First Time?
Ashamed to say, as a Canadian, I never went skiing or snowboarding. I have to think about how I got started, it's a jumble. Camelback, Tahoe, Hunter, Virginia, Stowe, Mount Snow, it's all very fuzzy to me. I think I was a jerk and didn't give Shanella the pullout couch on the Tahoe trip, but I don't remember if that was the first time I had locked my feet in a board and took a lesson? I feel like I would have gone somewhere with Jeremy before that? There was the time with Vera when we drove up to Vermont, I think? Long story short, I tried snowboarding way too late, and I really liked it. In high school, Andrew Steinberg would tell me how he and his family would go up to the mountains every weekend and he was an expert skier now, working on the mountain to patrol and find people who were stuck. I should have dove in then. Snowboarding sounds ridiculous on the surface. Strap your feet to a blade and surf down the side of a mountain over the snow. It's cold, so you need to be well-dressed, until you do a few runs, and then you'll heat up and need to ditch layers. Helmets are mandatory when you're starting out, but they get smaller over time until some people forgo them entirely. You fall at first, a lot, and you need elbow, wrist, knee, and especially butt pads until you can manage to stay up and learn to stop properly. Some people want to go fast, I was never one for that, but I'm sure if I had started younger, I would have gotten over it eventually. The lifts are scary for those uncomfortable with heights, and while gondalas are enclosed, you're still hanging 50 - 75 feet off the ground on a wire. The lifts open at 6am and close at 4pm, since sunset during winter is early, and it would be expensive to wire up and light a mountain. Only Camelback around here offers night skiing, until 9pm or 10pm. Plus it's expensive. You need equipment - all the pads, a snowsuit and gloves.