Continuing with the vacation catch up info, through the magic of future posting via blogger's shitty blogging script...
I went snowboarding for 2 days after I left San Diego; first time in years, and it was great.
I packed everything last Sunday night, which required some intensive baggage-in-the-trunk-oragami. I had my mountain bike, snowboard, a regular suitcase, a big duffel bag full of snowboarding gear, my new 24" flat screen monitor in the original box (for padding), two smaller bags of misc stuff, a box of freshly-rooted aloe vera shoots, food for the drive... plus mom and her one suitcase, after I picked her up on the way out of town.
I drove the 2 hours/150 miles up to the San Bernadino mountains -- first stop; our hotel so we could unload the car and I could change clothing and get lunch for some snowboarding energy before we drove up to the resort. I was going to be boarding alone; mom skis, but she's been having hip troubles lately and such an activity was way beyond her current capabilities. She had trouble enough just walking on the slippery, uneven snow. She wanted to come along to spend time with me though, and once I invited her to ride back up North with me and stay for a few days and meet the new kitty (Who I have still not blogged about at any length. Bad Daddy! Ashamed of the baby!) she was in.
I hadn't been snowboarding in several years, and had only gone once since 2003, after I used to get out a couple/few times a year when I lived in San Diego. The one time was in 2005, when Malaya and me went to Tahoe with another couple. Malaya and the other woman rented gear and took a lesson in the morning and could sort of manage it by the afternoon, but the other guy had no interest and spent his time in the lodge. And that one time was enough for Malaya, and I never cared enough to make some guy friends to go with while up here.
Snow mountains are more difficult to engage in living in Northern California, despite their greater size and proximity. Tahoe has awesome resorts and great hills, but it's
too far for a day trip, and it's expensive to stay overnight or for a weekend. Plus it's such a huge mountain that it feels wasteful to just go for a day; you can hardly scratch the surface. The various Big Bear Lake area resorts in the mountains east of LA are an hour from most of LA and a little over 2 hours from San Diego, and while they're pretty tame mountains (their black diamonds are like blues on the bigger mountains in Colorado or Whistler/Blackcomb in B.C.) they're fun, they have lots of lifts, and they're not so large that you feel like it's a wasted trip if you only get 4-6 hours of slope time. Plus it's Southern California, so even at 7000+ feet it's usually 45 degrees and sunny. The biggest weather concerns are chapped lips and raccoon eyes from sunburn.
As a result, a snowboarding trip from the Bay Area feels like a lengthy excursion which will take several days and cost $500+, while from So Cal it's a fun day that'll set you back $100. Or less if you bring your own food/drinks. I did 2 days at Mountain High in Wrightwood for $100, plus $80 for a hotel that mom paid for, and maybe another $30 on food. Gas costs were negligible, at $2 a gallon for highway driving. And it was enough to remind me why I got out there several times a year when I used to live down there.
NoCal disclaimers stated, I had a great time boarding and want to get out again this year. Every woman I've met via online dating is either a snowboarder/skier or wants to learn, so it's just a matter of finding one I click with well enough to spend a couple/few days in Tahoe with. (He said, confidently.) Going alone is a chore up here, with the 200+ mile drive, no one to split gas/hotel costs or keep me warm/rub me down at night, etc.
As for the actual snowboarding, it was interesting to see how I progressed over the course of the day. I've never been an expert, or had much interest in death defying jumps and big airs, but I've always been pretty good at staying upright and I enjoy going really fast on big hills and working my way over difficult terrain, including moguls. I hadn't been on a snow (or skate, or surf, or wake) board in years, but I was hoping it would be just like riding a bicycle. Metaphorically speaking, at least.
It was, with the caveat that I was riding a bicycle on a steep, slippery, icy, crowded hillside. I didn't crash the first few runs, but that was because I was being careful and not taking chances. I remembered how to balance and edge and carve and such, but the board felt foreign beneath my feet and my boots felt very bulky and insecure. I improved in technique and confidence with every run though, and by the end of the first afternoon (we got there after lunch and I boarded until dark/exhaustion) I was able to go really fast and do spins and such, but didn't feel stable enough when directly upright to do any jumps, and my carves were still very sketchy and sliding/chattering, instead of crisp. The snow was pretty slushy too, which didn't help.
The second day I got out at 9:30, with plans to ride for the full 4 hours my lift ticket allowed. Unfortunately as we left for breakfast we found that we had to check out of the hotel by noon, and since it was a 20 minute drive to the resort, and I was going to need a shower and change of clothing and had a lot of stuff to pack up from the room, I had to cut my time at least an hour shorter than I wanted to.
