Riding

The winter days are short here, and the ski lifts only run for a few hours, about 8:30am - 4:00pm. So snowbarding starts fairly promptly in the moring. Plus, all the groomed runs are best in the morning, there can be more ice, or densely packed snow, exposed as the day goes on. There are two main peaks in Whistler itself, Blackcomb and Whistler. Brett and I arrived at Blackcomb at 8:30am, after dropping Cheryl off at work. Brett has been great this trip, and for the snowboarding he kindly loaned me his older snowboarding gear.

A lift ticket was quickly organised and then Brett demonstrated how the bindings work. Ok, straighfoward enough. Before I knew it, we were on a chair lift, up the mountain! We headed up 'Wizard' for my first run, 565m up! There was a fresh breeze during our journey, I needed to keep blowing my nose. This is difficult enough. First the snow gloves have to come off, then the goggles, then unzip the pocket, blow the nose and then put it all back. Fun and games.

On the way up, Brett explained the method of getting off the chair lift. Yeah, what a disaster!! On my arse almost straight away!! You just have to laugh really :). We began with 'leafing' a method of slowly travesing any slope. The first problem was I couldn't get on my feet, when facing down the mountain. So every time I fell over, I had to roll in the snow on to my belly and push off that way. So I spent most of my first day on the toe edge. Brett was very patient in my instruction.

Wizard is between 1 - 2 km long and that first run took over 2 hours!! There was lots of falling over :). Although after a while I did begin to learn some turns. Snowboarding is so different to anything else I've done. The key, (I've been told) is to keep your body mass centred over the board. Steering is achieved by directing the torso in the direction that you want to go. After the first run, my legs were shaking, it takes so much concentration and energy. I took a break while Brett went on a solo run.

Brett returned shortly and then back to the Wizard. This time things went much more smoothly. Leafing is fully under control, and after that last run I can manage turning in both directions. Admittedly I turn much better in the left direction, but that will get better with practice.

We were too distracted to think about photos, but I'm sure we'll get some next time!