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Snowboarding/Skiing


coastercrazy 9

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I couldn't find a thread using the search button, so if it exists, than I'm sorry. As the description states, no matter what your skill level is, you can join the conversation. The uses of this thread are to share your experiences, videos, photo's and even advice to newcomers to the sports of Skiing and Snowboarding. I'll begin by saying that I am a snowboarder, and took my latest trip to Big Boulder Ski Resort, in PA. Great pow, great terrain parks, and an awesome atmosphere, I have to say that it is one of my new favorite mountains. Other favorites include Blue Mountain, Camelback Mountain, Shawnee Mountain, and Jack Frost.

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Mt. Baker is my home mountain> I don't think we have a terrain park, but there is a halfpipe that is slowly getting filled in by the huge amounts of snow. ^.^ If you think a PA resort has tons of powder, then you need to come take a trip to Mt. Baker! Other mountains I have been to include Whister Blackcomb, and Grouse Mountain. None of the other mountains I've been to even come close to Baker though.

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I've only been snowboarding once and very much enjoyed it. Scared me (and gave me a bigger rush) more than any roller coaster ever could. I'd definitely like to take more lessons and do it more in the future.

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along with riding coasters and traveling, snowboarding is another passion of mine.

 

I've been riding for about 16 years. It's one of my favorite things to do to just get away from everything. There's nothing better than riding chairlifts up the mountain when it's dead silent, especially at night. So peaceful.

I used to love riding park; half-pipe in particular. But, after many years of skateboarding and being an idiot on my snowboard, I can no longer do that stuff, as my knees are shot! Now, I just cruise around and have a good time, maybe bump off a few hips here and there.

 

I used to manage a skate shop that sold snowboard gear, so I used to get hooked up with stuff all of the time. Reps would hook me up, I'd get things at cost, and I used to go to this thing called Test Fest, where you would test out all of the new products for the next year to see if you want to carry them at your shop or not, and could ride with some pros. It was awesome! But the best thing about working at the shop was that we got free lift passes to every place in the state, every season. I used to ride every single weekend in the winter, and some weekdays. The shop closed about 9 years ago, and I've only been able to go a handful of times since then (Maybe once or twice a season). I definitely miss it! Plus, I'm still using my old gear that I got when I worked at the shop. It may be old and out of style, but it still works, haha.

 

I would LOVE to do one of the TPR winter trips out west one of these years.

SnowboardingMask.jpg.025e672a92abebdd979f6867e2c94767.jpg

Here's a pic of me from a few years ago, riding the chairlift.

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I was just talking with some friends last night about skiing. I have never tried it, but being that I live in an area where it's winter five months out of the year, it might be worth it for me to learn!

 

I definitely want to get out to Holiday Valley and ride the mountain coaster this year, but would also love to try the tubing there and get an all day ski pass. Getting a weekend room there would be great too, but I hear that it's VERY expensive.

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Yeah, I know from experience that snowboarding is not a cheap sport at all. If you can find the right group of people to go with though, it can be the time of your life. I highly recommend anyone trying it at least once or twice. If you need a little incentive, heres a video of my most recent trip. Enjoy!

 

Trust me, sitting in a lodge after 23 runs and playing some cards had never felt so good...

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Snowboarding is the best thing in the world (sorry rollercoasters). I have lived in the Tahoe area most of my life, and my parents started me skiing at the age of 2. I switched to snowboarding in High School and haven't put skis on since.

 

I'm actually spending new years eve snowboarding then going to watch the fireworks, then spending the night in a cabin. I'm going to snowboard on new years day as well (we'll see how that goes).

 

I'm pretty excited as in a couple weeks I'm going on my first real 'ski trip' to Colorado. I've never been anywhere outside CA/NV and OR. I will be going to some of the Vail resorts and maybe some other ones as well. If anyone has any tips about those mountains let me know.

Edited by SLUSHIE
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I've never tried snowboarding, but I love skiing! Unfortunately, it's been a terribly long time since I last went. That was at Snowshoe in West Virginia (love the lodge and village being at the top of the mountain). I was there on a New Year's Eve when it came a huge snow storm, so my buddy and I got snowed in and had to spend another day skiing (darn!). One of the best New Year's Days ever!

