Avalanche

Chapter 1 | Enter the Cold

Ricky adjusted the snow goggles on his face and watched as the snowboarder in front of him boarded out of the half-pipe.

Finally.

He crouched forward into position and started to pick up some speed. He entered the half-pipe.

It was 15 degrees in Aspen, Colorado. The sky was clear, and the sun was shining, but the air was frigid. Most people were in their homes or at their jobs, trying to avoid the freezing weather. But not Ricky. This was exactly where he wanted to be.

He zoomed up the right wall of the half-pipe, twisting his body in preparation to perform a backside 360 mute. He grinned as he spun, taking in the thrill of it. He released his hand from the board right before it hit the snow at the bottom of the half-pipe and sped up into the opposite wall.

He could hear the cheers of several snowboarders who stopped to get a glimpse of the occurrences inside the half-pipe. Most of them were on winter vacation and probably never dreamed of going into a half-pipe.

Ricky performed a few more tricks, nothing too complicated, but showy enough to extract a few more cheers from the tourists. He exited the half-pipe, hands in the air, hooting. He knew he'd done well.

He was well aware that he'd outscored the handful of people who went in front of him, who had stuck to novice tricks that were common in vacationers. There was only one person behind him, and he doubted they could outscore him either. He smirked. They didn't know that they were up against Ricky Winterborn.

Originally from Whistler, Canada, Ricky had been snowboarding since he was six years old. Snowboarding was his life.

Ricky boarded to the side and watched, uninterested, as the last boarder hit the half-pipe. The boarder in the half-pipe was a girl who appeared several inches shorter than himself. Her short, choppy brown hair stuck out from all sides of her gray beanie.

Ricky watched in amusement as her entering trick was a frontside 180. Not the easiest trick in the world, but pretty basic for a competition, even a competition with a bunch of tourists. However, his amusement died when her next trick was a frontside double cork which she landed with ease.

Debatably, the hardest trick a snowboarder could try to conquer was an 1800 quadruple cork, which consisted of the boarder flipping four times while simultaneously spinning 5 complete rotations sideways. Doing it 2 times in a double cork, however, was hard enough.

Ricky's mouth hung open a little.

"What the - ?"

His face turned slightly red from wounded pride. So what, he'd done a frontside double cork before.

The girl then preceded to do a double backflip mute. The small crowd that was now slightly larger cheered at her.

Ricky had had enough. The girl had clearly beaten him after her second trick. He should have done that. If he would have taken the competition seriously, he could've won.

Underestimating his opponents was something he didn't plan to fail at again.

He was aware that the majority of his anger came from the fact that if some stranger could come out and whoop his butt in the half-pipe, he'd never be able to beat Dion Blaster at Aspen Regionals.

"Whatever," he muttered under his breath. "I gave her that."

He noticed that she didn't show off anymore after that, which took Ricky by surprise. If he could land a frontside double cork with that much ease, he wouldn't have stopped there. The girl also didn't throw her hands up in the air in victory as she exited the half-pipe. She gave a shy wave to the small swarm of people and boarded towards Ricky.