The Transformation

As I mentioned, I'm a skier.  My daughter is as well (since she was 4 yrs. old).  I'm not afraid to say I've always had a disdain for snowboarders.  Okay disdain is a strong word.  Not out-right hate.  Not pathological dislike.  More of a skeptical uneasiness.  I just didn't get them.  Always sitting at the top of the hill, fixing their bindings. 

I don't know why.  I just didn't think they had much skill.  And, they always seemed to be cutting in front of me with their side-to-side goofy traversing.  Oh yah, and as everyone already knows:  They scrape ALL of the snow off the hill.

Well, let me go on record as saying:  "I was ALL wrong".

A couple of years ago, my daughter's friends goaded her into trying snowboarding.  It was one of those cold January ice-covered days at Welch.  She rented a board, fell a couple of hundred times, got back up, and never looked back.  She was hooked.

So naturally, as a father I was curious.  It's probably just youthful attraction toward all things different and unusual, I thought.  Then I thought:  Why not give it a try?  I'll take 3 lessons to ensure I give it a real chance, then I'll decide.  I bought a board (a 164 cm Ride No.4 mountain screamer).  By the third lesson I had fell a couple of hundred times.  Bought some knee pads.  Ditched the mountain screaming edge-catching suicide plank.  Got a sweet 158.5cm Burton Rippey (circa 2000) and never looked back.  I was hooked.

Now I'm shredding the DBD Back Bowls at Welch on my Burton Custom Flying-V with new Burton Custom bindings.  We recently made a spring break / college road trip out west and BOARDED Park City UT and Steamboat CO.  Didn't even bring the skis.  Ain't life grand.

Now I'm learning to Telemark.  So who knew the weird places this journey would take me?