SnowboardingYesterday Akumi, Laura, Judy, and I drove to Mountain High (not a reference to smoking out) for a day of snowboarding. This would be my second time snowboarding since the big Conversion from skiing. Right now, I would rate myself as an intermediate snowboarder and advanced intermediate skiier.

Mountain High is only a two hour drive away from Los Angeles, which makes it ideal for a day trip. The only problem is that it’s only two hours away, meaning anybody and everybody shows up. To start the day, we took a lift up the beginner hill to get warmed up, and the hill looked like the aftermath of a battle scene from Lord Of The Rings. I’m talking Pellenor fields here, with bodies strewn all over the place. The beginners hill is in reality an obstacle course that would test even Hillary Lindh (Alaskan reference).

In any case, we had a great day of boarding. Akumi and I even tried a few jumps, though she fared much better than I did. When approaching the jumps, I need to learn to stay on my front edge. Rather than a “Need For Speed”, I have an intense “Fear Of Speed” when on a snowboard approaching a ramp. I’ll start my approach, gain some speed, and as I get close, start riding on my back edge where I feel very stable on the approach, but very unstable on the landing.

I welcome any snowboarding tips in my comments section.