Double Hamster on The Rocks

I went sledding with the Boston subsection of the fifth north crew (or most of them) last night. We drove over to Brookline and took some plastic toboggan-style sleds down a bluff near Coolidge corner. Perched above downtown Boston, it provided an expansive late-night view of the city, with blinkering houselights and guttering cars churning through the slurry of snow half a mile away. The hill looked steep at a distance but was not terribly fast and Girl With a Sword wanted some better sledding so we lurched off to find a second, steeper hill: Pete’s Hill at the Arboretum in JP.

I’d never been to the Arboretum but Will and Rob and other assorted friends always brought up Pete’s hill when they talked about dangerous sledding runs and so we decided to find it. Maybe it would be better. Maybe there would be steep banks and frightening drops—that perfect combination of roller coaster and luge that every sledding fan looks for in a promising hill. Pete’s hill was supposed to be the equivalent of Mt. Trashmore in Chicago; the equivalent of the worst sledding runs at Fair Hill in MD; the equivalent of the rocky trails highlighted in the 24 hours of Cannan Cyclocross race in Virginia. Several of my friends added the important “someone died a few years back” endorsement. How can you turn that down? Every decent sledding hill claims at least one sledder. It’s the modern plastic tray version of the ritual sacrifice.

We'd have been better off staying at Coolidge corner. I’m not sure that we found Pete’s since we did not have a map but we did find the high point in the Arboretum which was impressive for the first two seconds of the sled run. We were supposed to be belly down, fast as a Nicole Ritchie rumor through the powdery snow. As it was we were sled pirates; sitting there waiting for a target, getting a reputation as the least dangerous brigands of all time. I was hoping that someone would stop by and offer words of encouragement. Nobody hikes through a massive public garden at midnight in order to lend compliments to knuckleheads on plastic sleds so this didn’t, unfortunately, happen.

hey, who you callin' knucklehead?

Sorry, I meant to say Dorks.