Meet the ski patrol
Well, I have done a fair amout of sking this year maybe 10-12 times so far. Time to do something new and try out snow boarding. This seems odd for me since snowboards are generally the cool kids and I’m not exactly stereo typical cool. Anyway I signed up for the Bogus Basin passport lesson deal, 4 lessons + season pass + equipment for the lesses for $260 since we were buying the season passes for next year anyway (good deal if you buy them early). My first lesson was a week ago wednesday and was typical of beginners… lots of falling on a beginner hill that felt really pathetic since I was getting good enough to really scare my self sking (30-40 mph floating down the hill). The bad thing about the lesson was that the snow was closer to ice than snow (it wasn’t ice, just really hard snow). You see the only slots left for lessons were at night and it got warm enough during the day to turn to nice soft spring sking, then the sun went down and winter came back. So by the end of the first night I had bruises for knees, beat up arms, sore butt, etc… typical first attempt at boarding. The next lesson was the next day and the snow was the same HARD except I was already tenderized. I made it through the lesson to the last run down and was just trying to survive when I tried to switch from my toe side to my heel side and got lost somewhere in the middle and fell. Well this time the board rotated more times than my body, my knee (yes the one right above the screwed tibia) went pop, pop, and proceeded to make me all dizzy and nausiated. The instructor was behind me and got the snowboard off my feet and I was able to sit up but still felt really weak. It’s kinda hard to describe, probably a little like using banned substances. Well ski patrol came by and decided I need to be taken in. So they went and got a snow mobile and picked me up. I didn’t ride in the sled just sat on the back. I could walk slowly and stuff it just hurt a bit. They took me to their clinic and poked at my knee and asked me if maybe the universe was trying to tell me something about me and boarding??? Seems it was a minor sprang kinda thing no serious damage just swelling and soreness. So I took the weekend off of sports, kind of a bummer since I was planning on snowshoeing, raquetball, general exercise at the club, and maybe biking on Sat. But we went to a movie on Sunday and I worked on my taxes (not near as exciting at throwing yourself down a mountain) or dragging some poor soul across creation on snow shoes.
The day after I got hurt I got a little crap at work too, my boss and one other guy think boarding is the darkside of the force and most everyone thinks I’m a little well run amok.
Since I was out of action for the weekend I went shopping, bought a snowboard, boots, bindings, and new wheels for my road bike. This is why I need to be out doing sports, I spend too much money if I have time to go to stores. The board came from play it again sports and was $199, the boots were $109 and everything was 25% off so I got a pretty good deal. The wheels came from REI, REI is a great store, and I had a dividend of $129 from last year’s spending at REI (the really scarry thing is that only half of our purchases qualified for the dividend).
Anyway back to the lessons, Wednesday I was back up at bogus again for the lesson hoping my knee would not regret my ambition. Things went much better we went on some harder runs and I made a few runs and there was FRESH snow… lots of it and it was still snowing! FRESH snow is a wonderful for falling on / in. It is soft, it is forgiving for edges it is more fun. Thursday came and I was up there again and there was more SNOW! It was some of the best snow I have seen at bogus a great day / night to be learning boarding.
This was so much fun we headed up again tonight (friday) the snow as okay, but not great like it had been on Thursday. I tried sking again. It took a few runs to get the speed back to reasonable levels (i.e. tell your legs start to shake ’cause you are scaring yourself) but it came back.
I will continue learning to board on the upcoming weekends, I understand that spring (i.e. slush) is good for boarding and bogus has a lot of snow this year so they should have a lot of slush this spring.
p.s. spring training is coming and my goal for combined miles on my bikes over the summer is 2,000 (that’s a lot of gatorade!).