Saturday, February 4, 2012

Snow Angels 2.0

Last weekend, I headed up to Hidden Valley Resort with my friend Danielle to participate in the 2nd Snow Angels Women Ski and Snowboard weekend.  I attended the event last year where I met Danielle and our boarding instructor Julia. The gang was all back for 2012 and ready to get on the snow.

On the first day, Dani and I were the only snowboarders who showed up (winning!!!) so we had Julia all to ourselves. If you can recall from my previous blogs, Hidden Valley was the place I broke my wrist last February.  Traumatic events sure have a way to get into your head.  This was my 2nd time boarding since the accident and 1st time back at HV.  Needless to say the first run was in fact the run I had my accident on.  Everything felt good going down until I approached the spot of the accident and I tensed up.  Dani even said that she could sense my anxiety as I would immediately put on the breaks and practically stand straight up.  I actually considered stopping, taking off the board and walking the rest of the way (thankfully it didn't get to that).  Anywho, aside from my heart rate shooting up every time I was at the bottom of the Continental slope, being back on the board felt great.

*Breaking News ---- I'm now pretty good at getting off the lifts! Maybe only one fall the whole weekend! Whoop Whoop

At the end of the 1st day, Julia took us to a different slope, Cobra, which gave the challenge of a steeper grade.  Now there is something about not being able to see the bottom of a slope that terrifies me apparently. In my defense, it was my first time trying to attempt turns on steeper terrain.  As you could probably guess, first time was not a charm...at all.  I actually managed to make 1 turn before sliding down the hill to the next headwall (a headwall is a point in the slope that takes a steep drop. If you were looking up mountain at it, it would appear as if you "hit a wall").  It's kind of funny when you slide down and you have a mound of snow between your legs and snowboard.

Dani and I at the top of Cobra

To make the 1st Cobra experience worse, a storm was brewing and the wind picked up as we were on the top of the mountain.  I literally would stand up and couldn't move.  After about 3 attempts at Cobra, I was done.  My confidence had been defeated, fatigue was settling in, and I just wanted to end on a high note....so back to Continental!

The next morning I felt like I had gotten hit by a car.  My muscles were SORE!!! You don't realize how much energy you use going up and down with a board attached to you. No, I didn't fall THAT much.  We were in a teaching setting so when our instructor wanted to evaluate how we were doing, we would do a part of the run, stop, watch the others and then wait for further instruction.  Talk about a crazy arm workout.  I managed to get my life together before Dani picked me up and we headed to HV.  I was determined to conquer Cobra.

Julia started to have us practice short S-turns, preparing for the ultimate snowboarder accomplishment, carving.  After correcting some errors in my form, Julia decided that I was still a little too "in my head" and needed to relax a little when approaching Cobra.  She let me borrow her headphones and boy did that make a difference.  Standing on the top of Cobra, I select "Moves Like Jagger" by Maroon 5 to attempt the first run.  I must say music helps. In boarding you want to get in a rhythm, something I was having a little trouble doing. But with music, I can move to the rhythm of the song and TA DAH, turns on Cobra! I still have more work to do to perfect them but hey, this weekend was about progressing and boy did I improve leaps and bounds. Here are the other songs that got me amp'd on the slopes for the rest of the day:

1.  Moves Like Jagger - Maroon 5
2.  Look at Me Now - Chris Brown
3.  A$$ - Big Sean
4.  Who Run the World (Girls) - Beyonce
5.  Beast Mode - Lil Boosie

A$$ was playing on this run

All in all, Snow Angels weekend was all I expected and more.  Dani and I will be hitting up HV tomorrow! Wish me luck!!!! I'm coming for you Cobra!