I’ve been here on the mountain for four weeks now, and I’ve been on the hill for twenty of those. Twenty-one, maybe, but I’m going to round that number out. Over the last ten days, I’ve hit a little more terrain, worked on turns, rode some powder, and spent some time in the parks.

My first day out since the day 10 review, I realized I was having trouble making turns. I went to June with a friend, and right turns were just spooking me. I wasn’t making the transition from left to right turn smoothly. My board is set up goofy, but it’s fairly neutral. I frequently ride switch. Actually, I’d ride switch to give my feet, ankles, and legs a break — ie to work both legs equally. Plus, get used to riding switch. So I was having trouble transitioning heel to toe when switch, and toe to heel when regular: ie right turns. Which was weird, because it wasn’t a heel-to-toe thing, or toe-to-heel; it was right turns. Anyway, despite the fact that I had been going down blue-black slopes, I decided to return to gentler slopes and start making a bunch of right turns. It took me a couple days to figure it out.

That’s one of the fun things about snowboarding to me. It’s all balance. Lean forward, lean back, lean right or left, tilt the board, pull up on the nose, whatever. Riding well requires a good sense of your own body and it’s a feeling I really enjoy.

I want to get into park and pipe riding, so after a couple days of just making simple turns, I rode into one of the newbie parks. My first day, I just went over the rollers (a mound of snow with a fixed cross-section left to right and a rounded profile when going over it). It took be a couple days to get used to hitting the rollers straight on, and with speed.

Then we got some powder, and I spent a day riding through the trees and the ungroomed bits on the side of the trail. It was a ton of fun! I hunted for untracked paths through the trees. I rode a bit of powder before, and this wasn’t too deep (about 6 inches), so I wound up working on making turns in the powder, especially on steeper slopes. I know I’ll need more practice in steep powder, but it was great to head through the trees, dart across a trail, then back into the trees again!

Then it was back into the park. At this point, I was more comfortable going left-foot first (which would normally be called a regular stance, cept for my board being mounted goofy means that this is actually switch). So on the non-park bits, I’d ride right-foot first to get better at those turns, then back to left-foot-first for the jumps and whatnot. Terminology is confusing; I wish there was an accepted term for riding left-foot first, for riding mounted-forward-foot first, etc. Really there’s just “goofy” (board is mounted backwards) and “switch” (riding reverse to how the board is mounted), and everything else requires a lot more words…. I figure most people rarely ride switch. It’s a big deal in tricks, and evidently not something most people do much, but … meh. Anyway.

I hit the rollers for a couple days, then started hitting jumps, then got more comfortable hitting jumps at speed and getting air. I’m still not jumping much over the jump; ie pumping my legs to get a boost. There’s a couple small parks; one (Disco) has smaller jumps on a shallower slope, so easier to learn jumps. The other small park (Wonderland) is a bit steeper, and the jumps themselves are shaped a bit more aggressively. I’d usually ride one for a couple hours, head across the mountain to the other, then hit that one for a bit.

Although I’d ridden a box or two before, today was really the first day I did boxes. Still haven’t hit a rail.

View from the top

I also went back to the steeps today. It’ll take me a couple more days to really get used to it. And I also took the gondola up to the top of the mountain. It was incredibly beautiful. They have a great center in the station at the top of the mountain which points out nearby peaks and has a bit of history (both human and geologic) of the region. I peered down the slopes and… couldn’t see it. It’s not a cliff, but it’s effin steep. I got back into the gondola and rode that down.

Next weekend, I’m taking a park-and-pipe camp. Should be interesting. Before that, I’ll be working on both steeps and the park, going for rails, longer boxes, and bigger jumps. They do split the camp up according to skill level. I have a feeling it’ll be me and a bunch of 13-year-olds, but what the hell! hehe

See ya on Monday.