Snow Dune

“Call this a shot in the dark if you will, but I think you have no clue what you are doing on this mountain,” Bobby told Steven. “I mean, of all the things in the world you could be doing, you want to snowboard down this?”

“Well, yeah, why not?” Steven replied, fixing his goggles which Bobby nudged a little sideways. “It has to be the biggest...um..snow dune in the world.”

​“First of all, I am going to ignore the fact that you said ‘snow dune’ and skip right to why you are actually correct. Climbing up here is an achievement in itself, but to snowboard down it is just...dangerous at best.”

“You never know till you try, bro,” Steven replied, centering himself at the edge only for Bobby to pull him back by his collar.

“Listen, if you do this you better do it right,” Bobby warned. “Take it slow, do it carefully. Stick to the right snow that I showed you otherwise it will just give way beneath you. Do you understand me?”

“Of course, I’m not an idiot.”

Bobby let go of Steven and mutter, “coming from a man who says ‘snow dune’...”

With that, Steven prepared himself and with a deep breath, he pushed himself forward with a lurch. Bobby felt his heart stop for a brief second as his friend began the descent. Steven expertly navigated down the snow, choosing a path that was clearly the safest and all seemed to be going well.

It wasn’t until Steven navigated a peak did he disappear from Bobby’s sight. Bobby should have began the slow walk down sooner, perhaps keep Steven in sight a little longer, but as it was, he was in for a long way down.

Steven was enjoying his snowboarding for the most part. A lot of the snow was quite stable, but there was always a threat at the back of his mind that he just couldn’t pin down. However, that was not to be considered till he reached the trees. Flora near the peak of this mountain was next to impossible, however, it would be a long journey down despite taking such a shortcut. When he reached the trees he told himself that he would be able to slow down, but that same nagging thought warned him not to.


Ten minutes into that descent, Steven eyed the snow alongside him. There were tufts of it falling down here and there which wasn’t too strange. However, if they were to gather snow all the way down the mountain…

It was then that Steven realised what he was doing. By snowboarding from the top he had a greater chance of creating an avalanche of some sort that would be catastrophic if the trees down the mountain couldn’t dampen it enough. Steven knew he couldn’t slow down now, but at the same time, a collision with one of those trees would injure him greatly and the avalanche would do a lot more harm to him as well.

Steven knew now that he was trapped in a way and had to complete his descent and cut off to the side when he neared the bottom. The snow would bury him alive if he screwed up now.

Oblivious to this major threat, Bobby continued walked down the mountain. His steps were chosen carefully and any snow he dislodged quickly settled without hassle. However, he too had a strange feeling what was about to happen and when he finally passed some ridges he could see the white blanket of snow gathering in clumps and tumbling down the mountain.

“Oh…” Bobby pondered for a moment, taking a small break from worrying about Steven to completely panicking.

There was nothing to be done now except make his way down the mountain. After an hour he heard the distant rumble of an avalanche. Knowing full well the cause and who was in its way, Bobby hurred his pace as much as he dared, but with the air so thin it only made him dizzy.

“God...Steven…” Bobby began to whisper. “Of all the warnings I gave you, I didn’t even think to warn you about this...maybe then you would have reconsidered.”

After a moment the rumble came to a stop and Bobby was halfway down the mountain. While Bobby had full confidence in Steve’s boarding skills, he had only just gotten used to snow over sand and even then, he never had to outrun an avalanche.

When night fell, Bobby only grew more tired and worried. His mind was fast becoming his own worst enemy and only sheer stubbornness kept him from thinking the worst. Once he cross the dangerous path up the mountain he was onto carved pathways and stairs to make his descent a lot more safe and speedy.

Once at the bottom of the mountain it was close to midnight, the world lit by the full moon. Bobby made his way over to the fresh snow that now rested at the foot of the mountain. It was massive, vast amounts of snow piled and still unsettled as Bobby began to walk across it. He dare not shout for Steven, but he still yelled it as loud as he dared without causing another avalanche.

Only after a few minutes of cold panic did he the orange pants of Steven as his lugs stuck out into the air, while the rest of him was submerged in the snow.The legs flailed around ridiculously and Bobby’s fear soon turned to annoyance as he approached his moronic friend.

Reaching forward, he clutched Steven by the ankles and lifted him out of the snow. Once out, Steven began to cry like that of a newborn baby as he left the snow.

“You realize that I am going to be telling your wife and children this story,” Bobby muttered, dropping Steven back into the snow.

“Well, you know it wouldn’t be a great story without a picture,” Steven replied, jumping quickly to his feet and wrapping an arm around Bobby’s shoulders.

With the flash of the camera, Steven had a photo to cap off the end of his snowboarding video, memorializing him as victorious and Bobby as thoroughly annoyed.