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Published: February 27th 2008
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Glenn's Plop
Glenn "plopping" down before he hits the trees at the end of the run. After not much sleep last night, we had a very late morning today. The morning rays of an Alaskan February, or lack thereof, didn’t help much either. We made it out of the hotel at the crack of 12:30. We drove over the hill and through some woods to visit Grandmother’s house. Glenn & I enjoyed a lovely visit with Grandma over a Costco meal (hot dogs and cheap pizza). We took advantage of Grandma’s dining room to soak up the sun—another beautiful day here. Grandma noted how the
“snow diamonds” sparkled, ice particles that reflect more light than snow powder. To us, however, this just meant that it would hurt more when we fell snowboarding this afternoon.
We were right. We left Grandma’s in search of the adventures of the slopes. We went to Hilltop, which luckily is the smaller of the ski areas here. Its bunny hill is no more than bump in the terrain. At 3:30 we met our snowboarding instructor, who took the hint that this was our first time when I asked what to do with the strings on my boots (they’re like laces I guess). So, we began our lesson on the
Snow Bunnies
Stealing a kiss after I plopped at the bottom of the bunny bump. flat ground without the boards. Still on the flat area, we graduated to strapping one boot into the board. Even on the bottom of the bunny bump, we got the hang of plopping down on our bum. It’s not falling because we weren’t going nearly fast enough to fall. Here’s how it goes: first comes “oh…oh…uh oh,” then you totter a bit, and then a slow-motion plop.
Thirty minutes into the lesson we made it to the base of the bump where we practiced our turns. Yup, thirty minutes and we still hadn’t ascended the bunny bump. Eventually, we made it to the much anticipated pinnacle of the bunny bump.
Once at the summit of the bump I regretted calling it as such. The 20 meter slope was much more intimidating from the top. Atop the bump, our instructor strapped herself in and demonstrated our goal: going down the hill on our heel edge (carving) in a zig-zag motion. First we would work on just a straight heel edge. However, there was one more lesson—standing up. After crawling up her leg, and sitting back down a number of times, I learned that standing up on the board is
Thumbs Up
A recovery from an almost plop--I was makin' it down the bunny bump alright! like taking a piss in the woods. Once I learned that, I was good to go. Going down the hill isn’t a problem, gravity helps a lot. It also helps with stopping: the plop. Glenn was much better at standing up on the board than I was. And he always looked very smooth—spinning like a ballerina. Although, I might add that we were supposed to be going straight.
Our lesson concluded with our instructor giving us some homework: keep trying.
A few more trips down the hill and we were doing pretty well. We had carving down. With our spectacular turns we were avoiding the 5 & 6 year olds who had joined us on the bunny bump. And we had perfected the last minute plop to avoid the trees at the bottom of the hill. So, off to the chair lift we went.
We stood in line and watched. We waited for someone whose lead we could follow—though we refused to follow anyone less than a meter tall. On the way up Glenn exclaimed “Oh, I don’t like this.” “What the height?” I asked.
“No, it’s not the height that bothers me; it’s knowing that we have to make it down all this” Glenn whimpered as the length of the run grew before us.
The lift was almost at its end. We watched the
group ahead of us get off. We stood and slid off the lift. I did it. I was off the lift. But, I looked back and there was Glenn on his bum in front of the frozen lift. Apparently getting off the lift is harder when your girlfriend holds onto you and pushes you down to get her pointed in the right direction. My bad.
The view from the top of the slope was amazing—well worth any bruises and pains we’ll have tomorrow.
We picked our run. All we had to do was avoid the yellow ropes on the sides of the 30 m wide run. Oh, and we had to get up. I was up and going. Glenn was up and going, and then up and going, and then up and going again. We met up when he caught me under the yellow rope. I tried to explain that I didn’t really end up here…but, yet, here I was stuck under the rope. Oops.
A few more falls, plops, belly/chest flops and face plants later we called it a night. We moaned and whimpered all the way home. Cold, tired, sore…we were done. But we had
Top View
Taking in the view from the top. a
great ] time!
The only thing left to do was order Chinese and rent a movie.
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