Crawling uphill

I tried something I wasn't very good at

I fell almost immediately. I strapped on the cross-country skis I’d rented in downtown Missoula, began getting the feel of the sliding-walking motion I’d seen people do on television, and promptly encountered a small hill. How bad could it be?

I slid. I accelerated. I dropped a pole halfway down the hill, fell into a snow bank, and then somehow kept slid…