you. The sparkling of the snow in the sun, the trees as they seem to whiz past in the opposite direction, and the sounds of your skis sliding as you make your turns, along with the sound of your breathing, which is in sync with every movement of your feet. 

The whole experience is like a high and that high has now taken you into your own world. Your senses don't really slip away. You still hear, feel, see, and even smell and taste everything that is going on around you. You're still very much aware of all of it, but it's more like you have become part of it. That anything outside of that feeling may have slipped away, but you are one with the mountain and snow.

Being so Zen, your speed has picked up, but that's okay. You are so in tune with your run now that you could reach a speed that humans might not think of achievable, and you would still be in total control of your run and be able to stay in the moment, in the feeling. 

Part of that is the subconscious realization that you are coming to the bottom of the run. You see the color of the orange sign that says SLOW, you hear more voices since there are now a few more people at the bottom getting ready to head up. You even see the sight of the bottom of the lift. All of that helps bring you back down to Earth so you can make your next choice.

Oddly enough, as you come down from the high you were riding, you realize that your first choice was to stay in sight of the cutie you saw on your way up the lift with hopes of talking to that person.

"Shoot!"

You said it just barely loud enough to notice, but no one was close enough to hear it, anyway. You take a look around and see the cutie with their friend heading into the lift line, which is still fairly empty considering there are now more folks showing up. Luckily, the fact that the mountain and the lift line are still fairly empty gives you a chance to act. 

You turn towards the lift and you keep your speed up just enough to close the gap quickly. You actually have a pretty straight line right up to the lift. You're able to ride the line right up next to the two folks that you wanted to talk to and what better place to start a conversation than on a chairlift.

Thankfully, you didn't come flying into the lift line at a thousand miles per hour. That would have looked either too desperate, too eager, or just made you look like an ass. Nope, you did it just right. Now, the question you ask yourself is, "Can I talk to these two?"

The answer is yes, of course. So, that's exactly what you do. You make small talk with the cutie and their friend for the entire ride. "How are you?" What's your name?" These are my favorites trails," etc., etc. The usual small talk that any people on a chairlift would have, but with a question at the end.

"Hey, how would you like to take some runs together?"

You timed that question perfectly. You asked them just as the bar was going up and the three of you were getting ready to get off the chair. 

As you all exit the unloading area, you pull up to the large trail map that just about every mountain has at its summit. You suggest taking runs in the more difficult area, trying to sell the other two on getting some more challenging powder runs.

To your dismay, they tell you that they really aren't ready to take on more difficult terrain, but they offer you the chance to take a run with them on the easier parts of the mountain or, if you'd like, to meet up with them at lunchtime. Oddly enough, the cutie that caught your attention is the one that suggested that. For one reason or another, the fact that they asked you to lunch made it feel more like they had taken a liking to you, as well.

You take a moment to weigh out your choices, not wanting to keep the other two waiting for too long. After a few backs and forth you make your choice. 

You can't vote on part three any longer, but this is how it went. Be sure to vote!

A Day On The Hill -- A Ski Rex Media "Pick-A-Path" Story by Tim Meyer -- Part 1 -- Ski Rex Says...

Do you remember the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series of novels from when you were a kid? I'm sure you do, or you at least know what I am talking about. There were also other series that were written in the "Pick-A-Path" format, though I'm pretty sure that the "Choose Your Own Adventure" novels were and still are the most popular.