Snowboarding and Skiing. First time for everything.
Skiing is a great time, as is snowboarding. Both are very fun, and inherently dangerous -- two things which coincide with the other.
I skied growing up, and was awesome at it until I quit, circa first grade. I never quite used ski poles; maybe I knew they had some sort of agenda against me. Kids are good at picking up evil the way animals can, so I guess that’s certainly plausible. Anyway, when I was a tyke skiing around with no poles or ski mask or pretty much anything else, it was a big deal when I was finally able to use the big kid’s ski rope-tow.
What is the rope-tow? Why, it’s a device that is both simple in theory and in design. It’s a gigantic rope that’s twice as long as the hill, and its two ends are brought together to form a loop. This loop covers the hill from bottom to the top, and both ends have a pulley. And those pulleys, powered by a machine, spins the rope. People get in line and simply hold on to the rope and get pulled up the hill. Provided they could withstand the whiplash from when their grip tightened around the rope and whipped them along.)
(Sounds very dangerous, doesn’t it? Ask yourself this: would you ever let your kid hold on to this thing while he’s wearing skis and holding two little spears? Of course not. But this was 1982. They were just starting to get rid of the little metal parts on toys that you could take off and put in your mouth. Skiing safety was still further down the line.)
You can guess that the hill isn’t very large, otherwise this wouldn’t work. However, everything is relative, so this was the biggest slope on the hill (for my age), and my new access to the rope-tow was a pretty big deal. I got in line, eager as a beaver, mentally preparing myself for the best time ever. As I daydreamed, I didn’t really notice some older kid nearby, practicing the flying-down-the-hill-at-super-speed stance. When he squatted and bent forward, he tucked both ski poles under his arms and he jabbed a little kid behind him in the eye. I thought this was really unfortunate because 1) the victim was just a little guy and was probably traumatized about even thinking about skiing for the rest of his life, and 2) he was me.
Indeed, when the bottom of the jagged metal pole hit me in the open eye, it scratched it. I went down screeching, got dragged to the infirmary there, and consequently had to wear an eye patch for the next few weeks. Fortunately it only hit the white of my eye so there was no vision damage, but I still had to deal with the attention, something I didn’t want. Things like my aunt awkwardly trying to make me feel good by saying, "Ooh, you look just like a pirate!" come to mind. I would tell her to shut up because I didn’t even want it to be noticed, and then get yelled at for telling her to shut up. That was the end of my skiing career aside from a couple tries back in 7th grade. After skiing down the hill mostly on my stomach, I declared my comeback over.
So what with my indoor track and basketball experiences, it’s safe to say my entire winter sports career existed without snow … up until last year. I was turning 28 and wanted to give snowboarding a shot. I knew I would be good at it because I completely kicked ass on SSX 3 on Playstation2, and I’m a good athlete in general. (This is funny because it’s true. I just had the … the feeling.) You know what’s funny about snowboarding? Many people who have skied their whole lives and then tried snowboarding have gone through horror stories. These are people who are really, really good at standing on two skinny sticks that go down hill extremely fast, but are horrified to stand on one wide stick and go down hill extremely fast. My one friend Colin, a phenomenal skier, tried it once and said that he hit the ground so hard that his snowboard came off and went down the side of the hill, through the woods, and into a river. He walked down the entire rest of the hill, vowing to never snowboard again. Another guy named Mike that I talked to tried snowboarding and said he cried. I laughed and he looked at me dead serious and said, "No, I really cried. I was 32 years old."
Mike’s pussyitis notwithstanding, snowboarding can be deceptively difficult. I suppose the flaw in an adult’s thinking is that he sees a child do it and assumes he can do it. If any smart person actually examines that perception for 30 seconds he will realize that this is very flawed logic. For one thing, children weigh 40 pounds. Hitting the ground hard when you weigh that much is fun. Hitting the ground hard when you weigh 220 qualifies for the ER. For another thing, children are like putty. Just like they can learn new languages easier, they can acquire skills like snowboarding much easier. Most adults are already so set in their ways that new things are almost impossible if you’re not mentally prepared for it. In fact, anyone who’s over 25 and tries snowboarding must be a fool, and is consequently going to get a world-class ass-kicking.
