"Are you sure Carter?" Colonel O'Neill didn't try to hide the disbelief in his voice as he looked at what his 2IC had just unloaded from the back of her car.
"Yes Sir," she replied, slightly defensively and pulled the item in question slightly closer to her, almost as if it had feelings that could be hurt by the Colonel's obvious disdain.
"But, it's so, trendy," the way he said the word was indicative of an infectious tropical disease.
"I do not understand your objection O'Neill."
"Yeah Jack, it's just a snowboard. What's the big deal?"
"It's a snowboard, that is the big deal. Everyone knows snowboarding is slower than skiing and there's no skill. It's a sport for obnoxious rich kids who don't want to put in the hard work that skiing takes to learn and want to ruin the mountain for the serious skiers."
Sam had put her head on one side and was looking at him.
"What?" He said, now the slightly defensive one.
"I'm sticking with the snowboard Sir."
"Fine, but we're not going to wait for you when you get stuck on those cat tracks, fall over getting on and off the lift and spend three hours strapping in at the top of each run."
"I wouldn't ask you to Sir," Sam replied almost snippily, hoisted up her board and brushed past him towards the chairlift. She walked casually across the car park away from them with the leisurely step that snowboard boots enforced and her board slung easily under one arm.
"She'll see," muttered Jack as he picked up his skis in one hand, poles in the other and began to clump clumsily across the packed snow in his ski boots. He heard Daniel sigh behind him and both him and Teal'c gather their gear and follow Jack towards the entrance to the lift corral.
Sam was waiting for them when they got there, strapping her right foot into the binding and fiddling with the many straps. Jack dropped his skis into the snow. He bent down to fasten the three clips on first his right boot and then his left boot. Then he rearranged his skis so they sat next to each other. He stood up fully to step into the bindings and saw Sam stood looking at him, ready to go and tapping her left foot with exaggerated impatience. He rolled his eyes at her, stepped forward to snap the bindings in place and grabbed his ski poles, intentionally ignoring Sam.
"Ready guys?" He asked Daniel and Teal'c. Teal'c merely nodded, he was stood rigidly straight, ski poles in hand and looking thoroughly uncomfortable. Despite that he was actually a remarkably competent skier and despite still not understanding why humans would want to throw themselves down a mountain on bits of fibre glass he had taken to it like a natural.
"Gimme a minute," Daniel muttered. He appeared to have dropped his gloves when he had removed them to fasten his ski boots and had then knocked his ski poles over. Jack took great care not to look at Sam as they watched Daniel retrieve his possessions.
"Okay, ready!"
The ride up the lift was disappointingly uneventful, it was a little windy today and they'd been requested to 'balance the chair' at loading, which meant they'd all had to shuffle away from Teal'c. The gusts of wind and the layers of hat and then helmet made conversation on the lift difficult. They established which runs they were going to hit first and meeting points at the end of each run, Jack knew they'd need them. It might be their first skiing trip all together, but he knew Daniel was slow and Sam was on a snowboard, they'd be way behind him and Teal'c.
They all slid easily off the chair at the top and down the ramp. Jack, Daniel and Teal'c paused to slip their wrist straps onto their wrists while Sam scooted a little further round and dropped into the snow to fasten her back foot into the binding.
"Don't wait for me!" She yelled to them and waved them on. Jack looked at Daniel and Teal'c and shrugged.
"C'mon then."
He waved casually at Sam as they passed her and she waved back before returning to sorting her binding out. They were hitting the Mary Jane trail first as a warm up run. There was a cat track to get to the top of it and Jack skated with his skies to get some speed up along the gentle incline and pushed with his poles in an easy rhythm. He paused at the top of the Jane trail to let Daniel catch up with him and Teal'c and then with a quick flick of his skis he was off down the trail. There were small bumps at the top of the run, covered in a few inch thick layer of fresh snow and it was great. He took the bumps easily, not pushing himself yet as this was only a warm up. He'd just reached the end of the bumps and was looking forward to carving some new trails in the fresh snow on the bump-free bit of the trail when someone shot past him not far from his right shoulder and waved at him. He looked back quickly and saw that Teal'c and Daniel were off on his left and up the hill still a little.
