iRide
Zaskoda’s Snowboarding Journal

I’ve noticed a lot of referrals in my logs coming from folks searching Google for “When is the Sayulita Surf Season” or similar text. I haven’t been there a full year myself, but I asked the locals about it while I was there. The season starts around early October and ends around late May. That’s the window when the best waves are likely to happen. They tell me that smaller waves still continue to kick up year round and there’s potentially good surf in the summer months. Post spring break (mid to late May) is a good time to go as the winter-only residents have left to avoid the spring break rush, the spring breakers have all gone home, and the waves are still ridable. In fact, the photo attached was from our trip taken at the end of last May. Thanks to Velzy for snapping a picture of me attempting to catch a little roller. =D

Bearfire Resort finally has a website online. It’s kinda meh, but it’s nice to see something up. They’ve posted a lot of stock art and artists renders. All the real snow might be misleading, but I suppose they have to get the message across until they get something real built. The most interesting thing, in my opinion, is the poll asking users where they think the next resort should be. I personally voted for Progreso, Mexico. I think it would be a huge win in as a business decision because the area is currently exploding with growth. I also think it would be a big win for me because my parents are retiring to the area! Ok, I’m selfish. Anyway, nothing overly noteworthy on the site. No new news or information that I’ve found. You can view the current results of the poll when you vote.

I’m suddenly wondering if most people will get the lolcat reference in the title. If not, you’re totally missing out. Anyway, I got an apartment yesterday. It only took me a little more than two weeks to pick one. Granted, it’s not the dream apartment I had hoped for. The problem with the dream apartment is the fact that it would cost about three times as much as what I got. I’m content with where I’m at. I have mountains out of all of my windows. It’s a one bedroom, top floor, modern apartment. Living in Boulder was tempting, but there’s not much modern in South Boulder and it’s a good 15-20 miles to work. I’m not scared of a long commute, but start adding up the gas for a there and back trip to work five times a week and stack that onto higher rent… suddenly, I have to ask myself just how badly I want to live in Boulder. I went with Westminster. I am 7 miles from my office building - probably 5 as the crow flies.

So the next question is - how far do I have to drive to snowboard? Well, lets check a few places out:

So I’m looking at 30 minutes from two resorts… Not as good as living slopeside, but I’ll take it. While google mapping for distance, I realized I really need to get to work on SnowTripping! Who knows, maybe I’ll actually get to work on it some this summer… We’ll see. In a perfect world, SnowTripping would become my job. =D

Yesterday, I booked my airfare to Pucon, Chile for August. This will be my first trip (any kind of trip) off of the North American continent. There are four of us going, all from DallasSnowboarders.com. None of us speak particularly good Spanish. We’re going to be very out of our element. Even with our tid-bits of broken spanish, Spanish in Chile is a lot different from the Mexican Spanish we’re used to in Texas.

The mountain seems interesting. In fact, it happens to be a volcano named Villarrica. It’s all alpine, there are no trees. There are supposed to be a lot of interesting natural features, such as half pipes, along with killer lake views. I’ll be sure and get a few photos and videos.

It looks like my first full season of snowboarding will be 07/08. I accepted the job offer near Denver and will be moving this Sunday. I may get wordy about the job opportunity and adventures in the future, but for now I’ll just say it’s related to community development.

I should be less than 2 hours from Winter Park with other slopes even closer. I expect my stay in the area to last around a year and a half - at most three years. I’m excited to see how much my riding will improve during this phase of my life. I expect that, at some point, I will finally get my fill of snowboarding and be ready to pour my energy into something new. I’m sure I will always snowboard, but I think that a few seasons will cure my obsession.