.....Alpine Slide II.....

It was the best of times.....  It was the worst of times.....  On a crisp, cool Fall morning beneath a austere blue canopy, atop Ober Gatlinburg the gauntlet was dropped....the challenge was made...  Who was to be the newest King of the Mountain ?  Both sledders mounted their mountain steads of yellow and red rail-runners...Alpine Slides of Appalachian reknown...  Sledders to the post....  Sledders prepare....  Sledders loose brakes....  Sledders Goooooooooooo !!!!!  An in that instant in time, the race began...  Gathering more and more momentum....  Gathering more and more speed, the daring sliders threw all concerns about self-safety and madly dashed feet-first toward the bottom of the mountain...  Throught turnes 1, 2, and 3 they blazed down the pipe-line....  Then came TURN NUMBER FOUR....a 270 degree, half-loop with a drop-dip exit..... Know more by the name "Death by Delight" than turn number four....  Well, the speed was unmeasurable as they entered the turn...  By the 180 degree mark and half-way through the halp-loop, the soon-to-be King of the Mountain took flight...  One complete airborne summersalt with a half-gainer with a perfect splash down on the trough....  Were it not for the soon approaching turn number five and the melting of his ski jacket and pants, he might still have won the race....  But alas, and alack, the King-to-be never was....  Now flash forward 14 years.... the gauntlet still remains...  The OLD MAN and the MOUNTAIN are again back together for the race to be....  So for his last hurrah Papa Doc sped down the mountain in true alpine fashion and was finally crowned the King-of-the-Mountain he was always meant to be...  Eat your heart out Robyn...