Thursday, December 16, 2004
Don't Think and Ride
Another day spent up the hill today. Depressingly, it's only my second day in the whole first week. But then, conditions haven't been that great, and I'm still trying to minimise the number of days my pass has been used before I get a job up the hill.
But today was pretty good. There was almost literally nobody else on the hill (for a while, I was the only person riding the White Pass chair). I think the longest I had to wait for any chair all day was aboot a minute.
There may not have been any fresh snow today (despite resort claims of 2cms of fresh) but the groomers had done a good job, so the riding was fun on trail. In fact, it was very enjoyable. The top layer of snow was smooth and had a bit of give, so it didn't feel like trying to snowboard on a hockey rink.
So, what's with the title of this post?
Well, when doing my best to race down Bear (a nice wide and steep run), I had the rather unoriginal thought that snowboarding is one of those things that must look rather pointless to the outside observer.
But the whole "sliding down the snow trying not to fall over doesn't look like fun" schtick has been done to death. I think "doesn't look like fun" observations reveal more about the observer than the activity.
Sure, I've made my share of "that just doesn't seem like a good idea" comments, and in the most part, I stick by them. But, I'm trying to keep more of an open mind about stuff I haven't tried.
The real point of the title is that while I was pre-occupied by my own brilliance, I lost my heel edge (that's snowboard talk for the metal side of the expensive plank I'm standing on deciding that it would much rather fly through the air than do its boring job of slowing me down as I go across the hill) and skidded down the hill on my bottom. It didn't hurt, because I was going quickly, so I sort of fell along the slope rather than into it, but it was rather embarrassing, since Edouard (my French flatmate) chose that exact moment to turn up behind me.
Whatever, it's not like I'm a great snowboarder (I might be in the to 50% of people at Fernie, on a tourist-prone day), but it's a little annoying that my first mistake is right in front of someone I know.
But today was pretty good. There was almost literally nobody else on the hill (for a while, I was the only person riding the White Pass chair). I think the longest I had to wait for any chair all day was aboot a minute.
There may not have been any fresh snow today (despite resort claims of 2cms of fresh) but the groomers had done a good job, so the riding was fun on trail. In fact, it was very enjoyable. The top layer of snow was smooth and had a bit of give, so it didn't feel like trying to snowboard on a hockey rink.
So, what's with the title of this post?
Well, when doing my best to race down Bear (a nice wide and steep run), I had the rather unoriginal thought that snowboarding is one of those things that must look rather pointless to the outside observer.
But the whole "sliding down the snow trying not to fall over doesn't look like fun" schtick has been done to death. I think "doesn't look like fun" observations reveal more about the observer than the activity.
Sure, I've made my share of "that just doesn't seem like a good idea" comments, and in the most part, I stick by them. But, I'm trying to keep more of an open mind about stuff I haven't tried.
The real point of the title is that while I was pre-occupied by my own brilliance, I lost my heel edge (that's snowboard talk for the metal side of the expensive plank I'm standing on deciding that it would much rather fly through the air than do its boring job of slowing me down as I go across the hill) and skidded down the hill on my bottom. It didn't hurt, because I was going quickly, so I sort of fell along the slope rather than into it, but it was rather embarrassing, since Edouard (my French flatmate) chose that exact moment to turn up behind me.
Whatever, it's not like I'm a great snowboarder (I might be in the to 50% of people at Fernie, on a tourist-prone day), but it's a little annoying that my first mistake is right in front of someone I know.
