Our snowboarding misadventure at Seven Springs

A couple of weeks ago, I started a thread here, "Snowboarding or skiing?",
that generated much discussion and many helpful contributions from group
members. To recap, I'm 42, my son is 14, and neither of us had ever
snowboarded before. We decided to give the sport a shot at the Seven Springs
resort near us in Pennsylvania. I thought the group might be interested in
learning how our first day went. Those with a low tolerance for tedium may
wish to stop reading now.

What went right:
*After reading about how to dress for the slopes, we bought long underwear,
fleece, goggles, snowboarding gloves, etc. We were quite warm today.
*Our rental boots & boards used step-in bindings, which turned out to be
invaluable -- not just for getting into the bindings, but also for getting
out of them. I often found that the only way to get from one place to
another on the hill was to pick up the board and walk.
*The snow-covered trees in the mountains southeast of Pittsburgh were very
pretty.

What went wrong: Just about everything else.

Actually, our first day of snowboarding was supposed to have been last
Sunday, but my son got sick and we had to postpone the trip for a week. Too
bad, because last week was consistently cold, and I think the snow was in
better shape (though mostly machine-made). This week was very cold up until
yesterday, when the temperature suddenly rose, and it rained for a while.
Then it turned colder again. The result was a wetter, icier environment.

The day got off to a comic start this morning as I was viewing the Seven
Springs snow report on my notebook computer. I walked across the room to
show it to my wife, then returned to my seat, still staring at the screen.
Unfortunately, the screen was not transparent, so I did not see the footrest
sticking out from the couch, which I tripped over magnificently. I banged
and scraped my foot, shin and knee, though the computer happily survived.
This turned out to be my worst fall of the day, though I'm not sure I can
legitimately claim it as snowboard-related.

At the beginning of the drive to Seven Springs, we were descending a steep
hill in our area that turned out to be ice-covered and unsalted. The car
spun around several times before ending up in a grassy field on the side of
the road. Luckily, we didn't hit anything, so we were able to pull back onto
the road, gingerly crawl down the rest of the hill, and resume the trip. But
the near-accident turned out to be a bad omen.

Seven Springs has a beginner package for $65 that includes boots and board
rental, a 90-minute group lesson, and a limited access lift ticket. (The
package is cheaper for skiers, because the ski rental costs less. Why is
that?) We purchased two of these packages for a total of $130. We never even
got near a lift today, so I guess we lost money on that part of the deal.

I had thought that equipment selection and use would be part of the lesson,
but it wasn't. A guy just handed us boots after learning our shoe sizes.
There was no effort to ensure a truly good fit, or to explain how all the
various fasteners worked. I had to keep going back to the rental desk to ask
questions. After we got one of my son's boots on and fastened, I noticed
that the other one was missing a strap, so we had to start again with a new
pair. My own boots were size 11. I suppose that they fit me adequately after
a lot of tugging on the laces, but I think that the model was probably too
wide to start with. My heels felt a bit loose, and there was a certain
Frankenstein's monster quality to my stomping.

After all the boots were tied, I happened to look down at my hand and notice
that the skin was shredded on two fingers from all the lace pulling. The
rental clerk responded vacantly when I asked where first aid was, so I just
wandered around until I thought of trying the childcare area. Sure enough,
the supervisor there had a whole box of first aid supplies, so I was able to
find a couple of bandages for my fingers.

My son and I were given the same model of snowboard (Rossignol), though his
was a little longer than mine. That struck me as odd, since we are within
..25" to .5" in height (he is tall for a 14-year-old -- about six feet), but
I outweigh him by 40-50 pounds. When we finally got out on the slope, I
discovered that the binding for my front (left) foot was almost
perpendicular to the major axis of the board, which turned out to be
inconvenient for me. There was so much angle to the foot placement that it
hurt to twist my left knee when I had to scoot with the left foot on the
board and the right foot pushing. Also, I keep my balance much better when I
can turn my left foot more toward to the direction in which I'm heading. It
felt awkward to have it pointing to the side. Our instructor said it was
possible to rotate the binding on the board, but I tried it on the hill and
it didn't budge.

The group lesson itself turned out to be of little use. There were about
five groups of eight for the 2:00 p.m. snowboarding beginners' lesson, and
probably as many for the skiing lesson, so if you pictured the slope as very
crowded, you'd be right. I was the only adult in our group of eight. The
instructor went through a series of lessons in a set order, and from my
perspective it didn't seem to make much difference whether the students
mastered a step or not before the next came along. Stand on the board | Push
the board | Slide with both feet on the board, but only one in the bindings
| Toeside turn | Heelside turn | Try both feet in the bindings | Now try
linking turns. I wasn't close to being able to turn effectively -- in fact,
I really couldn't get the board on edge at all -- when we were supposed to
try linking turns. I'd say that of the eight people in the group, perhaps
two (both little kids -- this seems to be a relatively bad sport for taller
folks to learn) could do a half-decent single turn. Everyone else would
slide down the hill a bit, make some kind of effort, perhaps turn a little,
then flop over in a heap. This was about one hour into the lesson. At this
point my son, who was very far from enjoying himself, and I just left.

An even bigger problem, from my perspective, was that the slope was so
crowded. Boarders and skiers were everywhere, moving in every direction, or
sometimes just sitting or lying on the snow. It's fine for a skilled
instructor to maneuver among the crowds, but I don't think it's right to ask
someone like me to learn in such conditions. Child beginners tend to be
heedless of where they'll end up when they start moving. However, as an
adult, I have the responsibility to think about where I'm heading. Also,
though I'm not a huge person, I'm an adult male and can do some damage to
anyone I collide with. I know that once my board starts moving, I can't stop
and I can't turn. When the slope is crawling with people, where am I
supposed to go? I can't just say, "Anyone in my path be damned!" As a
result, most of my trips were very short. Once I picked up a little speed, I
seemed to have no choice but to take a dive in order to stop before I became
a missile.

By the way, is it possible for a snowboard to be too fast, at least for a
beginner? A little more friction would have been welcome. I didn't like the
foot-on-a-banana-peel sensation of zipping away with no control. Since the
sport has no "crutch" -- the hand on the wall for the novice skater,
training wheels or a parent's grip for a new bicyclist, poles for the
beginning skier -- there doesn't seem to be a way to master the balancing
gradually.

On the whole, the experience was like learning to ride a bicycle by going
downhill with no brakes, and with dozens of pedestrians and other riders
crossing in front of you. When we were seated in the shuttle bus headed back
to the parking lot, my son remarked, "Well, that's one thing I never want to
do again. That was horrible."

Anyway, if we do this again -- and I'm not sure we will, given my son's
perspective and my disinclination to go alone -- we'll have to try private
lessons and figure out when there'll be some real open space available for
learning. I'm not sure what to do about equipment. Today's experience
confirms my general view that it's impossible to make progress in anything
with one-size-fits-all rental stuff (I didn't start improving as a skater
until I got my own, well-fitting skates), but it's very expensive and
probably imprudent to buy equipment we may seldom use. I already feel as
though today's $130 was flushed away with little to show for it.

Sorry for the extreme length of this report. If you're still awake, thanks
for reading.

Joe Ramirez