Went Snowboarding for the First Time

Andrew, Justin, and Jamie are all going on one last slope before we take off, so I had some time and no internet, so I've decided to just start writing this post.

[For context I'm editing this in here: Andrew is my roommate (and has been for 2 semesters (Winter and Fall 2022) before this one) and is my closest friend I've made up here at college. Justin is Jamie's younger brother, with Jamie being my FHE sister and good friend.]

Snowboarding was fun! It was also awful. It's incredibly frustrating but also rewarding to slowly get better and actually being able to stand up on your board more than a few seconds at a time.

It's kind of brutal because the learning curve is especially harsh for the first ¿hour? or so. I hated the first roughly hour. It felt kind of impossible to get anywhere.

Although I think part of that was because of this weird/interesting thing about this particular place we went to. And perhaps this is the case across the board. The allegedly super easy very low slope was actually more difficult than the next "difficulty" up, which was quite a bit steeper comparatively.

I believe this was the case because the low slope course was low slope enough where if you tried to do switchbacks on it, the switchbacks didn't have enough slope for you to go anywhere. This means your board pretty much had to be facing dead on down the hill. This, along with the fact that the snow in that area was pretty compact, made it difficult to turn your board sideways in order to slowdown.

It's the next day now. I should have written down briefly what I wanted to talk about next because I know I had something in mind, but I've forgotten it. So I guess I'll just put some pictures down below and call it a day.

Oh, wait. I remember now, I think.

So I talked about doing these switchbacks kind of idea, and how doing the switchbacks didn't have enough slope on the low slope hill.

This way of thinking helped me not be as intimidated by the bigger slope that we went on. Initially, I was terrified of it because it was significantly steeper than the low slope hill. But when I picture the slope of the individual switchbacks instead, it's not nearly as bad.

Obviously, if you're heading straight down the hill, the slope is an absurd amount more than the low slope hill. But when you're snowboarding, you don't go head-on downhill. If you're instead going horizontally for a long time, and only go slightly down the hill, then the slope of this mini-hill you've created is not that steep.

That concept was way more difficult to articulate than I thought it was going to be, and I realize that probably didn't make much sense, so I apologize while simultaneously not caring enough to try to make it more comprehensible.

Anyway, here are the photos:

Two of London's younger siblings ¿cousins?, Charlie, London, Justin, Jamie, Myself, and Andrew

[Adding in another for context: London is my FHE sister, Charlie is my roommate (and has been for the last two semesters)]

Jamie, Andrew, Myself, and Justin

Jamie, Justin, Myself, and Andrew

Andrew and I