The riding was great, though. I rode on
the East Resort the second day after hitting the larger West resort the first day, and though I'd been to Mountain High a few times in the past, it had been nearly 10 years, and I'd forgotten how not to scale their trail maps were. Are. Though they look about the same height on the map, and the West is clearly much wider (and has the only high speed chair lift), the East is a much longer descent. And is much less crowded too, since all the snowboarding jumps and rails and fun parks that the 16 y/os swarm over are on the West. I'm not sure how much higher the East is, but the descent is much more sinuous and a lot more fun. It's at least twice as long a ride down, even if you go flat balls out fast on some of the longer descents, and while the chair lift is not high speed, but it moves steadily and pretty much straight up, taking more than ten minutes from the bottom to the top.
As I said, all of the snowboarding park jumps/rails/etc stuff are on the West mountain, since it's so short and small that they've got to find ways to spice up the descent. The East is a much purer sliding experience, and with such long, smooth, (not very) steep hills I was able to get a ton of practice with carving and riding. Ironically, that got me back in practice enough that I was ready to do jumps by lunch time. When I had to leave.
There aren't any groomed ones on the East though, just little bumps right in front of the snow making guns and lift towers, but I was hitting those at speed and jumping waist high, and also taking slower runs which I filled with hopping carves. Those are the kind you need to do on moguls, where you slide one way for a second, then leap into the air and whip the board around about 180 degrees, so you land facing the other direction. I was doing those on the flat (the moguls hill wasn't open or well-snowed) and just for fun rather than out of terrain-driven necessity, but they were challenging to remember how to balance and edge and coordinate, and very tiring. My legs were throbbing after each run of those, and I kept getting to the chair lift hardly able to stand, just in time to stretch and recover for the ten minute ride back up.
Thankfully, I had prepared for that. For some months at the gym I've been doing reverse lunges for the quad/ham/butt strengthening, and I have to say they paid off on the slopes. A typical lunge
looks like this. You can do them on the flat or up onto a step. I usually do about 20 of those, walking around the weights are with two 30lbs barbells before I do usual upper body barbell work. They primarily work the quads and hams, and are a decent stretch for the quads too.
The variation on lunges I've been using are a type I saw in a biking magazine (which they started sending me without my consent after I bought my mountain bike during the summer). The magazine's suggestion was to do lunges, but with your back foot up on the step. That way they are intensely focused on your thighs, especially on your quads. I do a few dozen of those each night at the gym, after I get warmed up by cardio, and they're crazy hard. Depending on how far back you position your torso, all of your body weight can be on your back leg, and you simultaneously stretch and strengthen the thigh. Ten of those are usually enough to leave my thighs literally quivering, where I can hardly stand upright with my weight on the exerted leg.
They haven't made much difference in my occasional biking, but I thought they would be useful for snowboarding too, if I ever got back on the slopes again. In my past experience, it's my thighs that get most tired boarding; especially the quads, and especially the left quad, which is my rear leg when I board. The back leg while snowboarding is the one that most of the strain goes on since you're leaning back, you use the back leg to steer with, it does more of the shock absorbing, etc. Back when I used to board a lot I did a lot of thigh stretches, and those helped when the muscles cramped up, but they didn't add strength. The step lunges do both, and they really helped me out, this time.
So, while I had strong legs and plenty of cardio for exertion at 7000 feet, I didn't have much balance. At least not at first. But it came back with some practice, and having legs that weren't too tired to do what I wanted them to do helped a lot too. Still, stretching and gym or not, I'd have been quivering and hardly able to walk if I'd done a full day the second day. In my experience, two straight days of snowboarding is way too much for comfort, especially if you're doing long runs and carving and going fast, like I do. Exertion levels can be greatly limited by jumps and park stuff, since it's slower, less stressful, and involves a lot of sitting around waiting between runs.
The second day of my trip I was going non-stop, and doing hard exertion stuff, without any pausing or easy flat sections, and my legs were singing by lunch time. Of course part of the reason I worked it so hard was because I knew I only had like 2 hours, so I wasn't going to take it easy or pace myself. Just by the way, I'd think a similar attitude would be useful when visiting a prostitute? I've never tried it, but if I ever get old/ugly/desperate enough to turn to that, I'll let you know how it compares to short term snowboarding.
On another front, I enjoyed feeling the surface conditions evolve on day two, as the snow went from "icy in the morning shade" to "slushy in the rising sun." It reminded me of how much difference the snow can make. I've not gotten to ride in fresh powder very often, but it's such a different feel than snowcat-groomed surface, frozen or not. You can lean so much further and carve such better lines in powder, since it absorbs more and gives you a much better grip. It's kind of like the road turning all contoured and angled for traction, rather than being just as curvy, but a flat surface.
Did I mention that I wanted to get out again this year? And that it's colder in Tahoe; cold enough to make snow every night, and that it actually snows, like from the sky, quite often? Mmmm... do want.
Labels: snowboarding, vacation
