stubsadventures

It was time. It had to be done eventually. Stubs had to learn to snowboard. This past week, I finally took the plunge, strapped a long thin board to my feel and went down the side of a mountain, a really really big mountain.

Day one involved hitting up the “jelly bean run” at Kicking Horse. Getting to the top of this bunny hill involved getting onto and staying on a “magic carpet” and I have to say, mastering that thing was probably the hardest part of the day. The second hardest part was getting up with the board strapped to your feet, which more than once involved me getting up then falling instantly forward from too much momentum. After six runs down the bunny hill, I was able to get to the bottom without falling and had pretty much gotten using my back edge down. I had also gotten down the art of throwing yourself onto your ass when your body wouldn’t take you to exactly where your head had planned. This, it turns out, is a very important thing to learn early.

Day two, we figured a lesson would do a lot of good. We met up with our guide Jonny who took us back to the bunny hill to access us. After watching me go down once, he said I was ready for the hill. This is when I really started to question his sanity. I was all talk on the bunny hill but there was only one way to get off that mountain once you took the chair lift up and that is down the steep icy slopes.

At the hill, there is something you will witness that I am sure is done only to made adults such as myself feel intimidated to learn this new sport. Something that throws caution to the wind and makes you wonder when you ever got so old. And that my friends, is three-year olds with skis strapped to their legs flying down the mountain. These children have no fear at all and cruise down the mountain, like it’s no big deal, flying by you like you are nothing more than a minor inconvenience in their day. I talked to this one little guy who didn’t even have full vocabulary but could ski as well as he could breathe. Like I said, put on this planet to make me feel bad about myself.

The lesson was really helpful and all was going well until he tried to teach me to use my front edge. I tried a couple of times then on one occasion I “caught an edge” and bit the snow and let me tell you, that hurts. I described it as: feeling like my shoulder was jammed into my brain stem. After that, my confidence was totally shook and I called it a day.

Moral of this blog: snowboarding rocked my world and I’m so excited for a full season of it next year. Just as exciting of the thought of getting better and better and going higher on the mountain is the thought of buying cute snowboard apparel and making sure it matches with my gear. Being a girl is awesome.

Stubs.