Personal Post | My Journey with Snowboarding, and Our Trip to Stowe, VT

February 12, 2014 Personal Post | My Journey with Snowboarding, and Our Trip to Stowe, VT

Last week, my husband Steve and I spent 6 days in the stunning winter wonderland of Stowe, Vermont. Our trip was originally supposed to be just four days long, but thanks to a snow storm that hit Vermont and New Hampshire, our flight home was cancelled and our stay was extended by two additional days. Normally this would be a major bummer, but when you’re in the mountains on a snowboarding trip, it’s silly to be sad about snow!

I’ve been snowboarding with mild success for seven years. My first snowboarding trip was in December of 2006, and it was an absolute disaster. I spent the first day incredibly frustrated, constantly falling (and falling hard), and feeling like I’d never get it. I ended my first day with an emotional meltdown in tears. My first snowboarding attempt was during a weekend trip with my best friends Thea and Steve (my now husband!) and a few others, so I couldn’t just give up. I tried again the next day, and finally started to get the hang of it. I still wasn’t good, but I was falling a lot less and could start to see how it could be fun.

That Christmas my parents gave me a gift card to the local snowboarding shop, Princeton Sports, and I bought my first snowboard. I can pretty much guarantee that if I didn’t have my own board I wouldn’t have stuck with it… and I’m SO glad I did. For something I wasn’t very good at yet, I had a lot of growth ahead of me before I’d be good at it, spending $150+ every time I wanted to go including rentals wasn’t going to happen. By getting my own board, I had a reason to keep at it, a reason to keep going, a reason to GET good.

Learning on the slopes around here wasn’t easy, the winters weren’t quite ideal for a beginner snowboarder. With conditions often being slick and icy, which doesn’t feel good to fall on, I was so scared of falling that I was hindering my own growth. We also didn’t get very many opportunities to go, only 1-2 trips a year, so it took me a few years to get decent. Each time I was on the slopes, it felt like I was starting fresh, and the fear of falling was holding me back.

This was what most of my snowboarding runs looked like:

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In 2009, Steve and I took our first trip to Stowe. I have family in Vermont so it was an easy choice to go there, as we could visit my family and also get a chance to go snowboarding on a big mountain with real snow. The town of Stowe is such an adorable, quaint ski town, and the views are absolutely breathtaking. This is our only photo from that trip, taken at the base of the mountain by our most-used lift, Mountain Triple. This was my first time snowboarding on real powder, and in that trip thingsĀ finally started to click, and I made major progress. Finally I was getting confidence and I was able to complete full runs without any falls.

It was the first time I could truly say I was having FUN.

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That first trip in Stowe was a turning point for me, after that trip I was finally able to consistently board down a green slope with confidence and without falls.

This season has also been a big season for growth, as I’ve finally gotten to the point that I would consider myself to be a solid intermediate snowboarder. I’ve finally learned how to fall without hurting myself, so I’m less afraid of it, and it doesn’t happen very often. The slopes that would cause panic attacks before because of how steep they were, that I would go down on my back edge or “leaf” down it, as I like to call it, are now my favorites because I have more fun on the steep parts.

All of the remaining photos during this post were taken on our new GoPro! The GoPro is the perfect all-weather camera. Compact, weather sealed, and great quality!

DCIM100GOPROThis was at the top of Mount Mansfield, at the highest point on the mountain. The elevation here was 3,600 ft! The view, breathtaking.DCIM100GOPRO DCIM100GOPRO DCIM100GOPRO

The day we were originally supposed to go home, turned out to be a big snow storm. We were pretty excited about the bonus day on the slopes. My feet were very sore at this point, as it was day three, but I did get to do a few runs in the fresh powder (8-10 inches!) and it was amazing!

So much snow!DCIM100GOPRO DCIM100GOPRO

Since my feet were so sore, I went to the lodge and relaxed my feet for a while and Steve did a few runs on his own, he got this crazy photo of the icicles on the side of the mountain during one of those runs! So nuts!DCIM100GOPRO

The beginning of this post probably isn’t the most ringing endorsement for snowboarding as a hobby, but take my word for it, once you GET it, it’s an absolute blast. There’s something really freeing and peaceful about gliding over fresh snow. I also can’t lie, now that I’m fairly good, I feel like a bad ass.

Comments

comments

3 Comments
  • Dani
    Posted at 13:05h, 12 February Reply

    Total bad ass. And yeah, I soooooo want to try it now after reading about exactly how I act when I can’t get something down the first time I do it. ;-) Also, now I want a go pro.

  • Natalie
    Posted at 09:08h, 13 February Reply

    This looks like such an amazing trip! You make me want to try snow boarding! Ahhh!

  • Sarah
    Posted at 10:28h, 13 February Reply

    Ahh! This looks like so much fun and SUCH a great trip!

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