So I tried snowboarding. I went to some mountain in New Hampshire with three friends, one of whom is my girlfriend. Her friend Colin, mentioned above, has a condo up at this mountain. We went up, and since I had zero desire to ski, I wanted to try snowboarding. I rented the snowboard, got some awful snow pants from Colin’s old drawer that only came up to my waste, and some gloves, etc. (The reason the snow pants were "awful" is that beginners should at the very least be wearing overalls-type pants. If you aren’t going to fall many times, then yes, snow pants that go up to your waste are awesome. For me, however, they were going work against me.)
Since they were all accomplished skiers, they went on their merry ways to ski from the top of the mountain down. They said that I should come along and take the "easy route," but at this point in my life I am much too smart for that. I was giving my entire situation much critical thought; they were not. I think they figured that it was easy for them, so therefore easy for me. They were unable to understand why I would have trouble with this, so it got to the point where I told them to just go away. I was sticking to the kiddie trail no matter what they said, so any conversations on the matter were moot.
And goddamn, was I right. The kiddie trail was freaking huge and more than enough room for me to practice. I was finally alone and pretty much had the slope to myself, so I was excited -- excited that I would only humiliate myself in front of several people rather than several hundred. On the other hand, I was also fairly confident that I would pick it up quickly.
When my chairlift reached the point where I got off, the fantasy of flying down the hill evaporated and the entire reality of the situation landed on me like an anvil. Since you can’t have both feet strapped up to the board while waiting in line, you have to unbuckle one and catch the chair that way. So now I had a whole snowboard hanging off my right foot awkwardly, so had to finesse my way off without getting stuck. This was much harder than you realize, because I didn’t have both feet fastened, I had never slid down any sort of decline on a board before, and just the general newness of the situation prevented any and all grace from intervening.
So of course when I was supposed to glide off the seat and down the small hill I fell. Here was another huge advantage of having the hill to myself: no one was coming off the chairlift directly behind me so any traffic jam situations were averted. I hobbled over to one little spot where I could sit, tie my free foot to the board, and get mentally prepared. The fantasy world once again clouded all the red flags I should have seen, so I was thinking of nothing other than kicking ass. I was probably going to do the expert hill after I flew down this petty hill. I got up and felt the board start off slowly. My journey to the pro ranks of snowboarding had begun.
But then I fell. I had gone about 18 inches and fell backward. My balance was really off. I sat up, got the board under me, and stood up. Then I fell again. This time I fell forward. That was a little easier to get up from so I got up rather quickly. I went three more feet then fell. I got up and fell again. When I got up, I fell the other way again. I turned into a human pendulum because every time I got up I fell the opposite way. By the time I reached the bottom of the hill, which was probably about 400 yards long, my longest streak without falling was 8 feet. You think I’m exaggerating right now. You’re wrong.
Thankfully I was still fresh as a daisy so I got right back on the chairlift. As punishing as it was, it was still fun. Not to mention my aforementioned mental preparation -- I was mentally ready for a long day of beatings before I was going to acquire any skill at this. I suppose that was the one thing in my favor versus the people who’ve told me their snowboarding horror stories.
The falling thing was pretty much the main theme of my next few runs, though they became less frequent. That’s not saying much because anything less frequent than "constant" is still a lot. Once I was able to simply slide down the hill, I realized that one of the main things people who don’t fall do is turn the board to adjust their bodies. This included riding on the back and front edge of your board. To do this, you must kick out your back leg either way and put pressure on your heels (back) or pressure on your toes (front). Riding the back edge is also the main way to brake.
On my third and fourth runs I was already trying this. I knew I was going to fall anyway so I wanted to get as much out of each run as possible. I suppose I can brag here because a lot of people I know said they only used the back of the board for the longest time – that is, using the front edge was more advanced. I didn’t know that I shouldn’t have been using my front edge yet, but I’m glad I was by myself so no one was holding me back telling me what I wouldn’t be able to do.
Those moves seem very simple, and in truth, they are. When you’re brand new at it, however, it can get a little garbled. I started going back and forth as you see snowboarders do, cutting on the back edge; cutting on the front edge. The sides of the board are rather sharp, otherwise this wouldn’t be that useful. In fact, I learned how sharp they are because I used them at the wrong angle and paid for it dearly. I was speeding down the hill and went to slow down by braking on the back edge of my board, putting pressure on my heels. For some reason, I confused myself, so as soon as I hit the brakes I put the slightest amount of pressure on my toes instead of heels. The front of the board caught the snow at this awkward angle and all the momentum I had moving forward transferred into all the momentum that was slamming me into the ground. It was probably the hardest I’d ever been hit in my entire life, and this is coming from a guy who played a position in college football where people will tee off on you whenever they have half a chance (inside linebacker).
