Any snowboarders?

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Heheh... went snowboarding for the first time today, up at Snowy Range Ski Resort, a few miles west of Centennial, WY.

I lost count of how many times I wiped out. Let's just say it was a bad idea to take the "Gunslinger" trail on my third and fourth runs. I was doing alright on the green circle trails, but as soon as I went on the blue square trail, I was basically beating myself against the side of the mountain every five seconds cause I kept catching my forward edge on the moguls while sideslipping. My dad went with me, he suffered a mild concussion halfway down his second run. I indirectly saved his life by making him wear a helmet on the slopes, but he was still a little woozy and kept swerving on the drive home.

I gave up after four runs. I was getting hang of the technique, but I was too exhausted and beat up to continute. I still enjoyed myself immensely and can't wait to take to the mountainside again, but not for at least another two weeks until I heal completely. As for dad, he was still suffering from his concussion when he said this, but I don't think he wants to go again. He said he cant believe he spent $130 dollars to quote "ride a f***ing piece of wood down a f***ing mountain" endquote.

Heheh... so, anyone else here snowboard, and if so, how was your first day on the slopes?

Roxas

I still have my Airwalk board and Airwalk Boots although I haven't went snowboarding for quite a while. Lift tickets are expensive.

Your poll needs a moderate option since I'm not a pro nor a complete beginner.

I've not snowboarded, Roxas, but I have been X-country skiing at Snowy Range. I'm less than a couple of hours from there. I also enjoy camping @ Woods Landing. Although I don't own a snowboard, I do have two pairs of boots, one Airwalks and the other Vans that I use for trekking out in the wintertime as I think they're way more comfortable than what's marketed for "snow" boots.

Another Wyoming aspie? That's great, I thought I was the only one here, haha. My dad thinks we would have been better off doing skiing instead, but I think both of them require a certain finesse. I just picked snowboarding because I've already skateboarded before, so I figured the balance factor would be similar. Besides, no ski poles to lose.

Anyways, nice to meet you, it's cool that we're close together distance-wise. Laramie is less than an hour east of Snowy Range, so it doesn't take too much to have fun in the mountains for me.

I picked "Yeah, but still face-planting every other run".

I took my first snowboarding lesson when I was 28, and granted I'm not nearly rail thin like most folks on the slopes it seems. Incidentally, I took up snowboarding to help get me out of a serious rut I was in at the time (it worked, hooray for snowboarding!).

Anyway, I had decided that I wanted to dive into snowboarding headfirst... but that turned out to be literally and not just figuratively speaking. It was President's Day weekend 2007, a nice three-day weekend with three intro lessons at Smugglers' Notch in northern VT. Not being in shape and physically poorly coordinated, I had the most trouble that Saturday with the basic level 1 lesson. Consistently I was always the last person in the class down the learners' hill, because it would take me forever to go from side to side, and I was so scared of going too fast. My downhill edge kept catching, and I face-planted at least three times as well as landing once on my back and sliding downhill on my back, heh. I needed the instructor to hold onto me while I made my way down, it was that bad. But despite all the pain and the scratched up and bloodied chin and palms and the seriously bruised and sore knees and wrists, I insisted on practicing on the learners' hill until the end of the day. At least I could negotiate the moving carpet ok.

Yeah, I would highly recommend helmets... I've had the NTs at lab tell me that helmets look dorky, but screw that... snowboarding injuries are no joke, and I'm not a teenager anymore! When I fell downhill on my back, my head slammed into the snow fairly hard. If I weren't using a helmet, I'm sure something bad would've happened. From then on I always use a helmet while snowboarding.

The second day I decided to take the level 2 lesson because I was getting better at going side to side, and linking left turns, but I was crappy with right turns (I ride goofy). I also finally went on an actual chairlift!

The third day I took the level 3 lesson, and went on all the green circle trails at Smuggs. I think I also mysteriously lost 5 pounds during that weekend.

