Snow and boarding

After 3 years, I've finally gotten back to snowboarding! I have just not had the time or money the past few years, and 2 weekends ago I finally dusted off the old board and hit a local park with a big hill. I figured a local park would be a (free!) good spot to brush up, and brush up I did. Didn't fall as much as I thought I would. I'm a little timid on the board, and I was never that good, but I had a great time. My brother came with me the first time, then the second time we took my fiance and a friend. This past summer, a co-worker of mine moved to Germany and sold a lot of his things he didn't want to bring along. He had a nice Burton board & bindings he wanted $100 for, plus boots for $30, so I snapped it all up for my fiance Pano, since he'd be much more likely to try it if he had his own gear. Great deal for all of it, and the board and boots are exactly his size!

(my LTD Snow board on the left, and fiance's Burton Float on the right)

When we all went together that first weekend, our other friend who came didn't have a board or tube or anything, so he took a big box to sled with - it worked pretty well for what it was! My brother got Pano strapped into his board to try out, gave him the basics, and got him going. I was both surprised and not surprised that by the end of the day, he was going down the entire hill without falling, and enjoyed it!

(Top: fiance, front: brother, down the hill: friend with sled-box, middle. Bottom: me pretending to rock it)

A few issues we need to iron out: my boots don't fit well (too big), Pano realized he was more comfortable boarding regular, with his left foot forward, but his board is set up to be goofy, which is right foot forward, and his board needs a sharpening/wax. When I got my gear 5 or 6 years ago they did fit me for boots, but they're really too big & very hard to get into, so I am going to look into replacing them. We will bring Pano's board somewhere to get tuned up and have the bindings adjusted for him, and he has no problem with his boots. Last weekend we tried a different venue and went to the local golf course, which was great but we went late in the day & lost the light pretty quickly. Hoping to go again this weekend if we have the time! I'd like to go to a real mountain, but unfortunately all of us are pretty broke, so doing it locally for free is really great.

(pretty snowy road and trees after one of our storms)

This is a really nice way to get outside a little during all this ***** snow we're having. I'll be the first to say I love the snow, but enough is enough. We probably have had 60+ inches of snow this year so far, and it's totally insane. There are 20-30 foot piles around and they just keep getting bigger with every storm (we've been getting a storm a week since the new year). I've been hit with some really bad cabin fever lately and getting out to board a little has been helping. I wanted to start winter hiking this year and I'm planning to get some microspikes to try out, but there's just too much snow right now - I'd need snowshoes, which are more than I can afford at the moment. Snowboarding is an acceptable substitute for now and I'm glad I'm actually getting to do it this year!