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I never skiied as I rarely had a free weekend in the winter and valued my knees, many of my friends messed up their knees on the slopes. I finally got dragged to a ski trip a few years ago and tried snowboarding instead of skiing. For two days I fell on my ass, hips and head repeatedly and had trouble picking it up but enjoyed it while I was on my feet. Finally, on the plane ride home, everything the instructor was saying stuck in my head and the next time I went was very enjoyable.

 

I have only gone once since and never did any difficult trails but I was proud to try something new at age 40 and enjoy it.

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I used to ski but have been hooked on snow boarding ever since I first tried it. I will say that after a few trips of falling on my arse all day getting an instructor really helped me pick it up since some of the motions are kind of unnatural, but once I figured it out I found it so much more entertaining then skiing. I don't have bad knees (surprisingly) but I always felt like if you did have bad knees boarding would be easier on them than skiing because both feet are always locked into position on the board so there's not as much of an opportunity to have one knee get twisted out of alignment even when you fall. I have had some pretty nasty crashes on a board that were probably worse than any I ever had on skis but those were probably my own fault.

 

I really need to go boarding again, stupid Florida and all it's sunshine.

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Snowboarding is actually easy to do, it's just very unnatural and scary feeling when learning. The way to keep yourself up doesn't feel normal and makes it feel like you're going to tip over, so most people just fall over naturally. The main thing to keep in mind when learning, is to never keep your board flat on the snow! That's what causes you to catch an edge and makes the sudden slams to the snow happen. You should always be on an edge. Really, all you need to do is keep rocking from heel edge to toe edge, heel edge to toe edge, heel edge to toe edge..... it's that simple.

 

If you ask me, speed is the name of the game, and not being afraid. I try to explain it to people as being the same as riding a bike. The faster you go, the easier it is to balance. The same applies for snowboarding. I've taught quite a few people to snowboard and I always steer them away from the bunny hills. Those slow things are the secret nemesis of beginners.

Edited by STR8FXXXINEDGE
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Snowboarding is actually easy to do, it's just very unnatural and scary feeling when learning. The way to keep yourself up doesn't feel normal and makes it feel like you're going to tip over, so most people just fall over naturally. The main thing to keep in mind when learning, is to never keep your board flat on the snow! That's what causes you to catch and edge and makes the sudden slams to the snow happen. You should always be on an edge. Really, all you need to do is keep rocking from heel edge to toe edge, heel edge to toe edge, heel edge to toe edge..... it's that simple.

 

If you ask me, speed is the name of the game, and not being afraid. I try to explain it to people as being the same as riding a bike. The faster you go, the easier it is to balance. The same applies for snowboarding. I've taught quite a few people to snowboard and I always steer them away from the bunny hills. Those slow things are the secret nemesis of beginners.

This is the biggest part of learning to snowboard. I couldn't agree with anything said here any more. As my friends like to say, Skiing: Easy to learn, hard to master. Snowboarding: Hard to learn. easy to master.

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My friends and I did a learn to snowboard lesson last January at Blue Mountain, PA because of the discounted deal for learn to ski/board month. Blue Mt. doesn't do big group lessons instead they do 3 stations that you move to as you improve on a certain skill. I believe they do stations so you can go at your own pace and get more individual help, but my friends and I felt like we barely learned anything. At point at the 3rd station, where you learn how to connect your turns, we counted 23 of us each waiting to get help from the 2 instructors working that station. Needless to say that the 3 hours we spent on the bunny hills we were not able to do our toe turns and just fell on our faces instead. You were allowed to go back down to the bottom of the hill to revisit a station if you needed to practice on something again.

 

I started skiing 2 years ago as a freshman in high school and I've gone skiing only 3 times at Shawnee Mt.. My friend and I did a group ski lesson and then went right onto the mountain because we got the hang of it. Then I went back later that month and taught myself how to parallel ski. I went once last year and was surprised that I was able to remember what to do.

 

My goal for this year is to give boarding another chance.

