Learning to Snowboard

By Carson Bennett, 3-16-08

	Caption: Me, right before I ate it, again

I’ve been skiing since I was four years old. I’m 28 now, and I’m just starting to get good at it. Why, then, did I decide to try snowboarding? Why did I decide to effectively revert back to a puerile state of snow-sport competence? Well, I thought it would be easy. I thought snowboarders snowboarded because they couldn’t be bothered to learn the art form that is skiing. I thought I would prove a point.

During a trip to Wolf Creek a few months ago I decided to try my hand (or feet, as the case may be) at sliding down a mountain on one board instead of two. I went with a friend of mine, John, who has only skied a handful of times, but grew up wake-boarding, surfing, and skateboarding in the Carolinas. I have never in my life done any of those things, but I inwardly disagreed with him when he said his experience riding water and streets on one board would prepare him for riding the snow. Mountains are not waves, I thought to myself, and snowboarding looks so simple.

On a snowboard you only have to pay attention to two edges, not four. On a snowboard your feet are attached to the board and cannot move independently. When learning how to ski it takes a great mental and physical effort to move legs, feet, skis in tandem with one-another. Hell, I still cross my skis when I get tired or stop paying attention, and I looked forward to avoiding that problem on a snowboard. I oozed confidence when we pulled into the Wolf Creek parking lot.

We rented boards in a little white dome they have set up at the bottom of the hill, below the Treasure Lift. My first snowboarding discovery: the gear is lighter and more comfortable than ski gear. The boots felt like puffy hiking boots, and the board weighed far less than my skis – I think because the bindings are basically a couple of plastic pads with straps. I pictured myself flying over risers, pulling wicked grabs, unburdened by the extra weight I was used to. I’d show those snowboarders how a skier rides!

It’s a good thing we started on the Nova Lift and Susan’s, the bunny hill. My second snowboarding discovery: It’s incredibly difficult to get on an off a lift. I will be the first to say that I have a special prejudice against people who slow down or stop ski lifts due to their incompetence in the simple act of sitting down and standing up, and these people are usually snowboarders. I will also admit that I have now been one of those people. Thankfully, on the Nova Lift, we were all those people. There were a number of complications. I couldn’t figure out how to move forward, for one thing. Standing sideways with my left knee bent at a near ACL-tearing angle, pushing myself forward with my right foot, losing my balance, falling, standing, flailing, I eventually made it to the chair with the help of John and the kind lift operator who slowed – and stopped – the chair. Getting off the lift was worse. I just leaned forward and hoped to fall far enough to the side to get out of the way.

Half-way down the bunny hill I made my third major snowboarding discovery: It hurts like hell to fall. When I finally strapped in and achieved enough balance to stand and gather forward momentum, I almost immediately slammed into the ground. If I caught the front edge of the snowboard, I fell on my knees and wrists. If I leaned too far backward, I fell on my ass. During a half a dozen runs on the bunny hill, my only goal was to alternate falls to even out the damage I was doing to my body.

As you may have guessed (if you’re a snowboarder or just a reasonably logical person) John was doing just fine. “It’s just like surfing,” he said. “Only the mountain is like one big, constant wave.” Great.

I’m proud to say that, by the end of the day, I was doing okay. Yes, I could only turn with the back edge, which required me to switch the back edge with a kind of motion like a leaf falling from a tree, fluttering back and forth, but with far less grace. I could make it all the way down Bunny Hop, a long green run, with only a few wipeouts. But the wipeouts got worse. I would be tooling right along, making my weird fluttering turns, having a grand old time, when suddenly I would catch the front edge and hit the snow, usually with my face, so hard that it made me dizzy. When John would check on me I could only wince or growl at him. He says I’m usually a pretty even-tempered guy. “But today,” he said, “man, you were pissed.”

I found myself lying in the middle of a run after yet another violent wreck, and made another snowboarding discovery (or maybe formulated a hypothesis): Snowboarders don’t sit around in the middle of the runs because they’re selfish lazy assholes (at least not all of them) they sit around because there’s no other choice. First of all, whether you’re a snowboarder or a skier, you can’t immediately recuperate from a nasty wipeout, hop up, and keep moving. It takes a second to get your head back together. Secondly, you can’t just stand around on a snowboard. If you’re standing, the snowboard moves. This is the advantage of having four edges, two boards, and two poles as a skier – you can stand around instead of sitting around. Standing around looks more active than sitting around, and so, I think, garners less wrath from passersby.

I quit at noon. I have never been in so much pain. My tail bone, knees and wrists from falling, my shoulders from pushing myself back up, my neck from whiplash. John took a few more runs, and from the bottom of the mountain I watched him flying down Treasure, a blue run with a bunch of bumps that I quite enjoy when I’m on skis, and grudgingly came to terms with my snowboarding discovery of the day: It’s harder than it looks.

I have a newfound respect for snowboarders. You’re not the brainless, thoughtless, athletically challenged, knuckle-dragging lugs I once thought you were. Not all of you, anyway.