first went snowboarding back in the early 90s, when the sport was still young and so was I. My first time out resulted in the worst injury of my adult life; a separated shoulder, suffered in a fall on my last run of the day, when I was too tired to still be safely sliding down a steep, snow-covered hill on a slippery carbon fiber board, much less trying to get air while doing so.

Despite that mishap, the subsequent sleepless night, the week in a sling, and the eventual twice-weekly chiropractic appointments that I needed to get my neck straight again after unconsciously leaning to the left for a couple of months since it hurt my neck if I straightened up, I really enjoyed boarding.  Enough to buy a used board through The Reader classifieds back when they were still new and very expensive, and get snowboarding clothing and a jacket and boots and all that fun stuff. I continued to board regularly all through the early and mid 90s, getting out 3 or 4 times a year.  Since there was nowhere to board very near me, in sunny San Diego, I always got up early, drove 2+ hours/150 miles up to Snow Summit or Mountain High or other LA-area ski spots, and returned that evening, usually so tired from little sleep the night before and boarding all day that I could hardly walk or stay awake.

I also took a week long ski vacation twice, once to Whistler/Blackcomb in British Columbia (tremendous terrain and nice vibe and place, but painfully cold with zero snow the week we were there), and Breckenridge in Colorado (way too much flat near the bottom of the slopes, very little challenging terrain, no snow) and after that going up for a day to the crappy little mountains covered in man-made snow in LA seemed sort of pointless.  Also, I never had any friends who boarded to share the drive with me, which made the ordeal much more of a chore.  I went up with mom a few times, but she was a slow skier and we didn't really have any contact once we were there, out on the slopes. Also, my board was very old and heavy and slow, and for several years I had very sore knees, aggravated by my high impact job walking/running around the cement steps at the stadium in San Diego.

As a result, I didn't go at all during the late 90's and early 00's, though I kept wanting to get a good board and get back into it.

Finally, in mid 2003, I moved up to the SF Bay Area to live with Malaya, who had never done any winter snow-related activities, but was curious to try boarding.  With her encouragement and the fact that I now lived just a couple of hours from Lake Tahoe, home to some of the best skiing and most snow in the world, I got a new quality board and bindings for Xmas in 2003, and at the time I'm writing this intro (Feb 11, 2004) we're set to go for a two day ski trip in a week and a half, splitting the trip expense and hotel rental with another couple.

This page collects my various blog updates about snowboarding, with more recent additions on top.

March 2, 2004

I got to board for several hours on Saturday, Malaya took lessons in the morning and hopped and slid down the bunny slope several times after that, and she enjoyed it. She didn't get coordinated enough to stand up for long, but she loved the brief seconds she was able to stay on her feet, and wants to get her own board and better-fitting equipment and wants to go again. In reality, she'd do just as well on a long, gradual slope, since she really wants/needs to just practice standing up and sliding down on something where there aren't 50 other noobs getting in the way, and that she doesn't have to ride a lift up to, or drive all the 3.5+ hours to Tahoe to do.  So we might find some closer place where people just sled and such, and drive up there sometime.

Basically, she just needs to get better before she can appreciate the benefits of the long, steep hills and ski lifts that resorts offer, since for now she'd just be on the bunny hill on her butt most of the time, and I'd be far away up at the top of the mountain on the black diamond slopes.

She'd never skateboarded or surfed or done anything where balance required the feet side by side, and I was afraid she'd not catch on at all and would never want to go again.  So I'm pretty happy that she's interested in it at all, despite the frustration and butt bruises of her first time, and I can imagine that perhaps by next year we'd be able to sort of snowboard together, if not the steepest and fastest of slopes that I enjoy shooting down.

Anyway, I'll talk more about my boarding next time.

February 26, 2004

The snow in Tahoe should be awesome too, since the weather there is pretty much the same as here; just colder due to the much higher elevation.  It's about 190 miles drive there, but the roads curve a lot so I'd think it's less than 150 in a straight line. And the pouring rain here today, and more forecast tomorrow = snow galore up there. The downside is that it was already going to be very crowded and busy there on a weekend, but with "fresh powder" it'll be even more so.  Pity 3 of the 4 people on this expedition are adults with real jobs and can't therefore take off for a 1 or 2 overnight trip on a Monday or Tuesday, when we'd miss most of the crowds and have shorter lift lines.

If you've never skied/boarded any/much, you may be like me (pre boarding) in that you hear, "fresh powder!" and scoff.  Come on, snow is snow, how much difference could it make? I used to hear skiers gloatingly gleeful over the prospect of new snow, and yawn.  It was like hearing the stoner surfer kids going on about how great the waves were, though at least in that case I could imagine that larger or cleaner waves were a lot better to ride than small choppy stuff. But as I said, snow is snow... how much difference could it make if it fell an hour ago, or last week?

