Chapter Five
ASPEN
It wasn’t exactly illegal to snowboard before the lifts officially opened, but Aspen knew what she was doing.
She had her GPS, a fully charged phone battery pack, avalanche gear, a few snacks, a couple bottles of water, and a map of the mountain’s runs and trails.
She had her eye on one of the trickier hikes today—the Summit Switchback Trail that went straight up to the top of the mountain.
From there, she could turn around and drop down the steep ridge called Avalanche Ridge.
Aspen loved snowboarding new mountains, and this one looked promising, at least if the videos and snowboarding YouTubers were any indication.
She rolled off the couch onto the floor and stood near the coals in the grate, warming her hands and debating whether she should start the fire again before showering.
Time won out, and she ended up grabbing her clothes and turning the water on as hot as it would go, hoping the steam would warm her up.
She pulled her shoulder-length hair into a bun on top of her head and slipped on a headband to keep the smaller hairs at the nape of her neck out of the way.
Wet hair while snowboarding was a mistake she had made once as a kid and never repeated.
Grabbing her travel bag of soaps, she stripped off her clothes and stepped into the shower, letting the hot water soothe her cold skin.
Aspen pulled out her razor, knowing how silly it was to shave with snow outside. But she couldn’t stand the prickly hair on her arms and legs. It wasn’t about anything else—just the irritation of knowing it was there and the uncomfortable feeling when her fingers brushed the stubble.
She hurriedly shaved her legs and arms, uncertain how long the hot water would last, and then turned off the shower. She quickly dried off before the cold could set in again.
Glancing at her phone on the counter, she realized that if she wanted to be up and down the mountain without anyone noticing, she needed to leave soon.
She finished getting ready, pulling on her thermals, skipping the light makeup, and quickly brushing out her hair before throwing on her favorite beanie and the rest of her snow gear.
Her backpack was already packed with all her gear, water, and snacks. She slid on her wool socks and snowboarding boots, then strapped her board to her pack. Tucking her phone into a drypack, she zipped it up inside her jacket and shoved on her wool liner gloves.
Smiling to herself as she remembered the trick with the key, she tried a few times and successfully locked the door behind her.
Her breath puffed out in front of her as she headed toward the trails she’d already memorized. She had them saved on her phone, GPS maps downloaded and ready, but it was easier to rely on memory than to keep pulling her phone out every few minutes.
The world was still dark, the stars glittering sharp and bright in the absence of light pollution. Aspen smiled as she moved through the freshly fallen snow, glancing up every so often to marvel at the inky sky scattered with constellations.
Her mother used to tell her that the inky blackness of night was God’s canvas, stretched between Earth and Heaven.
Darkness couldn’t hold Him or His angels, so, wanting to look down on His world—on His children as they slept, and on the loved ones of angels who had passed beyond the veil—He let them poke countless tiny holes through the canvas.
The specks of shimmering light were the glow of Heaven itself, shining through.
As Aspen grew older, she learned about space and stars, but her mother’s version was still the one she loved most.
She squinted her eyes and looked for the landmarks she had seen on the map as she continued on her way.
She noticed footprints as she kept walking, wondering who else would be awake and up on the trail at this hour, when she remembered that there were early morning sunrise tours listed in the packet Mr. Mynt had sent her with the information for the Mynt-To-Make-A-Difference event.
Hopefully she wouldn’t be turned away from the trail she had been looking forward to since agreeing to attend.
She heard voices as she approached the trailhead, and a group of shadows lurked in the distance.
Maybe if she kept her head down, she could make her way around the group and beat them to the top without anyone the wiser.
But as she got closer, one of the voices brought back recent memories from the night before: hot cocoa, blue eyes, and a handsome smile Aspen had tried not to think about but had dreamed of more than once.
It couldn’t be, she thought to herself. But the closer she came, a feeling of dread filled her stomach. It was none other than Mr. Old King Cole himself—and apparently he was the mountain guide for this shindig. Of course he was.
She stopped to listen for a moment, curious about what he was saying to the tourists who had come to see the sunrise. It was still too dark to make out anyone’s faces, so she slipped behind another tourist and listened to his words.
“We’re still waiting on a few others. Until they arrive, I want to lay out some ground rules.
Rule number one: stay on the trail. This is one of the steepest trails we have here at Mynt Resort, and I’d like to keep my record of not having any falls.
If I see you off the trail, my buddy Jack here will guide you back down the mountain—which just gives him more work, since he’ll have to come right back up. ”
His friend Jack chuckled, and the tourists followed suit before Cole continued.
“Alright, alright. But all joking aside, please just stay on the trail. Rule number two: if you brought your snowboard and signed the waivers, I’ll be doing the run with you.
Jack and our newest trail guide, Paul, will be hiking back down with the rest of the non-snowboarders.
You have to have signed a waiver—no exceptions. ”
Aspen cursed under her breath and stomped her boot in the snow.
She’d signed waivers for snowboarding on the mountain, but this was different.
This one wasn’t signed because her Papa Bear had made it crystal clear she wasn’t to do anything stupid—like cliff dropping.
She hadn’t promised him she wouldn’t, but since he had seen all the events and the papers signed, being her agent of sorts, she couldn’t slip this one past him.
So she’d decided to just do it on her own, being the pro she was.
She did things like this all the time. What was the big deal, anyway?
“Rule number three: we’ll be teaming you up with a partner, so if someone falls behind, they’ll have a motivator to keep them going. Jack will be the last hiker, motivating you with his hiking stick from behind, but this way you’ll have more than one motivator. So stay with your partner.”
Aspen smiled to herself at his joke before realizing she needed to figure out what to do. If she couldn’t take this trail, she had better find another one. She turned to leave when the voice she’d been listening to rang out again, this time accompanied by a flashlight.
“Excuse me, ma’am, but where are you scuttling off to? Did you not hear rule number one and rule number three? No leaving the trail and no leaving your partner. I know, I know, I haven’t paired you off yet, but I’m sure your partner won’t be too shabby.”
Aspen rolled her eyes, her back still to him, before finally turning around.