Heath's Random Thoughts

Riding Alpine Valley

So, Kelly has been talking about learning to snowboard for sometime now and since we had some time off between Christmas and New Years we decided to try and head up to one of the local "ski resorts" to let her give it a try. On the Friday following Christmas we decided that we would take the day and head up to Alpine Valley in Elkhorn, WI so she could take a lesson and try it out. Also, we both received some new Snowboarding gear from Christmas and we want to test that stuff out as well.

Well the night before we got a little bit of snow in Evanston, but not enough to keep us from traveling the 1.5 hours up to the resort. So Saturday morning we packed up the Jeep and headed north. Once we got into WI, we quickly realized that they had gotten several more inches of snow than we had. It was a beautiful winter wonder land. When we got to the resort we realized that everyone had the same idea we did for the day and there were lines for everything. Fortunately, Kelly was able to get into her lesson right away. She opted for the 1:1 lesson so she could get more personalized attention, which was probably for the best. While she was in her lesson I ventured up the slopes on the my own to try out the runs. I had never been to Alpine Valley before so I was excited to see what it was like. My first run was awesome. All the snow from the night before made the ride extremely smooth and I didn't have to wear myself fighting the icy conditions like I normally do at Midwest resorts. I went down several times and the only time I fell was when I had to exit the chair lift and a group of girls decided to stand around in front of it causing everyone my chair to wipe out when we tried to avoid them! Oh well, nothing hurt other than my pride :). After a few more runs, I went down to where I was going to meet up with Kelly after her lesson. She came back with glowing reviews from her instructor. From there we grabbed a bite to eat and went back up the slopes. We stuck to the green slopes (beginner) so Kelly could get her boarding legs, but toward the end she did brave it enough to try out one of the intermediate runs. Watching her reminded me of when I was first starting out. Its tough when you first learn because it seems terrifying when you are picking up speed and you have 50 million things running through your head on how to slow down and stop, but the panic usually takes over and you end up crashing hard. I can't count how many times I took a hard fall that made me thing "yep, that's it, no more snowboarding for this guy," but the fun of riding that board down through beautiful scenery takes over and you end up going again.

Kelly was definitely having that beginners anxiety, but who can blame her? Its not like skiing, when you fall down there you have more control because your feet aren't attached to the same board. She took a couple of hard falls, but she was a trooper and stuck it out. Honestly she did really good for her first time and seems to be excited about going again. Which is good, because the next step is to get a few more local trips in and then get out west for some really mountains!

Labels: exercise, snowboarding, sports

posted by Heath @ 12:40 PM