Skiing Adventure
My helicopter trip to the Cariboo Mountains of British Columbia in Canada turned out to be the most exciting adventure of my life. The trip stated when my father and I left Los Angeles on a jet liner bound for Canada. After the three hours of flight we landed at Calgary International Airport and took a charted bus along with thirty other skiers through beautiful mountain passes to the quaint village of Banff. We soon arrived at the rustic, elegant Banff Hotel which is at least a hundred years old. After an outstanding dinner of roost beef, turkey and fish in the magnificent dining room of the hotel we retired for the night. The interior mountain ranges of eastern British Columbia hare excellent snow conditions from December to May. The mountains provide the best and most exciting skiing in the world. The mountain range that we skied was called the Cariboos which covered about one hundred square miles. The tops of the ski runs were at ten thousand feet and bottoms at two thousand feet. The skiing region has some runs extending for several miles in length. Most of the ski runs took from 30 to 45 minutes of continuous skiing from the tops to the bottom of the mountains.
Once the snow has fallen it undergoes a series of physical changes caused by the wind, sun, and temperature; creating layers. An avalanche occurs when one layer slides upon another. The most dangerous slopes are those between thirty and sixty degrees. Snow is unlikely to detach on lesser degree slopes, while much more snow will not accumulate on steeper degree slopes, sliding off as it settles; therefore avalanches occur because of gravity. In one of the best adventures of my life, helicopter skiing in the Cariboo area of British Columbia, I almost lost my life in an avalanche. The avalanche that I experienced was of a slab type. In other words the slope of the mountain was about forty degrees and a slab of snow forty yards wide and three feet deep fractured and moved down the slope. Luckily for us the slope leveled off sixty to seventy yards below the fracture which was enough to stop the slide of the snow. On the first ski run of the day for our group a disaster struck. The ski guide was in front approximately thirty yards of the first skiers who were spread in two's about the same distance from one another. I was in the first two behind the guide when all of a sudden I noticed that I was moving faster than I usually ski. The snow I was skiing in was moving down the mountain like a snow sled and at that moment I realized that I was in an avalanche. My skis were pulled from my feet by the movement of the snow. I started to tumble within the snow, which seem
Some common words found in the essay are:
British Columbia, Banff Hotel, International Airport, Columbia Canada, Los Angeles, Skiing Adventure, british columbia, equipment avalanche poles, ski runs, helicopter skiing, avalanche poles, equipment avalanche, helicopter safety, snow conditions, pilot engineer, ten thousand, degree slopes,
Approximate Word count = 995
Approximate Pages = 4 (250 words per page double spaced)
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