Snow Boarding

At my work, a number of people had decided to learn to snow board this year. They bought season passes for Thursday night and new boots, boards and bindings.

I have wanted to try this for a long time and decided on Thursday to take the plunge. I know I will either invest in skis (which I know how to do) or a board because anyone who lives here needs to own these things because of the opportunity to take advantage of the gorgeous mountains.

After work we all piled into one of the guys trucks and went to Cypress. I rented my gear and bought a lift ticket and headed for the bunny hill with a few of the guys in tow to teach me the basics.

Snowboarding is hard...really really hard. It is nothing like skiing which I think is more intuitive given that we have 2 feet not one. I fell and I fell and I fell, but after I started to get down the hill with only a couple of falls the guys left me and I practiced on my own.

Even getting on and off the chair lift is a huge challenge. Coming off the chair lift I fell 3 or 4 times before I got the hang of "surfing" off of it. Even just walking around with one foot in your binding is a huge challenge. It is like skate boarding which I never was any good at.

Despite the fact that it is hard, the thrill of going down the mountain once you've got it is terrific and there is more of a sense of accomplishment then with skiing. I think I will invest in new boots, a new jacket and buy a used board.

I am sooo sore right now though. My bottom and my knees are black and blue and my forearms are aching from picking myself up over and over again. After about 10 runs on the bunny hill, I headed into the lodge and had some beers with everyone and watched the Canucks play. (they lost though)

I could get used to this for sure. There are no pictures however as it was quite shameful and I wasn't going to ask someone to take a picture of me falling on my ass.