And remember how I mentioned that I wasn’t happy with my pants situation? It’s because of conditions such as these. When I hit the ground at 25 miles per hour, I bashed into the ice and then kept sliding forward. My jacket was scrunched up around my chest and my pants were eating up snow like a pelican scooping fish from the ocean. I suppose I needn’t mention that my bare stomach also came out to play.
When I got up I had snow all over my face, a red stomach and saggy drawers. It took a good 20 seconds before oxygen was given security clearance to get back in my lungs. In the meantime, I could feel the snow crystals on my face begin to melt, which I found interesting. Apparently, even though the parts of cheek that remained on my face felt freeze-dried, they must have been at least 32.5 degrees Fahrenheit otherwise the snow wouldn’t have melted. As the adrenaline slowly ebbed from my veins, it was becoming more apparent to me how much of a beating I was getting. My body was hitting the ground so hard that the mountain was about to confess to things it never even did.
On my sixth run I had learned not to put pressure on my toes while braking on my back edge, and vice versa. Under my jacket I was wearing a long-john shirt, which I originally tucked into the pants. This had become untucked a while ago, and I couldn’t exactly tuck it in with my gloves or numb fingers. So since it was out in the cold and exposed to more amounts of snow than your average shovel, it started to absorb water and freeze. The bottom of my shirt had become a stretched ice skirt.
When I went to lunch in the café it finally thawed out, and the more I wrung the shirt the more it produced water, almost to an alarming degree. Lunch was good, and I gave tales of my exploits, and somehow the time off and mental gathering helped me figure out what to do, because I only fell one more time the rest of the day. Of course, the fall was when I was on the Intermediate hill thinking about doing the Expert hill next – my body sensed that I was about to put it in danger and was forced to remind me not to get cocky by introducing my ear to some snow.
At any rate, the day was certainly a success, and I acquired a new love for a new sport. I’m in San Francisco now, but when I get back home you can bet I’ll be hitting the slopes all through winter.
I skied growing up, and was awesome at it until I quit, circa first grade. I never quite used ski poles; maybe I knew they had some sort of agenda against me. Kids are good at picking up evil the way animals can, so I guess that’s certainly plausible. Anyway, when I was a tyke skiing around with no poles or ski mask or pretty much anything else, it was a big deal when I was finally able to use the big kid’s ski rope-tow.
What is the rope-tow? Why, it’s a device that is both simple in theory and in design. It’s a gigantic rope that’s twice as long as the hill, and its two ends are brought together to form a loop. This loop covers the hill from bottom to the top, and both ends have a pulley. And those pulleys, powered by a machine, spins the rope. People get in line and simply hold on to the rope and get pulled up the hill. Provided they could withstand the whiplash from when their grip tightened around the rope and whipped them along.)
(Sounds very dangerous, doesn’t it? Ask yourself this: would you ever let your kid hold on to this thing while he’s wearing skis and holding two little spears? Of course not. But this was 1982. They were just starting to get rid of the little metal parts on toys that you could take off and put in your mouth. Skiing safety was still further down the line.)
You can guess that the hill isn’t very large, otherwise this wouldn’t work. However, everything is relative, so this was the biggest slope on the hill (for my age), and my new access to the rope-tow was a pretty big deal. I got in line, eager as a beaver, mentally preparing myself for the best time ever. As I daydreamed, I didn’t really notice some older kid nearby, practicing the flying-down-the-hill-at-super-speed stance. When he squatted and bent forward, he tucked both ski poles under his arms and he jabbed a little kid behind him in the eye. I thought this was really unfortunate because 1) the victim was just a little guy and was probably traumatized about even thinking about skiing for the rest of his life, and 2) he was me.
Indeed, when the bottom of the jagged metal pole hit me in the open eye, it scratched it. I went down screeching, got dragged to the infirmary there, and consequently had to wear an eye patch for the next few weeks. Fortunately it only hit the white of my eye so there was no vision damage, but I still had to deal with the attention, something I didn’t want. Things like my aunt awkwardly trying to make me feel good by saying, "Ooh, you look just like a pirate!" come to mind. I would tell her to shut up because I didn’t even want it to be noticed, and then get yelled at for telling her to shut up. That was the end of my skiing career aside from a couple tries back in 7th grade. After skiing down the hill mostly on my stomach, I declared my comeback over.