One of the trails at the top of the beginners' mountain was very "mogul-ly" and I had a really tough time getting down that trail. I would slide to the side maybe 20 feet and then wipe out. It felt nice though to just lie down, face down in the snow and take a breather, heh.

My thighs and calves were so sore after that weekend, but it was incredible and I did eventually go for more, taking a level 4 beginner/intermediate lesson in March 2007. I haven't gone snowboarding since early 2008, but that time I was going down some easier blue square runs with minor difficulty so I was overall pretty pleased with the progress I had made. If my lower back weren't recovering, and I had more money, I'd definitely try to get some snowboarding in this season.

i'm hopefully going to go sometime in February or march. YAY, i have wanted to try it for ages.

The chairlifts at Snowy Range aren't too bad. They only had one lift open the day I went, it was one of those skate-on/skate-off lifts where you stand on your board and then sit down and let it drag you off the lift ramp. The lift attendants were really nice about slowing things down for the beginners, and they would stop the lifts if someone bit the snow when disembarking at the top. That happened to me the first time, the rest of the time I did ok. The more experienced snowboarders would just leave the lift, slide down the hill and do a u-turn, then sit and ready their bindings before taking off. Me, I would just slide forward and use my free foot to stop, then turn around and skate to the edge of the slope. I was using a rental board from the resort shop, and it had a nice rubber pad in front of the back binding that I could rest my free foot on when skating without it slipping around too much, so that helped with the lifts.

I tell you what though, I'm glad I'm not agorophobic (afraid of heights), cause those lifts went pretty high in between the loading and unloading zones. I was level with the treetops at a few points, and remember these are the tall and thin conifer trees and not the short ones you see at the base of the mountain. On my first lift ride, I happened to glance over to a tree that had Mardi Gras beads draped over the topmost branches. They must have been dropped from the lift, cause there's no way in hell someone climbed that tree to put them there. I was also wondering how many people have fallen from the lifts in mid-transit, cause it looked like a death drop to me.

I'm also a goofy (right foot forward) rider as well, because I used to skateboard and I always put my right foot in front when doing that. It's kind of easier for me to turn my head 90 degrees when I'm looking over my right shoulder. This was fine when I was pointing the right direction, but as soon as I went fakie (backwards), I would ususally overbalance because I would have trouble looking over my left shoulder, and end up flat on my back, if I was going slow enough. If I was going too fast I would usually roll a few times before stopping.

Couple of tips. Firstly, don't just point your board down the slope and go. That is the first way to get yourself killed. Try finding a hill at the bottom that is high and long enough for a decent short run but not a pain in the ass to get back up again. This way you can practice technique before getting on the lifts. Basically, the trick to snowboarding is using the edge of the board to control your speed. This is called "sideslipping", and it's basically how you speed up, slow down, or stop.

When you go down the hill, start off facing downhill with your board perpendicular to the direction of the slope or "fall line". Use your heels to adjust the angle of the board to the slope. Basically, the more acute this angle is, the faster you'll go. Always make sure you leave a bit of an angle, because if your downhill edge catches you're going to be eating snow. Experiment with this for a run or two, then go back to the top, face uphill, and do the same thing backwards with your toe edge.

Once you've gotten the hang of sideslipping, you can master it on the real slopes. Usually the beginner routes (marked with a green circle) have alterating flat areas with minor slopes, making them perfect for practice. You can point your board downhill to gain speed on the lesser slopes, but if you start going too fast, put your weight on your front foot and pivot your back foot around so that the board is perpendicular, then dig in your heels (or toes if facing uphill) to slow down. Once you've got your speed to a more manageable level, you can pivot your back leg back around so that you're pointing downhill again.

This is essentially how to steer a board. You may find it a bit awkward at first, but once you've mastered sideslipping the rest comes easy. The main thing is to keep your center of gravity (essentially your butt) centered over the board, and bend your knees as much as you can. It may seem counterintuitive to lean forward when going downhill, but doing so frees your back foot so that you can steer and sideslip, so don't be afraid to do so!

