Sledding on “Suicide Hill”

On the other side of our lake is a short segment of Selwyn Drive that drops steeply from a hill down to the lake level. The piece of road is difficult even in a car, and even more challenging on foot or bicycle. Add an inch or two of snow and ice and it becomes treacherous, and oh so much fun. During snow storms the locals refer to this as “Suicide Hill.”

Sunday morning the sun was starting to peek over the horizon, and it looked like it was going to be one of those blindingly bright white post-snowstorm days.  However, a cloud cover formed very quickly, and the ice and snow was given a brief reprieve.  I decided to go for a walk in our neighborhood.

We’ve got a right decent hill here on our own street.  Before our street was closed off it would have rivaled Suicide Hill, although not quite as long.  Now there is the cul-du-sac.  Some of our neighbors were sliding their toddler down the now-tame hill into the cul-du-sac.  The grassy area and bridge at the end of the street were covered with ice.

It was slippery and slow going. I could hear the screams of children from the hill, and as I crested Heritage Drive I could see them slipping and sliding. The speeds were amazing. I joined a knot of neighbors at the bottom of the hill and watched as the kids sped past.

One young lady, Valerie, rode past with her cellphone recording the trip down. She sent it to me to post to YouTube. It makes an interesting point-of-view video…

One of my neighbors offered me a sled, so I had to give it a try. I wanted to record video as I came down, but couldn’t get the camera started as I slid down at break-neck speeds. It was exhilarating.

As I was leaving, the sun started to come out, and I knew they probably had less than an hour left of good sledding. I hope we get another good snowstorm this year because I’m hooked. I want to try this out again, and maybe get a decent video on the way down. In the meantime, here’s some of the other video I took, along with the rest of the photos from the outing.