I went snowboarding yesterday. Take all the words like "amazing" and "glorious" and "wonderful" and throw them together and that's what it was. Will took me high up on Blackcomb and we rode down, and I learned to sideslip and then to pendulum (both of which I'd done before, when Claire taught me on Smokey) and then we tackled turning. I'm great at heelside turns (because I hate facing up the hill) but pretty bunk at toeside turns. I only did a few of those on my own, the rest I was pivoting around Will's hand. It's tough to keep doing and doing something when you know each time you're going to fall. Speaking of that, I also fell a lot, and in the standard variety--twice really hard on my tailbone, once flat on my belly, knocking the wind out of me, lots of times on my knees, but those weren't so bad, I would just get up and try again. I also rode a bit straight, on the really easy parts of the green run, which is scary because if you catch either edge on the snow, you're down and that hurts. When I go down steep hills I mostly go from side-to-side down the hill. It was so white, so brilliant, so big and wide-open, the view from the top and from anywhere on the mountain. Near the end I was starting to feel like my board was really responding to how I wanted it to go, and that was incredible. But the whole day also really tired me out, I was shaking and my body was tuckered out.
When I got to the end of my run of riding, I rode the Blackcomb gondola again, just to see the view, and also the Whistler gondola, because hey, I'd paid for both mountains. I met a skier named Eric, riding up Whistler, who almost convinced me to ride to the very top of Whistler with him, and I had my board on and was about to go down to the chair lift when I felt the exhaustion in my bones and stopped and said '"Nope, I'd better go home." He said, "Well, it was nice to meet you, and your blue hands." The gloves I had borrowed from George had dyed my hands blue, and some of it still remains today.
Note: 'my' board was not mine at all, but borrowed from a friend of Will's.
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