A couple times a year, Bryson travels to Sun Valley with family and friends to go skiing and snowboarding. Bryson and his friends perform a handshake when they go up chairlift 13. This handshake consists of shaking both the left and the right hands individually with their gloves on, then touching both of their boots, followed by shaking both hands individually again with their gloves off, and finally re-shaking just their right hand with their gloves back on. They perform the handshake three times on their way up the chairlift. Successfully completing the handshake three times guarantees that they will hot have a bad fall on their way down the mountain.
In addition, Bryson and his family never say the phrase “This is our last run.” They are superstitious that it is bad luck to say that phrase because someone could get injured. Specifically, one time Bryson’s dad said, “this is our last run” at the end of the day, and he tore his ACL. Because of the bad luck associated with saying “this is our last run,” Bryson and his family and friends never say it. Instead, they will say, “Let’s go check the bottom of the mountain out.”