Snowboarding

My daughter and I went snowboarding yesterday. We only get to snowboard once a year which means that although we enjoy it, we basically have to relearn how to do it every year. Fortunately, the learning curve is shorter each year as muscle memories (surprisingly) kick in a lot quicker than the year before.

Our first challenge is simply getting from the car to the ticket booth. Well, I should say MY first challenge, since my daughter who lives on a college campus and is accustomed to walking everywhere has no problem with walking. And it isn't the walk so much as it is the lack of oxygen at nearly ten thousand feet that does me in. I find myself stopping twice just to catch my breath. I worry that I may just have to sit on my board and slide back to the car. That doesn't happen, however, and soon, tickets securely fastened to our jackets, we are on our way to the 'bunny' slope.

The first challenge whether you are skiing or boarding is simply getting off the chair. The main thing to remember is to keep the front of your board or ski tips elevated. The last thing you want to do on either is get the front caught on the mound of snow built up beneath the location where you are supposed to stand up and glide off the chair.

I've had some interesting chair lift experiences. Some funny, some quite frightening. One time, I was skiing with my son who was about four at the time. Somehow, rather than ending up sitting on the chair, he ended up sliding off the chair as we dangled about six feet in the air. Fortunately, he was partially hung up on my skis and I was able to hoist him back up into the chair.

Another experience was when I was boarding with a friend who was just learning. The second most important thing to getting off a chair with either skis or boards is to stand up, look where you are going and don't run into anyone else. I find getting off a chair on skis a lot easier than getting off a chair on a board. On a board, you have to 'hang a cheek', which means you have to turn your body slightly sideways to get your lead foot pointing in the right direction so that when you stand up, you head straight off the chair and not into another person, or heaven forbid, a ski life post. (I've done this and thank goodness they are padded.)


So you hang a cheek, get your foot pointed in the right direction, stand up, slide away from the chair AND don't grab anyone else if you lose your balance. My friend ended up grabbing me, I went down and her board went across the back of my head. Fortunately, I only ended up with a headache.

Yesterday, after three goes at the bunny slope, we were ready to advance to the beginner slope. It is my favorite. It's wide enough that I can carve and turn without worrying about going off the side of the mountain. The last place you want to be if you are a beginning snowboarder is what they call a 'road', the narrow trails that come down the mountain.

You usually don't find many snowboarders on roads. What you do find, however, is families of skiers with small children who don't understand safety or etiquette. They frequently stop right in the middle of the road, usually on the other side of a hairpin turn where you suddently come up on them and have to stop so quickly you end up on your butt while they stand their, mouths open, looking at you like 'you' are an idiot for nearly plowing into their precious children when all you were trying to do was to keep from knocking them off the trail and into a snowbank. Fortunately, it was a light day yesterday and this only happened once. We stayed away from roads after that.

We had a great time and I only fell about thirty times. I got really brave (stupid) at one point and decided to try an intermediate slope. It wasn't groomed and there were these huge piles of snow (moguls). I think the key to going down a slope like this (based on my experience of WATCHING other people do this) is to try to go in between the huge piles of snow. I didn't do this. Instead, I took the 'close your eyes and it won't hurt' approach. I faceplanted six times. It wasn't all a lost cause, however, as the snow melting off my face quenched my thirst.

I thought my body would protest more the next day, but this morning I awoke pleasantly surprised by the lack of stiffness, especially after one fall in which I felt every single bone in my back popping and crackling. My daughter said that I probably snapped everything back in place. Kinda like going to the chiropractor for an alignment? Only a lot more fun!