I held to this position through my first 4 or 5 times snowboarding, back in the early 90s, since I was going to the various LA-area mountains, where it only snows a few feet all winter, but is cold enough at night to make snow with high pressure hoses.  So there's almost never fresh powder there, and in fact most of the time when/if there is actual precipitation, it's a bad thing since it's in the 40's in the day, and it comes down as rain or sleet, neither of which are very pleasant coming down on your head while you're outdoors with a snowboard or skis strapped to your feet.

However, (you knew there was a "however" coming) I eventually happened to be up there one day when it was colder than usual, and there were clouds and precipitation, and low and behold, snow descended!  Initially this was a pain in the ass, since it was cloudy and my shades started to fog up, and it was too gloomy to see well in them anyway. The clouds were covering the mountain to the point that I couldn't see three chairs ahead of me on the lifts, and with all of the floating snow in the air, some sort of eye covering was essential.  But the humidity caused my glasses to fog up instantly.  I eventually had to relent, painful though it was with my very tight-budgeted ways, and part with $25 or so for some orange-tinted goggles. Those helped enormously (and in fact they still do, since I still have my first and only pair of goggles, like 13 years later) with vision and didn't fog up and kept my face warm.

As for the snow, it was slushy and heavy at first, since the storm was rain initially, or mushy, wet snow.  However as the day went on, it got colder and the snow got lighter, and by the afternoon the snow was descending to earth in gentle, floating drifts, like millions of tiny, dead, angels. And I was finding that dead angels were amazingly soft, fluffy, and amazing to snowboard through.

At first it was difficult, and I kept sticking and tripping on simple turns, though I felt like I was going fine, and actually faster than usual. After some trial and error I realized that I had to give a little extra lift to my inside edge on each carve, since I was riding several inches lower than usual, compared to the surface level of the snow. It's hard to explain/describe without a model or the ability to stand in front of you and pantomime the whole foot lifting/direction changing thing, as I did earlier this evening for Malaya, to general amusement. But anyway, when boarding in powder you have to lean back more, dig the uphill side of your feet down deeper, and give a little hop on each turn for quick carving.  For higher speed, longer turns, you can do it by just leaning into it and making very smooth, powerful changes of direction and weight.  Like those guys you always see in commercials, making the smooth, perfect "S" curves down a fresh wall of snow near the top of a mountain, there's a skill and an art to it.  To turn at speed without sliding sideways any, you must switch your weight just as the board changes direction and in tune with the angle of the hill.

Not to go on and on (wait until Monday's blog for that, when I'm back from Tahoe) but powder feels entirely different than groomed snow, and especially different than last week's snow that's been skied and groomed 50x and is icy in the shadows and windblown.  And powder feels great, so much better than just regular old snow, and allows you to perform and handle the turns in a whole different fashion. To do things at a far greater angle and with more turning and less skidding than you can normally.

Not that skiing/boarding on old snow isn't a great time as well. As I hope to remember in less than 48 hours.

January 17, 2003

Snowboarding!

Even in Southern California, it's possible. There are some decent ski places up East of LA, with 7000 and 8000 foot hills and massive snow-making operations on the nights it gets below freezing. They're actually far higher than the mountains in almost all the rest of the country (aside from the Rockies) but here it's 70 at sea level, while in Virginia and New York they have 5000 foot hills, but it's freezing at the bottom and the top.  Here it's just cold enough at the top that the snow doesn't all melt away each day, and it gets down to 28 again each night, just cold enough to make enough snow to keep it decent the next day, once it's groomed.  Though it is nicer to board when it's in the 50's.  It's actually sort of bad when it's too warm, since you get sweaty immediately, and if you go without a slick windbreaker type of jacket, any falls result in severe rug burns to the exposed skin, on the zero-powdery hard packed ice/snow.

Usually a ski trip from here is a one day excursion, though I think I've decided that's too much trouble.  Better to go for a day and a half and drive up there after breakfast, stay overnight, and come back the next afternoon. Getting up at 5am to drive up there before the bad traffic, arriving around 8, boarding for 7 hours non-stop since it's the only time I get to for a month, and then driving home 3 hours after dark while battling to remain awake is more of an ordeal than a fun mini-vacation.  Better would be boarding for 5 hours and having a relaxing lunch, soaking in a hot tub that night, and then riding until lunch the next day, then driving back that afternoon, not needing to hope you'll snap awake when your car drifts onto the rougher shoulder.