So what with my indoor track and basketball experiences, it’s safe to say my entire winter sports career existed without snow … up until last year. I was turning 28 and wanted to give snowboarding a shot. I knew I would be good at it because I completely kicked ass on SSX 3 on Playstation2, and I’m a good athlete in general. (This is funny because it’s true. I just had the … the feeling.) You know what’s funny about snowboarding? Many people who have skied their whole lives and then tried snowboarding have gone through horror stories. These are people who are really, really good at standing on two skinny sticks that go down hill extremely fast, but are horrified to stand on one wide stick and go down hill extremely fast. My one friend Colin, a phenomenal skier, tried it once and said that he hit the ground so hard that his snowboard came off and went down the side of the hill, through the woods, and into a river. He walked down the entire rest of the hill, vowing to never snowboard again. Another guy named Mike that I talked to tried snowboarding and said he cried. I laughed and he looked at me dead serious and said, "No, I really cried. I was 32 years old."
Mike’s pussyitis notwithstanding, snowboarding can be deceptively difficult. I suppose the flaw in an adult’s thinking is that he sees a child do it and assumes he can do it. If any smart person actually examines that perception for 30 seconds he will realize that this is very flawed logic. For one thing, children weigh 40 pounds. Hitting the ground hard when you weigh that much is fun. Hitting the ground hard when you weigh 220 qualifies for the ER. For another thing, children are like putty. Just like they can learn new languages easier, they can acquire skills like snowboarding much easier. Most adults are already so set in their ways that new things are almost impossible if you’re not mentally prepared for it. In fact, anyone who’s over 25 and tries snowboarding must be a fool, and is consequently going to get a world-class ass-kicking.
So I tried snowboarding. I went to some mountain in New Hampshire with three friends, one of whom is my girlfriend. Her friend Colin, mentioned above, has a condo up at this mountain. We went up, and since I had zero desire to ski, I wanted to try snowboarding. I rented the snowboard, got some awful snow pants from Colin’s old drawer that only came up to my waste, and some gloves, etc. (The reason the snow pants were "awful" is that beginners should at the very least be wearing overalls-type pants. If you aren’t going to fall many times, then yes, snow pants that go up to your waste are awesome. For me, however, they were going work against me.)
Since they were all accomplished skiers, they went on their merry ways to ski from the top of the mountain down. They said that I should come along and take the "easy route," but at this point in my life I am much too smart for that. I was giving my entire situation much critical thought; they were not. I think they figured that it was easy for them, so therefore easy for me. They were unable to understand why I would have trouble with this, so it got to the point where I told them to just go away. I was sticking to the kiddie trail no matter what they said, so any conversations on the matter were moot.
And goddamn, was I right. The kiddie trail was freaking huge and more than enough room for me to practice. I was finally alone and pretty much had the slope to myself, so I was excited -- excited that I would only humiliate myself in front of several people rather than several hundred. On the other hand, I was also fairly confident that I would pick it up quickly.
When my chairlift reached the point where I got off, the fantasy of flying down the hill evaporated and the entire reality of the situation landed on me like an anvil. Since you can’t have both feet strapped up to the board while waiting in line, you have to unbuckle one and catch the chair that way. So now I had a whole snowboard hanging off my right foot awkwardly, so had to finesse my way off without getting stuck. This was much harder than you realize, because I didn’t have both feet fastened, I had never slid down any sort of decline on a board before, and just the general newness of the situation prevented any and all grace from intervening.
So of course when I was supposed to glide off the seat and down the small hill I fell. Here was another huge advantage of having the hill to myself: no one was coming off the chairlift directly behind me so any traffic jam situations were averted. I hobbled over to one little spot where I could sit, tie my free foot to the board, and get mentally prepared. The fantasy world once again clouded all the red flags I should have seen, so I was thinking of nothing other than kicking ass. I was probably going to do the expert hill after I flew down this petty hill. I got up and felt the board start off slowly. My journey to the pro ranks of snowboarding had begun.
