Luge yourself: It's the thing to do while in snowbound Muskegon, Mich.

Chicago Tribune (MCT) - "You know," my 15-year-old luge instructor tells me, to ease my nerves, "more people die in cheerleading than luge." I nod and lean back against the yellow sled, inching toward the gate, nothing but icy curves ahead, all pointing downhill.

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"It's true," she says. She's sunny and says she holds the record for the fastest time on this track. "No one ever died at luge. Not here."

I ask if she cheerleads, trying to make small talk _ anything to avoid being shoved inevitably down that slope. "No," she says.

Actually, they don't shove you. They don't push you, either. You launch yourself down the 850-foot track, from a starting point roughly two stories high, through your own stupid volition.

Considering that the Muskegon Winter Sports Complex has one of the few publicly accessible luge tracks in the country _ the most publicly accessible, they claim _ it's a surprisingly bucolic place. There's no screaming. Just a heavy swooshing sound and the thwack of steel against wood, then this guy up in his booth:

"22.3 seconds," he says. Or some other time, depending how fast a person goes from nervous launch to bumpy stop.

I visited Muskegon a few weeks ago. Everything about Muskegon is calm in January. There's no one here. No out-of-towners. Just locals. It's a seasonal spot, the land curled around an inlet of Lake Michigan like the thumb of a mitten meeting the rest of the fingers. I was here to luge, maybe ice skate a little _ the sports complex has a lovely outdoor skating path, carved into the woods and lighted at night. So let me come back later to that impending luge run.

Because first I want to tell you about Muskegon itself _ to be specific, what I did during my unintentional 40 hours here. For reasons obvious to anyone who has ever spent more than an hour in a vacation town during its least operable time of the year, this will be brief.

I left on a Friday afternoon for a Saturday morning luge reservation. (Tip! If you go, call ahead, what with all the Boy Scout troops that arrive here by minivan after minivan, to prove their manhood.) It's a 3 ˝-hour drive from Chicago. I showed up too late for anything but a beer and a very nice medium-rare cheeseburger at Racquets Downtown Grill.

I stayed at the Shoreline Inn, a hulking rectangle turned on its end, dark and ominous against the winter sky. Indeed, there didn't seem to be a single room with a light on. I couldn't see the hotel; until my eyes adjusted, I thought I was staring at frozen lake. In July, the spot is ideal, a hotel on a pier, perfect for boating or dangling your feet from the dock. But, in January, to enter the lobby of the Shoreline, I had to pry open the non-automatic automatic doors. The staff seemed to number exactly one, despite 139 rooms.

The next morning, when I tried to leave for the luge track, the snow was so high I couldn't make out the road leading from the hotel. I called a cab. (The Muskegon Winter Sports Complex is within Muskegon State Park, which, it goes without saying, is plowed even less.) There was a foot-plus of snow on the ground, traffic had slowed to 10 miles per hour and the highway was closed. Later, when I returned from luging, the drifts had grown even taller, the traffic slower. I decided against driving back to Chicago.

I couldn't drive anywhere; my laptop was dead (so, no music); I had no cell phone charger (so, no one to talk to); and the hotel had no Wi-Fi anyway. I had packed a book _ Julian Barnes' "Nothing To Be Frightened Of," an essay/memoir about the inevitability of death, and, though lively, not meant to be the only entertainment one should have when spending a snowbound weekend alone in Muskegon.

I left the hotel and went next door for food and was met with a wall of cigarette smoke and a dining room of locals playing poker. Onlookers hovered over the shoulders of intense young men who wore Detroit Lions jackets and sunglasses. I wandered into the mostly emptied downtown by walking across train tracks and a four-lane street, my head bowed against the stinging wind off the lake. The marquee at L.C. Walker Arena glowed. It said the Muskegon Lumberjacks were playing the Kalamazoo Wings.

If you've seen "Slap Shot," you know the rest. Minor-league hockey. The first fight _ no joke _ came four seconds into the first period. The players stripped off their gloves with a bit too much ceremony to seem genuinely mad as the referees sighed, skated off to the side and waited. But it was "Star Wars Night," so Darth Vader dropped the puck and I ate a bucket of popcorn.

Back to luge.

Which is not bobsled (with its capsule-like rocket), or skeleton (which is similar to luge, but with you pointed head-first down the track). Luge requires you to recline, toes pointing inward to control the sled rails. You stare down your abdomen, head raised slightly. Naturally, the complex (which asks $40 for Saturday lessons) wants to see proof of health insurance _ which should not freak you out. Sue Halter, my instructor, told me that in 15 years here she had seen only one person lose teeth while luging.

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What a relief.

She also said people climb to the top of the track, then look down the slope and say, "No way. I'm done," and never come back. I would not be one of them. The track, said executive director James Rudicil Jr., was designed 18 years ago by Olympic lugers but always intended as a "grass-roots track," to draw the nervous and curious. You have to get good before they let you luge from the very top of the mountain. So amateurs start in the middle, which is still high enough for you to race at 30 miles an hour.

This feels fast when you have nothing between you and the track but your coat and your only way to hold on is the small pegs at the side of the sled. I pushed off. The first curve I took like a pro. The next, I tensed up and one leg waved outward like a pulled turkey bone. I bounced off the wall of the track. Up one side, down another, up one side again. It felt violent. I regained control and took the next turn easily, then hit a straightaway. Staring down my torso I saw a long curve. I hit it fast and rose so high up the side that I noticed the track beneath me. Then I straightened out and could hear Sue yelling, "STOP! STOP!"

At the end of the track, I plowed into the giant foam block set up for total idiots. It all took "23.4 seconds."

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Christopher Borrelli: cborrelli@tribune.com

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