Snowboarding in the prairies?

My rental

Frost Fire

It's funny how you don't speak to someone for 6 or 7 years, and even back then you didn't really speak, and then suddenly you're going snowboarding together! Similar stories has been told several times over for me. I didn't talk to Rob, Chris, Jill, Nusraat, and others back in high school. It's not that we didn't like each other (ok, well, I was predisposed to not like Chris, but that's a whole other story). We were all civil to each other. It's just that we had different social groups (I was obviously in the cooler group ;)). It was only after high school did I become friends with them, mostly b/c Rob, Chris, and Nusraat were in engineering with me.

I went snowboarding at Frost Fire with Christy just across the border in North Dakota. It was actually better than I thought it was going to be. The runs were short, easy, and there weren't many of them, but that was to be assumed. The vertical drop was about half of Blue Mountain's, which itself is about 1/4 the size of a real mountain. The "blues" were actually "greens" and the "black diamonds" were "blues". Despite all this, I still had a lot of fun! The snow conditions were pretty good and the runs were groomed well. It's funny that we weren't actually snowboarding on a mountain. The prairies don't have mountains. We were snowboarding in a valley!!! I donno, I found that funny. It was weird b/c when we got to the slopes, we started at the top of the runs, as opposed to the bottom of the mountain whereby you would then have to take the chair lift to the top :)

I got my ass handed to me time and time again. At the end, I was taking a head start and Christy still beat me to the bottom! In my defense, I haven't been snowboarding since high school :p. I also haven't ridden with anyone even half as good, as I have been going with people that just learned recently, so I haven't been going fast as it's boring to have to wait at the bottom. It's good to go with someone better than you so you can learn.

I tried jumping for the first time, which was fun :). I landed my first jump, which was more of a hop. The second time, I was a little too aggressive with my jumping and didn't land flat and took a bit of a fall. I just needed to test my limits. We also rode switch (other foot facing down the mountain) a few times, which was interesting. It's like trying to do anything with the other foot/hand. You end up having to relearn how to do things. Try brushing your teeth with the opposite hand. Riding switch obviously involved falling. After about 3 tries, I did manage to do a few turns and that was the only time I beat Christy down the slope (I'm refraining from using the word "mountain" or "hill", b/c it was neither). Let's not argue about how long I was riding switch vs regular, etc., etc. :)

I was able to get in and out of my bindings much faster than Christy (and beat her to the lift) b/c the rental I had had "flow" bindings, which with just one switch, my boot could go in or come out of the binding. I rented from Gord's b/c I didn't bring my board to Winnipeg as I didn't think I'd be going snowboarding. It was good though b/c it gave me the chance to try some good equipment. It wasn't however, good enough to convince me that I need new equipment considering that I just bought mine. The boots were a bit more comfortable than mine and the board felt pretty good, but not substantially different than mine, despite it being 156 cm instead of my 151. It was hard to really compare the two b/c the snow conditions were good (not bumpy, hard, crunchy, or icy) and I've ridden in a lot of crap. It was also a brand new board b/c all their rentals were out :)