Icy Tundra Redux

Snowboarding is hard fucking work. I went again today and my legs feel like they're going to fall off.

Now that I actually feel like finishing this...

I Started the day off on the bunny slope slowly sliding down the ice slicked bank. 2 o'clock came around. I was scheduled for another beginner's lesson. I assumed it would be more of the same, boy how wrong I was. Matt was our instructor's name and it was clear he wanted to teach us snowboarding no matter the cost to his sanity. This man was tenacious, but totally supportive in light of the awful fuck ups and general lack of coordination I displayed on the snowbanks. "Heels up!," he would call. My feet would do the opposite. "Toes up!," he bellowed. Once again my body knew not what it was doing and I ended up with cross shifted weight that made me topple over. This toes and heels business was not covered in my previous lesson, and I was not prepared for the sheer amount of trauma it was to put on my delicate calf muscles. We practiced this not altogether trivial pursuit for about an hour, until he suggested we hit up the slopes. A predictable mixture of excitement and trepidation entered my gullet as I skated toward the lift gates.

The first thing I noticed was the fucking lift chairs whizzing up and down the hill like Macauly Culkin being chased bees. Matt told us not to worry, as they slowed down quickly after hitting the boarding platform. This turned out to be true and I did not receive a concussion by blunt force lift chair trauma, but did feel a strong connection with Ann Darrow. I nervously looked out over the tundra while attempting to ignore the colossal weight of my snowboard threatening to pull me to the icy waste when I spied the mountain top. From here the misery would only increase.

Snowboarding down a mountain is not a trifling ordeal. The son of a bitch is a slippery mistress, which makes something as rudimentary as standing a struggle of Sisyphean proportions. I fell. Oh god how I fell. Toes up, ass down. Heels up, ass down. I fell and got up and fell and ran out of breath and got up and fell. The whole time I was falling, Matt stood there helping. That man had the patience of a saint. In the end, it paid off, I actually figured out the "heels up" part and made it some way down the mountain before falling over myself and scraping up my back on the ice. I think I almost died once from collision with a sign held up by PVC pipe, but that's for another day. I reached the bottom, thanked Matt for the understanding and pity he showered upon me, and headed into the locker room to change.

I have to say, for those few precious seconds where I wasn't picking myself up off the snow I was having fun. When you get some speed it's fun and scary and exhilarating all at the same time. That being said, I don't intend on taking the lift on my next visit.