My First Time Snowboarding

This past weekend I traveled with my youth group to North Carolina to go skiing/snowboarding! Even though I have lived in places such as Colorado and Alaska, I’ve never been to the slopes. I’ve been sledding…a lot haha but never skiing or snowboarding; so I was really, really excited to go on this trip.

Friday, February 13

Today was the day we left from the church. We had to be there at 5:15 which sucked, but I slept on the bus the whole way there. We left the church around 6:30 and traveled for about 7 hours. We stopped to eat lunch in Knoxville and then kept going. We finally got to the lodge we were staying at around 3:30 that afternoon and we put our stuff in the rooms and then I helped my boyfriend set up his drum set. We just had free-time until around 7:30 and we had pizza during that time.  At around 7:30 we had a karaoke night and a lot of people got up and sung while we waited for our speaker, Dave Edwards, to get there. Finally he arrived and we had youth service and the band played then the speaker talked to us. We went to bed around 10:30 and I was exhausted from being up so early.

Saturday, February 14

It’s Valentine’s Day :). My boyfriend and I got to spend our second Valentine’s Day snowboarding which was awesome. I woke up at 6:30 which is still way too early for me and got ready and went and at breakfast at the cafeteria near the lodge we were staying at. We got on the bus at 8:00 to head over to Cataloochee Ski Area. It wasn’t that far from the lodge so I was happy, we got there and the youth pastor realized he left the paperwork back at the lodge so he sent someone to get it and we waited. I was so anxious! I couldn’t wait to get on the slopes, it had been forever since I’ve seen actual amounts of snow. When we got our paperwork we had to wait in line FOREVER to get our rental snowboards which sucked, it took up so much time that we could have been snowboarding. After getting the rentals, my boyfriend (Mark), his friend, his brother and I went to the snowboarding class even though Mark has been snowboarding before. There were so many people and it ended up being a waste of time, I barely learned anything and could have learned it faster from Mark. We went and ate lunch and it was onto the real slopes! The lines for the ski lift was super long which sucked and the ski lift was so much harder than I expected. They make it look so easy on TV and movies. I had a hard time making my way to the loading zone and then had a really hard time getting off. I fell every single time getting off the lift. I only went down the easy slope that day and the first time was so hard! I fell every 10 feet! But I went into this knowing that I would fall and that it would hurt so I was prepared and wasn’t going to give up. That whole day I was trying to learn to turn so I wouldn’t have to fall to turn myself the right direction. I never got it. But it’s okay, I still had the next day. After getting back to the lodge, we had dinner, the band played, the speaker talked and then we had a valentines dance. It was okay. I was exhausted and my body hurt from falling so much.

Here is a video of me falling

Sunday, February 15

This morning was the same as yesterday, but we didn’t have to wait in line for our rentals because we got to keep our rentals. I was so eager to get back out there! My body hurt but I was ready! My boyfriend went on the blue slope (intermediate) while I got ready and went and bought a ski mask. Once he got back we went on the green slope (beginner) twice where I somewhat learned how to turn. After doing that, we went on the blue slope. I was so nervous because I still couldn’t get down the green without falling a lot. But I was determined to do it. I still couldn’t do the ski lift but oh well. When we got to the top and got off the lift and went to strap our other foot in, my toe strap broke! My other foot still had both straps, so I went down the intermediate slope my first time with one foot having both straps and the other having only the heel strap. It was scary, but I enjoyed the blue slope so much more! I was able to turn, I fell a few times but far less than I did on the green! My first time going down blue, I was going down one of the larger hills and this skier rammed full speed right into me. We both flipped and rolled and it hurt but neither of us were injured so that was good. This slope feeds into green and I would get to the green and immediately fall and I would again fall about every 10 feet on the green. The right side of the green kind of bowls so I would constantly be sucked towards the right no matter how hard I tried to turn left. It got so frustrated. We later got a group together and we all went down the blue slope (after I got a new board) about 4 or 5 times. I got the hang of the blue slope towards the end and managed to only fall a few times, but the green always gave me so many issues! I could never get down it. I got so frustrated and my knees and my butt were so sore from falling and my arms were tired from pushing myself up. I also had issues with my new board because the back foot was turned slightly and it really messed with me but I eventually got used to it. After our like fifth time of going down the blue, it was time to go. I was frustrated so I was ready to go, but after turning in my board and boots and waiting on the bus I wasn’t frustrated anymore and was ready to back out. Even though I could barely walk. That night was the same routine as before but we watched videos of people falling.

Monday, February 16

Today was the day we left and we woke up a little later and left around 9:30 and got back around 4:00. We stopped in Knoxville again to eat and just traveled the whole day. Nothing really happened.

Commentary

I LOVED snowboarding so much. I played soccer through high school and I enjoyed it and I like rock climbing, but snowboarding really takes the cake. I have never enjoyed something so much. I went in knowing that I would suck and wanting to at least become decent, so I never gave up and stopped snowboarding until we had to leave. I got so frustrated but I was ready to go back out after 10 minutes and continue trying. I fell so much and by the end of Sunday, I felt like I had been hit by a truck. I hurt so bad but it was so worth it! When I got back I looked up how much ski lift tickets cost, rentals and how much it cost to buy a board and it is so expensive :(. I almost wish I hadn’t fallen so in love with snowboarding because I can’t afford it. I hope that when I have my real job that I can save all year and buy a season pass lift ticket so I can continue snowboarding. Two days was not enough time, I’m so ready to go back out. I actually miss being sore from it now. Oh well, I have to wait until next year to go again.

I hope you enjoyed reading about my trip! If you want to read about my summer youth group trip, click here :)

Thanks for reading!

Kylie

**Mark had the weather proof camera so all of these pictures are thanks to him :)**