Squaw Valley has been a very special place for me, a place I visit once or twice a year from age of 15 till sometimes in my mid 20's.

• ( 1st year ) It is a place where I first learn how to snowboard, then took the wrong lift onto a double black diamond slope where I pretty much crawl down from the peak simply out of fear.

• ( 2nd year ) A place where I learned a person (me) can actually get chickenpox twice in their lifetime while on high school ski trip. ( my dad had to drive up from SF to pick me up since the only available driver in town refused to drive me as he never had chickenpox )

• ( 3rd year ) A place where I asked a girl I liked if she would be my GF then somehow she hooked up with another guy I hated the very same night. ( during HS ski trip, again )

• ( 4th year )A place where I got STUCK in that darn gondola at highest point and probably with highest drop distance to the ground for nearly an hour around 9-10pm at night. I don't know the exact reason why it stopped, only safe assumption was probably due to extreme wind condition from incoming snow storm. The gondola was swinging in all directions, I could feel and hear the metal flexes with every swing. EVERY worst scenarios I have seen on TV or movies started running through my mind, I thought I wasn't going to make it. To make everything worst... about 15mins in, my stomach started growling, cold sweats break out all of sudden, every possible signs of food poisoning start to appear... ( either the shrimp cocktail or the salad )... This gondola better start moving soon because I need to go ... and I need to go NOW!!!

Here is where I learn how to HODL, way before the word HODL got widely adopted...

Because... I wasn't in the gondola alone, I had just finished dinner with this beautiful girl met at the cafe earlier that day, everything went great until this very moment. 2 thoughts comes to my mind, 1. this thing better get moving 2. If not, snap a cable and send us down to the ground, make it quick. 3. no way in hell will I crap myself in the gondola, not now, not later and NOT with her near by. so I better HODL.

This where I discovered muscles in my body I never knew were there. I HODL for the next 30min or so ( felt like FOREVER while watch the clock ticks... ) till the Gondola started moving again. Back onto the ground, I politely told her I will be needing to use of restroom, and be RIGHT back.

5-10 min later I was out of the restroom and she was no where to be found. Then saw her drove off which appeared to be her boyfriend from the far side of the parking lot shortly after...

I should just crapped in that gondola to avoid the death defining stomach pain I had endured.

and

BYOGF - Bring your own girlfriend.

*for the following few years, Squaw Valley was vacation spot for me and my GF at the time and we never ordered the shrimp cocktail after I shared my past stories with her. I am in my mid 30's now and I still obtain fear of gondola anywhere I travel.