The alpine atmosphere is what I live for

Once it’s in your blood, it’s hard to get it out.

This is how I feel about my love for skiing. With spring break coming up next month, I am getting excited to go to Colorado to ski with my family and friends.

I have been downhill skiing since I was about 5 years old, which was in 1992, when my parents enrolled me in ski school.

Yes, there is such a thing as ski school.

Sometimes, I get asked why my family doesn’t go somewhere south and warm for spring break.

When I’m stuck on a chairlift or in the middle of a thunder snowstorm in the mountains, I often wonder the same thing.

I guess I love the sport too much.

I enjoy watching the winter Olympics more than I enjoy watching the summer Olympics. I know, I’m a rarity.

However, I’m not going to devote time to writing about my love for all things alpine. I would rather entertain people with stories of my greatest wipe outs.

Believe me, I’ve had quite a few.

Until a year ago, my biggest wipe out from skiing actually happened in Sleepy Hollow in Des Moines.

There was some snow that had been packed up and I could do little jumps over them. I did a few jumps to impress my friends and landed just fine.

That was until the third jump. It was nighttime and I misjudged how high the snow had been packed together.

I went flying through the air.

I still remember the impact of my backside hitting the ground. It was then it hit me — I couldn’t breathe.

I stared up at the night sky trying to process what had happened and the best way to get air back into my lungs. Finally, I realized I could breathe out long breaths and take in short ones.

Eventually, I began to breathe normally again. However, that was after my friends were hysterically screaming and trying to get to me.

The first person to reach me was some random teenage boy whose first question wasn’t, “Are you OK?” Rather, he said to me, “Dude, that was the coolest thing I’ve seen!”