Mountain Biking or "Mountain" Biking?

I learned the hard way this weekend that just because you are on a mountain bike, does not mean you are "mountain biking". I thought I was getting the hang of this mountain biking thing, having gone 3-4 times this year. BUT... as it turns out, what I was doing can only be considered trail riding or perhaps cross country riding at best. Lance took me "mountain biking" this weekend and I realized that unless you actually go UP and then DOWN an actual MOUNTAIN, you are not mountain biking.

Lance was with me for the UP part - I was tired after about 2 minutes, had to pull out the old "I just had a baby" excuse (how much longer can I use that?), exhausted a lot of swear words and basically had legs of jello by the time we got to the top. The UP trail had a lot of switch backs and a ton of rocks and by the time we got to the top, I was scared to go back down! So Lance decided to go back for the car and I said I would go ahead and go down one of the easy downhills at SolVista (the ski mountain that is a mountain biking mountain in the summer). As it turns out, I not only was disillusioned about mountain biking, but I also don't know how to follow trail maps. I was at the top of SolVista, and I could see the bottom of SolVista, so I wasn't technically "lost", but I couldn't for the life of me figure out the easy way to get down! Somehow I ended up on a trail with actual jumps that you are supposed to do on your bike, which I know was not the green trail! Some of the more hard core moms in the Moms Club will come to meetings with bruises from going over their handlebars on their bikes. I could not even imagine that happening until this weekend when my front wheel stopped, my bike kept going and there I went - although I managed to evacuate to the side before actually going over : ). My forearms are SO sore from the death grip I had on my brakes the whole way down. But eventually I made it! I ended up walking my bike for probably half of the entire ride - which probably doesn't technically count as "mountain biking" either!