the bear that is big

Went to Big Bear this weekend and stayed at Corey’s cabin. This was my 2nd trip to the cabin, the first being the one where we got snowed in with no chains for our vehicles. This time, we all had chains and didn’t need them.

When we left, I hadn’t decided on one aspect of the trip just yet. See, Phil was going and he was planning on snowboarding. I definately had the desire to snowboard, but was very nervous about going through with it. Well, on Saturday, I decided that if I didn’t do it, I would regret it. Sometime in the afternoon, we headed over to the rental place and for $20 I rented a snowboard and boots.

Then we headed over to Snow Summit, payed $30 and got our lift tickets. Now, not everyone was into the idea of strapping boards to their feet and throwing themselves down a hill. It was Phil, myself and Corey.

We started with the bunny slope, as my experience with snow was limited to sledding down ungroomed hills in Big Bear and Tahoe. Anyway, we got our first lesson in snowboarding… being able to stand up and move forward while only attached to the board by one foot. This was a quick learning experience, as I found that not being able to stand up meant my legs going in opposite directions and my groin complaining a lot.

We got in line for the lift, myself on one chair and Corey and Phil on the one behind me. I was instructed how to get off the lift at the top, but was still nervous because getting off the lift at the top was to be the first time I would have both feet on the board and move along snow. Well, this was supposed to be real easy until the two people on the chair ahead of me stopped things up. The guy got off the lift just fine, but the girl was scared and didn’t make it in time. They had to stop the lift and work for 5 minutes to get her to come down. When she finally complied, they started the lift again and I smoothly sailed off the chair and stabalized myself.

Once at the top of the hill, I strapped my other foot in and began the very painful process of standing and then falling all the way down the slope. Corey fared about as well as I did. I was aware that falling on the slope was painful, but until I fell a number of time, it’s didn’t really sink in. We eventually got to the bottom of the slope and managed to dislodge ourselves from our boards. Corey and I had both suffered a great deal of knee damage from this first run, so we decided to take a break and go sit down at the lodge with the rest of the folks.

After a rest and much contemplation, I decided that I needed to get my money’s worth and I went back out to find Phil. Corey, however, was still having a lot of pain from the spills she took and decided against it. Once I found Phil, we headed back up the bunny slope. We did this 3 times. Each time was a little easier, even with the falling and the crunching and the twisting. I took a number of spills that I was sure had broken something or damaged something, but each time I got to the bottom of the slope, all I wanted to do was go back up.

Now, at this point, I understood a lot of the basics of snowboarding and I had gotten the hang of being able to stop myself. However, I was still having the problem of only being able to go straight down. This was an issue as I would get going really fast and become unstable, which obviously meant that I would eat some snow each time. I was watching the other snowboarders and trying to figure out what they knew that I did not. This knowledge did not come to me on the bunny slope.

After the fourth run on the bunny slope, my ass was literally freezing off. I could no longer feel my butt-cheeks and I was ready to get warm and have a drink. Phil was in agreement with this assesment. So, we went into the lodge and met up with the other folks. They all decided to head home and left Amanda, Phil and I at the park. The three of us got a drink at the bar and I had some french fries. We contemplated what to do next.

Well, Phil and I felt that our time on the bunny slope was not enough to have made the trip worthwhile, so we had the great– no… masochistic idea to try our luck on the big slope. We boarded the super-fast lift and began our 5 minute trip up the mountain. The trip up was scary as hell. This lift was much higher off the ground than the other ones and the wind was really starting to pick up as we neared the top. Not to mention having to see the whole course that we would be travelling down on a board strapped to our feet.

We reached the top and realized that our gloves had become so saturated that our fingers were now unable to warm up inside them. We attached our boards and sat down to gather some warmth. We looked out over the start of the course and saw that visibility was maybe 50 feet. The wind and the snow was causing me to get a little worried.

Once warm, we took the leap and started down the course. What we weren’t aware of was that the top 1/4th of the slope was all ice. See, the wind had made sure to blow all the powder off the hill and we were sliding down the hardest snow I’ve encountered. This would have been fine if I had better control at this point. Unfortunately, I did not. This meant that I fell a lot. Now, at this point, I had gotten the hang of keeping my board perpindicular and slowly moving down the slope, but I still fell and when I fell I usually stopped myself on my hands. This was a great method of sotpping on the soft snow… not so much on the ice.

Falling every 5 feet and slowly moving down the hill seemed to be working. At this point, I just wante dto get down as quick as I could without hurting myself. Once we got to the softer snow, this attitude changed. After one particular fall, I stayed down to rest and Phil came to rest not too far from me. We sat and watched the other snowboarders go by us and talked about how easy they made it seem.

Easy indeed! Immediately after making that statement, I hopped up and started down the slope again. This time, however, it clicked. I had it. I knew how to snowboard! I couldn’t believe how easy it was all of a sudden. This didn’t mean that I was able to stay upright, but I was able to fall a lot better and once I fell I was able to jump right back up and keep going. I was crossing back and forth across the slope and it was amazing. It felt so natural.

The spills continued, of course. In fact, my worst spill happened after realizing that I knew what I was doing. I was cutting across the slope toe-in to the mountain and I went to make my left turn and cut back across heel-in. I was going too fast, though. Instead of turning properly and having my heel in, my toe went in and my board caught in the snow. This sent me face-first into the snow. Every other time this happened, my board stayed stuck in the snow and it stopped me from sliding down the slope. This time, however, my board turned and followed parallel to me and I slip about 10-15 feet with my face in the snow! When I finally stopped, I called out to Phil and he stopped to make sure I was okay. AFter regaining the ability to form words, I assured him I was fine and we both continued down.

At about the same time that I figured out what I was supposed to be doing, Phil also had a lightbulb go off in his head and he was mastering the board as well. This meant that we stopped less and both hauled ass down the slope. The most exciting thing that happened to me after this was when I caught some air. Yeah, that’s right… I’m trick-tricky! Ok, not really, as the air I caught was unintentional. I was cutting across the slope (heel-in) and directly in my path was a small bump in the snow. I couldn’t steer away from it and I was going too fast, but when I hit it, I felt my board leave the ground and I was airborne! I was maybe an inch off the ground, but it was awesome!

Anyway, we made it down the hill a lot faster than I expected, but that was due to the greater speeds we were able to sustain. Phil didn’t really fall very much and most of his falls were intentional. I fell quite a bit still, but each time I fell, I could clearly see why it happened and it helped me to understand what I was doing. Once at the bottom of the hill, we agreed that we really wanted to go back up, but the idea of boarding on the ice again was keeping us from it. Not to mention the fact that my body was starting to let me know that it had taken enough trauma for the day.

Back in Pasadena now, two days later, and my body hates me. All of my muscles are sore and I can’t lift anything with my arms… actually, I can barely even lift my arms! The pain is bad, but it’s the kind of pain you appreciate. It’s the pain that reminds me of how much fun I had up there.

So, it’s a foregone conclusion now that I will be snowboarding again. Hopefully very soon, as I can’t stop thinking about it. Once I got the hang of it, it was like I had been doing it forever. Now, I just have to make sure I keep up with it and keep learning every time I go.

A huge thanks to Phil for giving me the confidence to go through with it. Had I been alone trying to learn, I would have made it down that first run and given up. Now, I’m completely hooked. I can’t believe I am a snowboarder. And I thought the closest I would ever come was playing Tricky.