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Boarder here! Skied quite a bit when I was younger but I wasn't getting better after a year or so and I could barely do intermediate runs because I was not comfortable on skis. Snowboarding come naturally either but I got better as I went along. I don't board too hard but In can do most runs besides a few tough double black diamonds which freak me out a bit. I also don't really do tricks because I am a fairly cautious person, but I have sped up and loosened up as I practice more. I also have a vacation home in Big Bear California so I go there fairly often... at least 2 or 3 times a year.

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Needless to say that the 3 hours we spent on the bunny hills we were not able to do our toe turns and just fell on our faces instead.

 

Toe Turns are the hardest thing for a beginner. It would be pretty amazing if you were able to do toe side turns and link turns in 3 hours.

 

That really doesn't sound ideal for lessons, but really when it comes down to it it's more just trying over and over again than someone telling you what to do and then you'll be able to do it.

 

I mean I skied for a long time, but I have never taken snowbaord lessons. I have 'taught' a number of people though and really it's more about knowing a few key things and then just getting up there and trying until you figure it out. Like STR8FXXXINEDGE said, snowboarding is much easier with some speed. I laugh every time I go by the bunny slope and see all the people trying to make turns while hardly moving. Keeping your balance and making a turn like that is super super hard for a beginner to do. Basically I just take people to the bunny hill for one or 2 runs to get aware of their edges and show them how to stop, then I'll take them to a small hill where they can practice sliding with one foot in so they don't fall getting off the chair. After that its pretty much just them trying to do it until they get it themselves and helping them out if they are doing something obviously wrong. Then later on we can go back to the bunny hill and laugh at the people trying to balance on a knife edge while standing still.

 

As far as keeping on an edge at all times, boards are pretty forgiving nowadays when it comes to that. Most snowboards now are reverse camber and have raised contract points which makes it a bit less easy to catch an edge. contact points are the widest part of the snowboard. Basically where the orange and yellow meet in this picture.

 

 

In the old days (pretty much just like 5 years ago) almost all snowboard were positive camber, which means if the board was set down on a flat surface only the contract points would be touching. Now most boards are opposite and only the middle is touching (though there are all kinds of hybrids and other crap. The Burton rental boards are actually completely flat). It makes it much easier to keep the board flat and not catch a tip. I always tell beginners to keep their board perfectly flat when getting off the lift. Once they get down the ramp to a flat part they might start to spin around but at that point they can usually just hop off onto their foot. One you get better though and start going fast or over bumps its a pretty good idea to always keep on an edge because it's not worth risking it and it will really really hurt. I Ride a board that is completely flat between the feet with raised tips and I pretty much only have the board flat when sliding into the lift line or getting off the chair (plus on rails n stuff). There are more times where I would be able to but since I started snowboarding on positive camber better judgement tells me not to.

 

 

You can read more about reverse camber here in the banana technology section.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lib_Technologies

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  • 2 weeks later...

I just came back from a snowboarding trip at Mammoth Mountain last night. I was sore today from boarding two straight days in a row from 9AM to 4PM but it was so worth it! I have been to about half a dozen places in Lake Tahoe over the last several years but this was my first time going to Mammoth (in the winter) and I really enjoyed it. I really liked the vibe of the place. I may be alternating Lake Tahoe with Mammoth on my yearly/bi-yearly snow trips.

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I learned how to ski about 15 years ago and almost every season since then I've gone for at least a couple days. In recent years, my dad and I have often done one long trip per season, one or two weekend trips, and depending on snow conditions a handful of days at the local ski areas. I generally ski blue runs and groomed black runs, and enjoy skiing in a majority of conditions. So far, I've been to every major ski area in California and Utah, as well as the six Southern California ski areas (Bear Mountain Resort, Mountain High Resort, Mt. Baldy, Mt. Waterman Ski Area, Snow Summit Mountain Resort, and Snow Valley Ski Resort), Las Vegas Ski and Snowboard Resort, Brian Head Resort, Eagle Point Ski Area, and Sundance Resort.

 

For this year's big ski trip, we spent a week in Utah from December 30th to Jaunary 5th. During this time, we skied six days at six different ski areas (Powder Mountain, Snowbasin, Canyons Resort, Park City Mountain Resort, Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort, and Eagle Point Ski Area). It was a great trip, tiring but much better conditions than our previous Utah trips. I plan to post a trip report in the near future of our trip (probably the week after next).

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