33 Weeks 0 Days: Finally a Northwesterner

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I finally went snowboarding! I've lived in the Northwest for 25 years and had never been skiing or snowboarding. So I finally got to go with Krystal and our friends Mike and Sarah.

Here's Krystal and I at the Timberline Ski Resort. Mike is an experienced snowboarder so I just got the Discovery 123 pass. That pass gives me 3 days of lift ticket, gear rental and a lesson on each day. And I can use the three days any time during the season. The first day I was limited to the Bruno run, which is the beginner slope. And that's fine because I wouldn't have tried any other run. The other two days I'll have an "all mountain" pass.

Here, Mike is helping my strap my boot into the binding. It's really hard to do when you're overweight. Eventually, he left to do some other runs and I had to do it myself and it got easier after I limbered up a bit.

Standing up was one of the harder things to do. As soon as you get up your board starts sliding all over the place. And it doesn't care which way you're facing.

I finally got up and got the board to go the way I wanted. The next problem I encountered was not knowing how to stop.


Which brings us to my inevitable toppling. I actually fell many more times up until that point.


And then the easiest part of the day, the chair lift back up. Mike is in front of me, I'm in back.


And then, after a little break, back at it.

The first 4 runs I did left me completely exhausted after each one. Climbing back up after every spill took so much energy. And I've had a cold so I was out of breath way easier. The first two runs I had a break in between. The after the third run I had to go into the bathroom and remove 75% of my clothing layers. It just wasn't cold enough to be wearing everything I was. Then after the fourth run I took a little break and waited for my lesson which started at 1:00pm. That was really helpful. Once I got through the basic lesson and we went down as a group to do a run, I was finally able to balance a lot better and after a few tries I was making it all the way down the run, cutting back and forth across the slope, not falling nearly as much and most of the time I was just dropping to my knees. And that took much less effort. After my first post-lesson run, I got off the chair lift and realized I wasn't exhausted. So I went straight back down. And then after that run I was still not tired. I was finally getting the hang of it.

Krystal and Sarah had lunch and hung out in the lodge by a giant fireplace and the conditions on the mountain were getting pretty grim, so I ditch out on the last 30 minutes of lesson. The instructor showed me a few more things to practice for next time and I went and turned in my rental gear. I was the only one in the group that he didn't really need to hold's hand while teaching. He'd just show me and give me a few tips and I'd practice it on my own until I got the hang of it. So next time we go up, I'll practice those new things before my second lesson.

There were a lot of little kids around, learning and I'm already excited to bring our kid up there and get her started whenever she gets big enough. It's great exercise and it's just kind of a nice setting. Being on the lift with all the people skiing below you. I like the snowy mountain setting with people just gliding around wherever they want. It's very graceful... Unless you're me on the Bruno. The people there were all really friendly. I'd lose control and get close to running into someone and I'd yell out, "Coming through! Sorry about that!" and they'd all go, "No problem," and move over. It was a nice and maybe one day Krystal can get some lessons and we can have some family or multi-family trips up there.

Here's Krystal and Sarah with Bruno, the Timberline dog.
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