It's also better to go with someone else, to share the driving chores.  My only time ever with personal ads was years ago, when I was really into snowboarding and going several times a year, and looking for a girl/potential-gf to go with me, share the drive, trade thigh massages, etc.

I read some ads, but there were millions, and almost every one of them wanted things I was unwilling and/or unable to do.  I'm sure the personal ads are much the same today, though I've not looked at any in years and years.  Every woman wanted a guy to go out and have fun with, party, dance, etc.  Or else buy her things.  And since I hated to go out and have fun back then almost as much as I do now, I just didn't see any point in bothering.

I also couldn't see calling a bunch of them and hoping to hook up with one who wanted to go on a ski/board day/overnight/weekend.  Plus I figured if one did, she'd be looking at it as some man trying to sweep her off her feet and whisk her away to Vail and buy her a nice ring or two while there.  Meanwhile I was looking for a woman to talk to on the drive up to the San Gabriels whom I could split expenses with.  Yes I know, very romantic.

Plus I figured every woman who did an ad would get 50 replies, and I didn't want to try and compete with them all, when about 47 of them would be more interested in doing the dating type stuff that women love and I abhor.

So I placed my own ad, and got three replies.  I don't remember the wording, but it was one of those 25 word free ones in The Reader, and was something like:

Snowboarding companion wanted!  Experienced snowboarder looking for a female to split driving time and expenses on ski/boarding trips. Me: 23, athletic, talkative, creative, writer.  You 20-30, fit, independent, intelligent.

Along those lines, anyway.  That's more than 25 words, so I must have been slightly more concise.  There was an account number on each ad, and people who were interested would call up the number, and enter the code as an extension, and be connected to my account, where they would hear a message I had recorded.  If they were interested they'd leave one of their own, with a contact phone number.  The phone call and message were $.99 a minute or something like that, which is how the Reader made money off of the whole thing.

As I said, I got three replies.  One was too young, like 17 or something, and sounded really flighty, so I didn't bother with her.  The other two were more interesting, right age range, but neither had any experience boarding, though they wanted to learn.  One was a skier.

I met the non-skier for lunch one day, after a couple of semi-awkward phone conversations, and it was a disaster. She was about 5 foot and way overweight with a short spiky haircut, wearing big baggy white overalls.  I would have thought she was a butchy lesbian who had turned to that path out of desperation at never getting a date (and wasn't doing any better with women than she had with men) if she hadn't talked about ex-boyfriends on the phone. We had zero chemistry and mostly stared at the bad Chinese lunch buffet food, and I was not under any circumstances going to spend 6 hours in a car with her driving to and from a ski mountain.  She never called me back either, so I assume I was less than overwhelming to her as well.  Fortunately.

The other woman was 32, and looked older.  Which at the time was a bad thing, since though I was into dating women older than me in my early 20's (they were more mature and interesting to talk to than the clueless and flighty 21 y/o's I met at college/work) that meant they should be like 28 and look like swimsuit models.  Not 32 and look like soccer moms.

So lack of attraction to her looks aside, she wasn't uninteresting.  We had some decent phone calls and met twice to go rollerblading, which she was very good at and I was new to.  But neither of us was feeling all that much attraction, and it was October or so, and you can't go skiing here until at least mid-December, since there's no snow and the temp isn't cold enough for the resorts to make snow yet.  We said we'd call each other once it was snow time and set something up, but it never happened.

I think I went up 2 or 3x that year, and enjoyed it well enough, even solo.

And that's my big experience with personal ads.

A woman I've been talking to lately has done a lot of personals, and had good success with them.  And she says that yes, she gets tons of calls, so can really pick and choose from the men, and has met some losers, but some nice guys as well.  She's dating one now and they're getting along very well, by all she tells me.  It's almost enough to motivate me to try and meet someone that way.

Almost.

I was initially going to talk about my non-dating experience last night with a semi-cute waitress who was flirting with me, but I got off on a snowboarding tangent after talking about the weather, and it led to this point. And anyway, yet another discussion of how some woman might have been interested in me and how I had no idea of it until a third party pointed it out afterwards... well they depress me just writing them.

And as usual I came home and discussed it with a couple of female friends on ICQ, and both of them pointed out what an idiot I am, and how I'll never date if I don't pay more attention and take some initiative.  Pointing out my social shortcomings is about the only thing I can absolutely count on females for.  The fact that they're absolutely correct in their assessment doesn't make it any more joyous to hear, oddly enough.

Oh, and as for snowboarding this year with my mom, I think we'll go sometime, but there's been no talk of setting a date yet, and I've been paying zero attention to the ski reports, so I don't know if Snow Summit has any good ground cover yet or not.

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