Yesterday was # 4 of 6 for the GMan’s snowboarding lessons. I got to Wachusett Mountain at 2pm or so and staked out a few tables for the rest of the group. At 2:30 or so I was on the mountain boarding. I felt a little off on the first few runs but then I loosened up. At that time it’s really quite with no lift lines. Its nice to board right down to the lift, unclip and get right on. I round tripped for a little over 2 hours and then took a break.
Back in the lodge things were getting busy as the tour busses were all coming in. It was touch and go to retain the tables. I had to ward off unhappy soccer moms and the odd teenager. GMans school showed up around 4:10 and we got the gear squared away and got in a run before his class. Since I was out I continued to board. At this point it was getting busy, but the extra bodies on the slope provided a good reason to practice my turns. I’m all about a moving target, just not the human type!
5:15 pm. A chez burger later we were back at it until 7:45. By then my legs felt like a pile of jelly held up with pipe cleaners. I even fell getting off the lift, but in my own defense the track of ice right at the bottom on the ramp did not help. As you can guess conditions were terrible and if you were not boarding on ice you were plowing thru snow (and I use that term in jest) that felt like frozen granular sugar. Mind you not the regular white stuff, this was more like brown sugar.
I managed to stay upright the entire day with the exception of the above mentioned ice induced incident. I did have a few near misses that I saved in one fashion or another. I trying really hard to not look at my board, keep my weight over my forward leg and bend at the knees. Put all that together, turn without thinking about it and keep looking in the direction I want to go in and it all seems to come together. I can’t be certain of this but I may even look like I know what I’m doing!
alan j quinn 