Snowboarding 2009/2010

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March 26th 2010

Published: March 26th 2010

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amyepool

big bear

Well it took about five years but I've finally overcome my fear of the mountains and speeding down them when they're snow covered on a snowboard. I used to ski but we all know that stopped when i took the tumble down the top of Aspen Mountain. It's been hard to get back up there but I figured I may as well get over it at some point because playing in the snow is fun. And living in LA, we only get to look at the snow on the top of the mountains around LA unless you like snow sports and take the 2-3 hour drive up there to play in it. I went snowboarding three times this year.

The first time was at Big Bear/Snow Summit which is supposedly a 2-2.5 hour drive from LA. We decided to get a head start and stay 45 minutes from our house at a friends house so that our drive in the early morning would be more like 1.5 hours and we could beat the rush. It just so happened there was a huge snow storm that closed 2 out of the 3 routes into Big Bear, leaving the only way up

lynda and i

at mountain high

the mountain to the back route which is a little longer, more windy, and with all the traffic and 5 feet of snow on both sides of the road creates a major traffic jam for LA drivers who don't know how to drive to begin with. And as it turns out, we were the lucky ones, sliding through the chaos just in time to beat the major pile-up that occurred behind us. Still not sure what happened, but once we made it to the top, ALL roads were closed and we were wondering if we were going to make it back down that night. I had a couple friends who had left from their place in Orange County around the same time as we left and they never made it, they did however get to spend their day sitting on that mountain waiting for the road to be opened which did not happen until after they gave up around 4 p.m. For us, we got the mountain to ourselves and the road was opened by the time we left at 6 p.m. so pretty good day to better my skills. I don't think I have the photos from that first

riding the lift

day this year.

The second time I went, was just a quick day trip to Mountain High which is a smaller mountain and the closest one to LA being about 1.5 hours from our house. It was a good day, I learned a lot more quickly as my friend Chris would not let me stop practicing and didn't care how much I fell because he wanted me to learn so that I would enjoy bombing down the hill at a better speed. (I'm still pretty slow because the speed scares me, but don't tell him that.)

The third time was this past weekend at Mammoth Mountain. It was for my friend Alexis' birthday and we rented a cabin for the entire weekend, made the 5 hour drive north and enjoyed the sunny weather on the slopes. I only went Saturday because it was pretty expensive for the lift ticket and the rental and being on a tight budget with other things on my to-do list, I think i made the right decision because Sunday was colder and really windy. No thank you Mr. Wind.

So now I'm better, no where close to being a pro snowboarder but