Anyone Snowboard?

oh don't worry, it was no secret that I didn't know what I was doing...I didn't make it off the lift a single time without falling.

the hot tub pretty much saved the weekend, without it I don't think the snow angels would have been possible.

Those jeans are great, they're made by Jeep and have teflon fibers woven into the denim so they're almost 100% waterproof. I spent 75% of my time on the ground and my knees were the only part of me that got even a little wet.

Looks like a good time. And good beer. Yuengling......Mmmmm tasty. You cant buy that up around where i live.

   Mike

I promised a recap, just took me a while to get the pics from my girl.

Here's what I learned: I am not good at snowboarding. Yet. I fell 36 times going down the hill the first time (yes, I counted), and nearly got kicked off the mountain by the ski patrol. We did start on Mardi Gras though, which turns out is by far the longest run in the park. By the time we were finished I was much better than when I started, but then again, my flask was also much emptier too. One of my falls was so violent that I broke the high-back off one of the bindings on my buddy's snowboard.

I spent most of my time on my toe-side edge, and found that I had a real problem with trying to transition to the heel-side. It will probably take me a few more trips to get good at switching back and forth between them. It rained all day Saturday, so we actually only made it out on Friday night, which was a little disappointing, but the crew I was with didn't let that get us down.

On to the pics.

Here's the crew right after we arrived at the house on Friday. I'm holding tha drunk stick, the trophy awarded to the individual who succeeds in getting the most drunkest the day before. This trip was its inauguration. It has since been to St Patty's Day, Indians Opening Day, and a B-Day bash in a hotel. I'm not even 100% sure how we took this picture, because everyone's in it.


This is the before shot, just getting laced up to hit the hill. You may notice that both bindings still have the high-back.


Here we are about halfway through the night, the gift shop gave me that ridiculous poncho/trash bag thing with Holiday Valley on the front of it to wear. I thought it would be hilarious to tell my friends I was so good at snowboarding that HV sponsored me and gave me the first thing they could find with their name on it. They didn't believe me. It was also real slippery and made my falls last longer. So bonus.


Our hero at the end of the night. Notice the missing high-back.


Well, not quite the end of the night, we still had business to handle in the hot tub.


Which of course led to snow angels.


And then Saturday it rained and we were sad. But we made up a drinking game to go along with the original Highlander movie. I'll give you a hint, something happened anytime someone said "There can be only one"


I think I'll stick to riding things I have to wear a life jacket for.

That's good news, thanks for the input guys. We take off for NY next Friday, I'll be sure to post pics and videos if we take any when I get back home.

Your ankles should be good. Snowboard boots allow no movement in the ankle area so I think you'll be fine.

i'm not saying don't drink at all...just try not to get really drunk while you're still strapped in...bad things happen that way...

MI-nick wrote: weight on your front foot, steer with your back foot (kind of like a rudder), easy on the sauce until your done for the day...

I like the rudder analogy, Ima use that...but when you say lay off the sauce, that's only until noon, right?

And I promised I'd give the youtube thing a shot, here goes. Try not to scrutinize my form too much, the end's really the fun part...you can tell by my sister's reaction. Unfortunately she cuts the camera off before I start to toss, cause that was not the fun part. At least I covered some distance before my re-entry.

Thanks for the encouragement Brian, you're the first person who didn't at least allude to me wiping out. I have to admit that there's a part of me that hopes you're wrong about it being easy to get mediocre on the first day...the combination of mediocrity, whiskey, and pretty girls tends to make me say things like 'hey, watch this!'

If I ever get smart enough to work that youtube thing I'll post what happened to me at a cable park in Orlando in December. 50 degree water, no wetsuit (that's +1 man-card point for those of you playing along at home), and me saying, 'hey, they got ramps out there, I bet I can do that' led to the first fall I've ever taken that made me puke. I've watched the video a hundred times, its funny every time (especially my sister laughing holding the camera), and I still can't figure out how it happened.

This is a pretty funny topic! I'm on the other side - been snowboarding since 1992 (started on a split tail board!), have only been wakeboarding since Aug '08.

My advice for your first time out - keep the speed down. The pic below is a girl I know after catching her heelside edge and sticking her arm out behind:



The first few times out are going to hurt. That hot tub is going to feel damn good, even without the ladies. There is lots of good advice on this thread - don't try to go edge to edge (link turns) - right away, stay on your heelside edge first (facing downhill), then try toeside edge(facing uphill) for a while, sliding back and forth. Never let the downhill edge touch the snow. You want to think about balancing on your heels or toes, never flat footed. Most of your weight will be on your front leg (exact opposite of wakeboarding). It is definitely a similar feel though. Very addicting.

That is a sweet phone video, makes me wish I was taking a trip out west this year.
Couldn't resist throwing in this video link from last winter, I shot this at Monarch Pass in Colorado of my brother, we were hiking off-resort:


Playing in Colorado powder

Since you guys are talking about androids and snowboards in the same thread I'll add this to the discussion. Here's a video I shot with my motorola droid in SLC last month. Not too bad for a first time video running down the hill.

Foot's Snowboard Run Brighton Ski Resort.

   I was snowboarding before it was cool. Back when I started there were only 3 mountains in New England that even allowed snowboarders(and it wasn't that long ago). I had to drive an hour and a half to even by a snowboard back then, and they only had 2 models in stock. I wish I had stuck it out. My senior year in HS I took up skiing because all my friends would go skiing at mountains that did not allow snowboarding. I gave up skiing a few years later because I didn't really enjoy it that much but until recently did not get back on the board. Now, I occassionally hit he slopes with the kids and had to learn all over again, which at my age can be painful.
As Morfoot said, weight on front foot. If you keep most of your weight on your back foot like on a wakeboard, you're going to be in deep sh*t if you need to turn.

   Mike

tullfooter wrote: I'm guessing if your not going to wear the bucket, there is no way you'll be sportin' wrist guards.

Well, a wrist injury is one of the squares, so I wouldn't want to consciously put someone at a disadvantage by "protecting myself". That wouldn't be very fair.

mdvalant wrote: This year we grabbed the android phones most of my buddies have and got the speedview app...GPS speedometer in it, pretty sweet. One girl on skis topped out at 45mph...pretty dang sweet!

Hold on, there's something I can put on a phone to tell me how fast I'm going? Does it save your top speed or something? Or is it instant? Is it free? We may have just entered a whole new realm of ski trip gambling...

Why, when I type Goldsl*ger, does it replace the "a" with an "*"? You would think it would rep[lace it with a " "

IAughtNaut wrote: First off, I have to say that second picture is freakin cool, I hope you bought the photographer a beer for that one. Did you land it? And sure, its possible to look cool, but I don't have the top gun goggles and Johnny Cash snowsuit with matching helmet and my name on the back...something tells me I won't look as good in a bright yellow helmet with RENTAL spray-painted across the front in pink letters...hello ladies!

hahaha well said...well said indeed. I did land that I think. It was just my dad using the little cannon diggy cam we had at the time. Worked pretty well though, it was so bright it was hard to take a bad pic.