iRide
Zaskoda’s Snowboarding Journal

I haven’t been to Santa Fe since I was about 11 years old. That was 20 years ago. Needless to say, I don’t remember it all that well. This trip pretty much feels like the first time I’ve been here. I’m staying at a Gil’s parent’s house just outside of Santa Fe. The attached photo is the view from the back patio. The photo doesn’t do it justice. The slightly snowy patch in the mountains in the background of the photo is where I went riding this afternoon. There’s a slightly better shot up on Gil’s flickr. Her photo was taken while I was actually up there.

The snow at the Santa Fe ski area was hard pack. There were lots of exposed tree tops and dirt patches. In general the conditions weren’t all that great. But, you know, snowboarding is a lot like sex… even when it’s bad, it’s good. Anyway, I took on a new adventure today. I took a black with lots of deep moguls. I remember hating moguls in the past. Recently, I’ve learned to cut my board harder by shifting most of my weight to the front of the board. This makes taking on moguls way more fun. The run was a lot of work, but I really enjoyed it. I wanted to take it a second time, but it was too late in the day and they were shutting the lifts down.

Tomorrow night, Christmas Eve, we’re supposed to get a bit more snow. The mountain was crowded today, and I hear it will be worse on Christmas, but I’ll probably be out there anyway… even if we don’t get that fresh snow.

83 days left…

On March 19th, one of the last remaining ‘Ski’ only mountains, Taos, will open it’s doors to snowboarders. Coming from someone who skied and snowboarded both of the neighbor resorts (Angelfire & Red River), there’s really only one thing to say… Holy Crap Dude…

Honestly, I never thought this would happen and had come to terms with it a long time ago. Check out the Ride Taos link and, while you’re there, be sure to swim through the comments!!!

Some of my friends are getting into the kiteboarding thing. It looks like fun. I almost got to try it in Chile, but we didn’t have enough wind. Here’s a rather snazzy vid that was recently posted to DallasSnowboarders.com.

Well, there will be no snowboarding this weekend. I’m about to catch a flight back to Texas to enjoy “Thanksmas”. Sometimes we call it “Christgiving” as well. Basically, my family got tired of the headache surrounding the holidays. There’s the whole issue of timing get-togethers among various parts of the family. Then, there’s the whole issue with the heavy traffic and difficult travel during the holidaze. So, we just pick a weekend in the middle each year and celebrate both holidays together on one day. It works out well. In addition to being able to travel cheap and easily, it also means I have both Thanksgiving and Christmas off - to go snowboarding!

Just a few more things to pack and I can head off to bed. *yawn*…

The theme of the day was the before mentioned Arbor Mystic. Today I rode it exclusively. I have to say it again, this is going to take some getting used to. I stopped at my favorite board shop in Idaho Springs and brought the board in to ask about the edges. I’d noticed that they were intentionally filed down in some place. Today I learned that this is normal for a park board so you don’t catch an edge when you don’t intend to. Interesting to say the least.

I rode Keystone in the morning. The runs were good, but the snow was packed on all the main runs. I fell once and smacked the back of my head. I’ve managed to do this several times this season, you’d think I’d wear my helmet. Anyway, after lunch, I headed down the road a little to A-Basin. I haven’t been there in a while and they have a lot more runs open now. After falling a couple of times, I was pleased to find that they’ve got enough of a base to give you some padding.

With a little less pain involved in the falling, I really started playing on the Mystic. It can be a fun board to ride, there’s no doubt. Still, I have yet to feel relaxed on it as I do on the Custom. Hopefully this will come with time.

On the way out, I shot a little bit of video of Loveland Pass and posted it to YouTube.

84 days left…

The weekend started off rough. I wanted to get a day in yesterday. My intent was to slip out of work around 3, be at Keystone by 5, and ride until they closed at 9. Unfortunately, work did not agree. I was trapped until after 6. It worked out ok, though. Since I didn’t leave until this morning, Joe and Christina were able to come along. It made for a great day and I can’t stress how nice it is to have someone along during the creep through i70 traffic on the way home!

It’s been snowing and there’s a pretty good base at Keystone now. It snowed almost the entire time we were there today. This made for some relatively good conditions. I even got to slide through some nice untouched powder in a few places. You still have to be careful, however. I learned this the hard way as I slid through a few trees only to hear rocks and stumps grinding against the bottom of my board. The base isn’t thick enough just yet.

An interesting side note about the day’s adventures. We met up at Starbucks at the end of the day. At the table next to us sat a family of three. They were spending “quality” family time together. (sarcasm) Dad was busy sending e-mails on the crackberry. Mom was jabbering on the cell phone. Junior was playing Gameboy. The entire time we were in Starbucks, they never engaged each other. I never even saw them acknowledge each other. It kind of made me sad. I caught a little secret pic - shhhh, don’t tell.

Tomorrow I’m off again for day 16… at least, that’s the plan!

85 days left…