On a day when the sun penetrated my goggles and the heat from the thermal long johns underneath my tee were enough to keep me warm, a new type of love for snowboarding was born inside me. And no one was there to see it.
I went with a newbie to Mass of Nothing in West Virginia. The snow was like slush and the green shrubs along the the side of the hills waited to swallow up the snow for the season. The circles and squares were packed and though I wanted to hit the diamonds, I had to do it alone because my companion did not want to break his head. i waited most of the day until i could not contain my boredom any longer. i started by trying the terrain park. I never got used to flying off jumps and was not anywhere swelling my balls enough to start doing rails at that point but i always knew that i would eventually end up in the park. The first jump was small (because it was actually meant to for the rails) but in between these rails, was a great beginner jump area). The second jump was a bit larger and I noticed that the other riders were doing 360s and other tricks that i don't know the name of off of them. I attempted the first one and slipped a bit on my landing but continued on enough to slowly try the second jump and really wipe out. I tried one more time with a similar effect and decided to continue down the mountain and reunite with the newby.
We had a couple of drinks and some food and then headed back out. I rode down with him two more times before finally deciding that I MUST do some blacks. The diamonds, like much of what I have experienced since moving out east, are a lot more like the squares out west, (Killington excluded) but are still fun. I don't remember much about the run except that I was surprised how easily I carved my way down. I did the same down the other black on the mountain, despite the 'Experts Only" warning and stopped at the terrain park for another go at it. I sat with the other park riders, collecting myself before heading down and went for it. This time, the first jump was landed easily and before I realized it, my I was approaching the second jump with increased momentum. i was still thinking about my minor success on the previous jump when I bent a little lower and took the second jump with some acceleration. I was surprised at the amount of air that I garnered and panicked a bit. My started to swim a bit to regain my stability and then focused on landing my board straight and, to my surprise, landed it, without much trouble. That was it. It was what I was looking for. It's what I always look for: something new and exciting. I landed my first legit jump. i felt my heart pound faster and decided to end the day on the good note and replayed the scene over and over again in my head on the ride home.
Since that day, I have started pushing my limits again. i tried tree lines and navigated without any falls. Diamonds (at least on the east) have become the regular. I am comfortable handling the powder to ice transitions (when I see them) and always feel as though I am in control, despite the difficulty of the run. But it all seems commonplace to me now compared to the park rides.
On my last trip we found a tiny park with very small rails, a shed and a (i don't know what it's called exactly but) sidewall that seems like the beginning of learning the skills to ride the pipe. i have had moderate success on the rails. I bit it trying to slide over the shed and I can't quite grasp the technique that goes into turning on the pipe. I have even tried a double diamond, which ended up being these enormous jumps with steep inclines (unsuccessfully). The thirst to be better is back. I want to be good at riding park.
Snowshoe is not a very big mountain but they have three different sized terrain parks and have had a ton of snow this year, enough to find fresh powder if you do a little searching. There are even some killer natural jumps to be found. I started to look at my riding in a completely different way. I look for jumps and fresh powder. that is where the real joy in riding comes in for me nowadays.
I tried to explain this to my buddy when we headed up to snowshoe but that wasn't something that he was into. He came with me to try the rails but didn't find any joy in it. he tried the beginner half pipe things, but but was still unimpressed. We have very different riding styles. he likes to speed down the mountain, barely in control, doing little carving, where I like to cut it up. But he discovered what i had been feeling when we tried the double diamond. Neither of us landed any jump. We didn't even return to the double to try it again. Not that we didn't want to, we planned to the next day, but that next day we found something better, some intermediate jumps and rails.
My buddy and I started riding together in Colorado. We bought our equipment around teh same time, we've been riding about the same amount of time and have really progressed pretty equally. We are not advanced riders, but we aren't beginners either. I'd even go as far to say that we are on the tail end of intermediate. We're almost expert riders but not quite. i still make a stupid mistake every once in awhile and i've seen him do the same. But when it comes to park, at least everything but doing the pipe, we're closer to the beginning of intermediate. In another ten times or so, I'd like to start trying to do tricks rather than just being satisfied at just landing my jumps.
My buddy learned the hard way what happens when we try to force a level that we are not ready for. Staying on the intermediate, we headed into the park maybe 3 times the last day we were there. On the second park ride, he took and fell off of his last jump at about double the speed that I went and landed.
"My ribs", he complained as we headed up that last lift to the top for the day, "They kill. I lost my breath a little on that last landing."
"I know dude, you were flying off that jump. It looked like you were going to land it but you slipped at the end."
'I lost my breath a little"
'Damn dude", I laughed, "The guys sitting next to me were watching you and after they saw you bite it, decided that they would not try it".
"Hahaha, awesome"
I'm not going to lie. I don't always understand my buddy. He can be a peculiar guy at times. But in this instant, and maybe this makes me peculiar too, I understood his satisfaction. I can't even explain why, but there is some definite satisfaction at having your reckless abandon viewed and reacted to.
"i want to do it again, but this time from the top. I want to see how much air I can get off of this jump"
It didn't register in my mind at this time that it was a bad idea. i thought he landed a couple of jumps. I found out later that he hadn't landed one all day.
"let's do it", I said.
He wanted me to go down first so that I could see him in his launched and botched landing excellence, so I did. I was listening to Modest Mouse. I had a perfect first rail, doing my first side slide (I don't know the correct terminology) but could not transition to the second. I slipped off the third rail and slowed myself a little before taking the jump. I went faster than at any other point in the day but still not quite as fast as my buddy's last jump. I landed it and slid off to the side to get out of the way of the riders following me. Two more riders followed. I could not see my buddy. Another rider came and then I saw a figure rising out of the mountain two steep inclines from where I had camped out. As usual my buddy flew down these declines and did not slow his speed at all when he went off of the jump. I saw his error immediately. he did not couch down to brace himself for the jump at all and was not in control. He tilted backwards immediately after hitting the end and landed on his back throwing his head into the snow, and spinning as he slid twenty to thirty feet. The Ocean Breathes Salty played on in my ears. I noticed that his eyes were closed and that he appeared to be a bit stiff as he continued to slide down the mountain.
"Are you alright?" I yelled.
No answer.
I started to worry. I removed my headphones and yelled it again.
"Are you alright?"
"Give me a minute", He replied.
I unstrapped my boot and headed back up towards his immobile body. "I'm okay" he told me. Another rider came down to us and asked me if he was okay. i told him he was fine and he said that the fall looked painful but that he would live to ride another day. And as I was helping my buddy up a young kid landed his jump fantastic and attempted to slow down before he was ready and slammed his face into the ice pretty hard. The visiting rider and I "ohhhed" and then he rode off to help him. I helped my buddy up and told him to take it easy.
On our walk back to the car my buddy said "Oh good, my memory came back" and that's when I realized that he had a concussion.
"All I remember is this shhhhhh sound and then waking up and wondering whose board this was, what I was doing and how long I had been there. If you had asked me my address at that point, I wouldn't have been able to tell you."
On the ride come I made sure that he stayed awake. And I thought about helmets.