But then I fell. I had gone about 18 inches and fell backward. My balance was really off. I sat up, got the board under me, and stood up. Then I fell again. This time I fell forward. That was a little easier to get up from so I got up rather quickly. I went three more feet then fell. I got up and fell again. When I got up, I fell the other way again. I turned into a human pendulum because every time I got up I fell the opposite way. By the time I reached the bottom of the hill, which was probably about 400 yards long, my longest streak without falling was 8 feet. You think I’m exaggerating right now. You’re wrong.
Thankfully I was still fresh as a daisy so I got right back on the chairlift. As punishing as it was, it was still fun. Not to mention my aforementioned mental preparation -- I was mentally ready for a long day of beatings before I was going to acquire any skill at this. I suppose that was the one thing in my favor versus the people who’ve told me their snowboarding horror stories.
The falling thing was pretty much the main theme of my next few runs, though they became less frequent. That’s not saying much because anything less frequent than "constant" is still a lot. Once I was able to simply slide down the hill, I realized that one of the main things people who don’t fall do is turn the board to adjust their bodies. This included riding on the back and front edge of your board. To do this, you must kick out your back leg either way and put pressure on your heels (back) or pressure on your toes (front). Riding the back edge is also the main way to brake.
On my third and fourth runs I was already trying this. I knew I was going to fall anyway so I wanted to get as much out of each run as possible. I suppose I can brag here because a lot of people I know said they only used the back of the board for the longest time – that is, using the front edge was more advanced. I didn’t know that I shouldn’t have been using my front edge yet, but I’m glad I was by myself so no one was holding me back telling me what I wouldn’t be able to do.
Those moves seem very simple, and in truth, they are. When you’re brand new at it, however, it can get a little garbled. I started going back and forth as you see snowboarders do, cutting on the back edge; cutting on the front edge. The sides of the board are rather sharp, otherwise this wouldn’t be that useful. In fact, I learned how sharp they are because I used them at the wrong angle and paid for it dearly. I was speeding down the hill and went to slow down by braking on the back edge of my board, putting pressure on my heels. For some reason, I confused myself, so as soon as I hit the brakes I put the slightest amount of pressure on my toes instead of heels. The front of the board caught the snow at this awkward angle and all the momentum I had moving forward transferred into all the momentum that was slamming me into the ground. It was probably the hardest I’d ever been hit in my entire life, and this is coming from a guy who played a position in college football where people will tee off on you whenever they have half a chance (inside linebacker).
And remember how I mentioned that I wasn’t happy with my pants situation? It’s because of conditions such as these. When I hit the ground at 25 miles per hour, I bashed into the ice and then kept sliding forward. My jacket was scrunched up around my chest and my pants were eating up snow like a pelican scooping fish from the ocean. I suppose I needn’t mention that my bare stomach also came out to play.
When I got up I had snow all over my face, a red stomach and saggy drawers. It took a good 20 seconds before oxygen was given security clearance to get back in my lungs. In the meantime, I could feel the snow crystals on my face begin to melt, which I found interesting. Apparently, even though the parts of cheek that remained on my face felt freeze-dried, they must have been at least 32.5 degrees Fahrenheit otherwise the snow wouldn’t have melted. As the adrenaline slowly ebbed from my veins, it was becoming more apparent to me how much of a beating I was getting. My body was hitting the ground so hard that the mountain was about to confess to things it never even did.
On my sixth run I had learned not to put pressure on my toes while braking on my back edge, and vice versa. Under my jacket I was wearing a long-john shirt, which I originally tucked into the pants. This had become untucked a while ago, and I couldn’t exactly tuck it in with my gloves or numb fingers. So since it was out in the cold and exposed to more amounts of snow than your average shovel, it started to absorb water and freeze. The bottom of my shirt had become a stretched ice skirt.
When I went to lunch in the café it finally thawed out, and the more I wrung the shirt the more it produced water, almost to an alarming degree. Lunch was good, and I gave tales of my exploits, and somehow the time off and mental gathering helped me figure out what to do, because I only fell one more time the rest of the day. Of course, the fall was when I was on the Intermediate hill thinking about doing the Expert hill next – my body sensed that I was about to put it in danger and was forced to remind me not to get cocky by introducing my ear to some snow.
At any rate, the day was certainly a success, and I acquired a new love for a new sport. I’m in San Francisco now, but when I get back home you can bet I’ll be hitting the slopes all through winter.
posted by Man Smythe | 3:07 PM
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