Chair Lifts

Chair Lifts

What scares you in your life? Is it the dark? Roller coaster rides? Being alone? Spiders?
I realized this summer that ski lifts are really not my cup of tea. I realized it when I politely turned down an offer to ride the ski lift to the top of Humphrey’s Peak in Arizona earlier this summer. I was reminded of three summers ago when my college friends’ group rode the ski lift at Winter Park, Colorado during our annual women’s weekend.
A double chair, bare terrain and rocks below you without a blanket of snow to break a fall, should that happen. What if I dropped my cell phone? What if my camera fell? And then the getting on, getting off dance of the chair lift? It is like a moving object that even my Rubenesque body has a hard time hitting the target. That only brought to the surface memories of my skiing days; the time I fell face first getting into the lift and the time I was afraid to get off the lift. Not my cup of tea.
So when I was in Flagstaff, I said no thank you and that was that. We found other things to do in town.
Ski lifts. Who would have thought that I would eventually end up on one this summer anyway? I am writing this during the seventh annual college friends’ weekend and we are in central Oregon. Adventures had been planned for us and one was to lunch at Pine Marten Lodge, 7800 feet above sea level. We certainly were not going to hike to the lodge or helicopter in. Yep. Ski Lift.
I took a big breath and bought the ticket. I managed to scan the ticket too many times and the turnstile would not let me go but luckily the staff showed me the secret way to get ready to sit on a moving object.
But surprise! This chair lift was moving very slowly! It was almost as at a stop as I sat. Oregon has rules and regulations about the speed of the chair lift on the off season. The ride to the top was breezy and thankfully my friend and I chatted the whole way, a welcomed distraction for me.
This was my reward for being brave:

Looking toward Three Sisters

We ate a deliciously wonderful lunch and then headed back down. The ride was scary (I prefer the up to the down) but we moved along, did not stop for any length of time, and the exit was smooth. I gladly placed the lift ticket in the recycle box. It will be a while before I head up the chair lift.
Today I write this as my friends are bicycling around the resort. Ahh, another opportunity to be brave but I did decline that adventure. One adventure per trip is quite enough for me.