Bail | LRH

Chapter 1: the lifts

Adrian Casey

I woke up to the smell of maple syrup and pancakes being made in the kitchen downstairs, and took that as my cue to get out of bed and join my family for breakfast. I sat up from my bed and pushed my comforter off of my body before throwing on a sweater and making my way over to my bedroom window to see what mother nature delivered for me while I was sleeping. It was a good morning because we got a couple inches of fresh powder last night, so it was going to be a great day to ride.

I smiled to myself as I took in the sight of the mountain that was right outside of my house, thinking about how lucky I am to be living in such a beautiful place that allows me to do what I love every day. Leaving my room and walking down the hallway, and down the stairs to the kitchen I walked past the living room where my mom had just hung up my most recent medal, placing it next to the ones I had won in previous years. My medals were accompanied by various trophies and other awards I had won from snowboarding, but it wasn't just my accomplishments that were displayed, my dad's, and sister's, and brother's were too.

You see, I'm the daughter of local snowboarding legend Scott Casey, who's won a couple Olympic gold medals which was something I aspired to achieve in the near future. If I played my cards right and kept training hard, I would make it there I was sure of it. When my dad found out he was going to actually be a father, he told my mom that at least one of his kids had to be a snowboarder, although she protested this idea after their first born because she didn't want to force us kids into anything and found that out when my older sister Mikayla was the failed attempt at making a snowboarding prodigy.

Mikayla was thrown into it, due to both of my parents not really knowing how far they could really push their kids. They kept trying to make her compete when she didn't want to, and put too much pressure on her when she was merely eleven years old. Mikayla obviously quit snowboarding, to pursue what she actually loves, which is figure skating, and might I say she is a beautiful figure skater.

When my older brother Brandon was born, my parents sort of began getting the hang of things as this time my dad only strongly suggested that Brandon try snowboarding. Again, another failed attempt at a Casey kid carrying on my father's legacy because Brandon wanted nothing to do with snow sports. Despite living in Park City where the only sports most people play here are winter sports, Brandon wanted to play baseball.

So here I was, the youngest Casey, and the final hope. Growing up my parents never forced me to do anything, my father figured that if I wanted it, I would gravitate towards it and ask to learn. Seeing all of his awards in our house at such a young age and seeing everything he accomplished was something that caught my eye. He was one of the greats, and as a child I knew I wanted to be just like him.

Taking a seat next to my sister who had already begun filling up her plate with strips of bacon, pancakes and fruit, I looked over to my dad who was reading the newspaper at the head of the table.

"Going for gold, Adrian Casey takes home yet another win" my dad read the headline aloud, while sliding the newspaper down to me and my sister where we saw a picture of me holding up my medal right on the front page. "You killed it out there last weekend kiddo, but we got a lot of work to do before the Open that's coming up, and don't forget the trials too." He said whilst taking a bite of a strip of bacon.

The way my dad talked to me wasn't in a "you did good, but it's not good enough" way to me, it was never like that. We simply had a busy schedule and he was reminding me that I should still be proud of my achievements while also thinking about the other big things I had coming up.

"I know, I'm excited for the Open this year because there's no way I'm losing this time," I said, cutting into the pancakes I put on my plate and taking a bite of the piece I had on my fork. "Did you see how much snow we got last night though! Excitement laced my words as I was ready to drop whatever I was doing to throw my gear on and head up the mountain to ride.