That's basically all I learned in my pre-trip research and my actual time on the slopes, but it's the basics that you need to know. Finally, you are going to get frustrated a lot during the first three hours. Don't give up. It'll take a while, but once you've got sideslipping and steering down, you will find that it's as fun as everyone says it is.

Yep, I used to snowboard all the time in high school and I was pretty decent back then. My high school had a snowboard team and I used to do a bunch of competitions although I never won anything... In the last 8 or 9 years I've only probably gone up 6-7 times total. I've ridden at Mt Hood (my home base) and Mt Bachelor in Oregon, Stevens Pass (WA) and Whistler-Blackcomb (BC).

My first two days were awful but I got the weight distribution and balance down on my third day (which I understand is pretty "typical") and have loved it ever since.


edit: snowboarding however is kind of an eternal struggle for me because I have a terrible fear of heights and thus hate going on the chairlifts

If they don't have a safety bar I won't get on them.

I grew up snowboarding, and live by the Calgary Olympic Park hill, up until november last year then I broke
my tibula on the first day it snowed, tried boarding down the hill behind my house and didn't see the hidden
culvert, I tried a boarding last week and couldn't handle the stress on my leg, may need better boots with
better support

Actually, I'm only in Wyoming on good-weather weekends where I keep my motorhome in a trailer park in east Cheyenne, the rest of the time I live in northern Colorado not too far out of Denver. I did make it through Laramie around Thanksgiving though. BTW, I would love to see a pic of your snowboard boots, Roxas. My Vans boots are really close to the pic below, and with my pant cuffs over them most think I just have on skater sneaks...

thanks for the tips. v useful. i think i will find it easy as i skate kitesurf and managed to stand up surfing on my first try.

Oh. Well Colorado is not far away at all. I have family out of Boulder and Longmont, we usually drop in to visit every now and then.

I actually used a rental pair this time around, I don't own any snowboarding gear personally, although I could probably get some cheap off of the UW Classifieds. But the boots I rented looked a lot like the pic above.

I have a slight fear of heights, and I do my best not to look down while on a chairlift. Being ~40 feet off the ground in a chairlift that is supposed to be servicing green circle terrain can get unnerving for me. Since Smuggs is exceptionally geared towards families with small children, there are small painted pictures at the top of the lift poles with cute animals with safety messages... so all I had to do was concentrate on looking at the pictures of the skiing mouse saying, "Pull down the safety bar", etc., instead of looking down.

Eventually I got the hang of getting off the lifts, but for anybody considering picking up snowboarding at Smuggs, I just have to say: Don't go on the Village Lift to the top of Morse Mountain!! At the end of the lift awaits a behemoth of pure evil: a 50 foot long downward ramp with a pitch of ~45 degrees! Even the instructors there warned against that lift. That thing has absolutely no business being on a beginners' mountain. It might not sound too bad, but for a beginner snowboarder with only one foot strapped in, it can be awfully difficult to control since you're accelerating at a high rate. I had a tough time trying to slow down with my unstrapped foot, and also found it difficult to turn the board so I could toe/heel to a stop, leading to face-planting. I was perfectly satisfied with taking Mogul Mouse's Magic Lift instead, heh.

During the last couple of times I went snowboarding, I also tried to practice riding fakie, but found it a lot more difficult than I thought it would be. My muscles were already trained for goofy riding and I had a hard time breaking that habit.

The old lift that goes up the main slope at Meadows has one of those, and the chairlift itself is a holy terror too. It's a twin chair with no safety bar and even the bars on the sides of the chair are only like 3-4 inches high. It is SO slow and is over 1000 vertical feet so it takes like 10 minutes to get to the top, and it is the highest chairlift I've ever seen. It is literally 80-90 feet off the ground (depending on snow levels). I hate even having to look at it from the safety-barred confines of the new lift that runs directly alongside it

Yep been boarding since I was in the 7th grade.