Devil's Peak

Yes I said I would limit my solo boarding, but c’mon. I’m from Texas and when else am I gonna be in close proximity to slopes without the cost of a flight? I had some time, so I decided to give it one more go. This day I hopped in the car for an hr drive to Devil’s Peak. This was a 500 ft mountain, so the slopes were way better for practicing carving. I wasn’t down within 10 seconds like Tyrol Basin. They had a small park though, so I really should have switched around my carving day vs my park day. Oh well. I hit some blacks and blues, didn’t get any better and stopped for some food.

After that I was back on the board, looking at the map to decide which run to take and a little depressed like the day before from being alone. Then someone walks up to me and asks “deciding where to go?” He explains to me the idea of the mountain layout and asks what I wanted to do. Turns out he’s a snowboard instructor there. His name was David and he didn’t have any lessons, so he was just looking to go up and play around. He asked if I was there by myself. I said yes and he said well then let’s go board. Yay new friend! We hit the park and he gave me some pointers on how to hit the boxes. Fell. Then we tried a small jump. Hit it, but fell on my ass. Then we did half pipe. Was wobbly, but turning on the walls is pretty easy. The height and jumps are a whole other ball game. Then he took me to the bunny hill where they teach kids to jump off a 2 ft peak. I hit it about 6 times. Ate it every freakin time. Bah! He was really nice for giving me pointers and teaching me new things like the Ollie and the duck walk. He also explained to me the correct way to carve. Apparently I was doing it in an unstable fashion and after I tried his advice I was feeling much better and in more control. It wasn’t like a lesson where he was paying close attention and telling me what to do, but like a buddy who was helping me get better. While I was practicing down the slopes he would do goofy stuff like circles and Ollie all over the place. 18 years of snowboarding makes you really good apparently.

I got to meet more of the other instructors and we slid down the slopes together a few times before I had to go. David invited me back and even offered a free pass, but the 1 hr drive was kind of far and the rest of the week was busy. If I had more time and there was less snow on the roads I would have driven up. I love when you get to meet fun and interesting people. It really gives you more hope in life when you meet someone kind.

Tyrol Basin

In the midst of work travel I got to go to the land of cheese for a week. Luckily there was a ski park about 30 mins away, so after work I got to play. This little 300 ft mountain had only about 12 runs open but a massive park with a big tall half pipe and plenty of rails, boxes and huge jumps. I spent most of my time on the blacks workin’ on my carving. I tried to tell myself faster, faster, but that courage would only last a few feet before I got scared and slowed down. I need to pass the mental barrier that is “fear of getting hurt”. I had just bought some knee and wrist guards too, but those did not really build my confidence. After a couple of hours I decided to change it up and give the park a try because going up and down was just getting monotonous and I wasn’t really improving.

Fortunately they had a kiddie park where little kids on skis were just flying through with no poles. I was like. Damn. I can’t let them show me up! So I headed for a box, got scared, slowed too much and stopped in the middle…then fell over. Two more tries and two more falls. Damn you box.

I have to say; I don’t mind being alone. I travel alone for work. I usually workout by myself. I could sit in my room for a whole day without talking to anyone. But being out on the slopes alone was kind of depressing. Maybe cause I was doing a fun/challenging thing and there was no one there to laugh at me or comment on my success points. By the end of that day I was ready to leave early and decided to minimize my solo boarding as much as possible.