"Damnit, Carter," he muttered and deliberately put more effort into his skiing, attempting to catch her up. He could see her ahead of him, her stance on the board was relaxed and her arms were resting at her sides. She could have been standing in a line in the commissary rather than on a snowboard hurtling down a mountain for all the effort she was putting into it.
He did catch her up, but only when she stopped at the entrance to the lift corral again and reached down to easily flick her back foot free of the bindings. She stood patiently and waited for first Jack, Teal'c and finally Daniel arrive at the bottom of the lift.
"So snowboarders are slow Sir?" She asked innocently.
"That was just a warm up run Carter and you know it."
"Alright, Sleeper next?"
"Yup!"
Daniel was being stubborn. His arms were folded across his chest.
"I am not doing Cannonball again."
"Okay, we'll do Railbender," Jack said reasonably.
"That's just as bad. I'm tired Jack. I'm going back to the base for a hot drink."
"It's only two o'clock."
"Yes, but you and Sam have been racing down every double black diamond on the mountain all day. I can't keep up and I'm exhausted."
Jack shrugged gently and nodded.
"Okay, we'll all meet you at the base when we're done."
"I too am going to 'call it a day'." Intoned Teal'c, somehow dropping inverted comma's in his speech.
"What? C'mon Teal'c!" Jack's voice almost had a whine too it. "There's loads of daylight left."
"I am aware. I have simply skied enough today."
Jack sighed, "okay. See you guys in a bit." He turned towards the corral for the Challenger lift where Sam was waiting.
"They're not coming?" She asked as he approached.
"Nah, we wore them out."
"We have been riding pretty hard Sir"
"Skiing, Sam. I ski, you ride."
They scooted out to the blue line to get on the chair and Sam was grinning.
"What?" Jack asked as a grinning genius was rarely a good sign.
"Oh, just thinking about how I have beaten you down the mountain every time."
"No you haven't."
"Yes I have, even with the long cat track down Corona back to the Challenger lift"
Jack thought about it for a moment. "Okay, yes you have."
Sam was still grinning. "How about we take this last run without a race Sir?"
"It's a deal."
For the first time that day he waited for Sam at the top of the run, watching as she slid her foot into the bindings and strapped it in securely.
"Ready?"
"Yes Sir," she pushed herself up from the snow and shuffled to get enough momentum to start sliding down the mountain. Jack pushed off with his poles and followed her. They slid down the wide Sleeper run in gentle and broad curves, waving when they passed each other. The sky was clear, the sun was shining without much power and the wind was blowing the snow across the surface in gusts. It was a beautiful wild day. Sam slid easily over to the right and hit a kicker that someone had built on the side. She pulled a grab in the air and landed easily back on the run. She moved with a free grace on the board, her movements fluid and relaxed and Jack realised he was a little jealous. He'd skied for years, but he knew that he could never make it look that damn easy. He caught up with her and she looked back at him and laughed happily. She looked thoroughly in her element, as comfortable as she was when she was in the lab with a doohickey, but totally different at the same time.
They slid off Sleeper and onto the flat green run back to the base, gliding gently next to each other. Sam was watching him and he glanced across at her to see her smiling.
"What?"
"I had a lot of fun today Sir"
"Me too"
"I'm not sure Daniel and Teal'c had as much fun though."
"Yes, well."
Sam slid to a stop when the run opened out into the base area with a slight uphill. Jack flicked his ski pole back to her as he passed her.
"Grab on!"
She did and he started to skate easily, pulling her along behind him for the last few metres to the base proper. The stopped when they ran out of snow and Jack stood and watched Sam bend down to unfasten her bindings.
"Carter?"
"Yes Sir?"
"Make sure I never underestimate snowboarding ever again."