This is an automated archive made by the Lemmit Bot.
The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Due_Pin_9161 on 2024-11-21 18:24:16+00:00.
Hi everybody, My name is Carol and I am a, now former, ski patrol at the Appalachian Slopes Mountain Ski Resort in Blowing Rock, NC. It’s a quaint resort with thirteen runs, nine slopes and five lifts. It’s modest, but it’s the mountain I grew up on. It’ll always be a second home to me.
During my twenty-some odd years of service as a ski patrol, I saw a lot of sad things. Some good ones too, but, well, you don’t usually call the ski patrol for a birthday party now do ya? I’ve seen deaths, broken bones, arms and legs going directions they had no business going, and brain damage that practically scrambled every neuron in a poor guy’s head. That’s all standard for the job, skiing is throwing yourself down a mountain on two skinny slicked up slats, after all. But some of the things I’ve seen I can’t account for. I don’t know a power on earth or in heaven that could cause these calamities to happen.
Since I’ll no longer be in the ski patrol service in two days, and the resort can no longer fire me, I’ve decided to share these tales of the macabre and downright nightmare inducing with you all. Maybe some can be explained, but to be real honest with you, I doubt it.
The first story I think I should share happened in December of 2004. I was fairly new to my post on the top of the Silver Slipper run, a black diamond that bottomed out into a freestyle skiing section. They often posted us on harder runs since folks were most likely to take serious spills there. The resort was closing down for the night soon, and the light was starting to dwindle. It was freezing, and I was pretty eager to get home and get warm. I started my run down towards the base, got maybe 10 yards from the bottom when I spotted a glove in the snow. It was a nice one, something you’d buy in a pro shop, a blue and black Dynafit glove. Those things were overpriced, even in 2004, and not too common on this mountain.
I made my way slowly over to the glove, pulling up alongside it. I went to pull it off the snow, noticing how it was sticking upright like it had been purposefully frozen that way, and grabbed it. The glove was stuck, and it didn’t seem to be empty. For a moment I just stood there, knelt down holding this glove, my brain struggling to catch up with the situation I found myself in. There weren’t any reports of a snow slide, or any evidence around the slope that pointed to the possibility someone could be buried under there up to their wrist, but stranger things have happened. Least that’s what I told myself.
I popped off my skis, jabbed them upright into the tightly packed snow, and crouched down next to the glove, cautiously dusting snow from the base of it where I thought a wrist might be. When there was no wrist to uncover, my relief was palpable. I managed to wrench the glove free from the snow, quietly hoping I could find the second glove of the pair on my way down the slope and have a new set of fancy gloves, when something fell free of the blue and black glove in my right hand. It was a finger. I stared at the single digit in silence for a while, I’m not sure how long, before I looked back at the glove. I gave it a tentative shake, and the remaining 3 fingers encased in the cold glove fell into the snow at my feet.
I had a ziplock bag in my ski bib pocket, I had used it for my ham and Swiss sandwich at lunch four hours before. I shakily placed each finger into the bag, counted them once or twice to be sure, and began my descent down the slope. I did find the second glove, same as the first, but with five fingers this time. Then a boot. Then another boot. A jacket, ski pants, and finally, a helmet. We were able to assemble the whole body before the coroner's office guy, a nice fella named Jean, came to collect it from us at the base lodge. Save for one finger.
We never figured out where it went, or for that matter who had chopped someone into painstakingly tiny bits and scattered them along the Silver Slipper run. No one ever has.
A county sheriff came by the following morning, I didn’t recognize him, which is peculiar since everyone knows everyone in Blowing Rock, but he had the badge so I didn’t question much. He told us to forget about it as best we could, and keep the resort open. They didn’t want to make a big fuss of it all, and truthfully all of us just didn’t want to be out of a job in the busiest ski season at the only resort in town. So, we all kept it to ourselves, and picked up the next day where we’d left off. I stayed on that run for three more weeks, until I saw a small purple ski mitten jutting out of the snow about 10 yards from the base of the slope. That one ended up missing a toe.
Well folks, that’s my first story I’ll be sharing here. Don’t know if it interests any of you, but if it does I’m more than happy to share more. It’s kind of therapeutic to get these memories out of my head and onto paper, so to speak. Stay safe out there y'all, and see you real soon.
Sincerely,
Carol