We woke up early (or 7 am) and got all of our gear together. Our cabin was a 5 - 10-minute drive to the hill. As we rolled in butterflies were flying all around my stomach. I am still a new snowboarder and I am learning how to do the simple things, like how to turn. I have the action of stopping down. I am very good at stopping. In fact, I stop so well that it often hurts my turning. I came to this resort with the hope that I could learn how to turn consistently. We got our lift tickets (one ticket that was good for two days) and headed off to snowboard.
After a few shorter bunny and easy runs in, we set our sights for the tallest green run on the mountain. The tallest green run takes us from the top all the way down. You need to take two chairlifts to get to the top. Going to the top of the mountain was breathtaking. You could see the whole valley from the top. “Um, Ryan?” I asked. “Yes?” “We are coming into the drop-off area pretty fast. I don’t think I can do this.” I had already fallen down from an earlier chair lift and wrenched my shoulder when I tried to, for some odd reason, hold onto the chairlift. “It slows down a lot. This is a super quad. You’ll be fine sweetie” he assured me. I still didn’t feel at ease. “Ummmm...it’s fast. Holy it’s fast. Holy crap! Ah!” I closed my eyes to wait for the inevitable fall. “...oh,” I said after I had enough time to get up leisurely and get off the lift. Ryan chuckled at me, “Let’s go Polo.”
Giddy and excited I thought to myself “I can do this!”. The mountain proceeded to take me down a notch or two. I couldn’t get the handle on turning, I was still too nervous. In my nervousness, I proceeded to, in a way that Ryan could only describe as Italian snowboarding, wave my hands around, widely gesticulating my frustration. “Why can’t I do this?” I asked while sweeping my hands out wide, nearly taking out someone who was trying to pass me, unbeknownst to me at the time. “It’s not that steep.” I declared while sweeping my hands down. Ryan smiled at me from a short ways away.
“Hey, Polo, come into the lodge and let’s get a drink - loosen you up” he suggested. “Yeah, ok,” I said with my head down in defeat.
We took off our gear and headed to the lodge that is located half way down the mountain.
“What do you want to drink? Shots of Whisky?” he asked. “Tequila?” I countered. “Sure. Two shots of tequila,” he ordered. “Do you want lime with that?” the waitress asked. “Yup,” I answered for the both of us.
Two shots materialized in front of us, and our cash dematerialized from our wallets. Ryan went to go take a swig of his “shot” (it came in a regular glass!).
“Wait a minute there!” I said. “What?” “You’ve gotta do it like a real college girl!” I answered. He just looked at me. I proceeded to pour salt on my hand. He just laughed and raised his glass to mine. We clinked our glasses, I licked the salt off my hand, and we drank our “shot”. Lime in our mouths, I started to feel the warmth of the tequila warm my stomach. I could do this. I can turn!
We went back out on the hill and adjusted my bindings to force me to sit lower on my bindings. The magical combination of the tequila and my new binding set up allowed me to start turning with more ease. I could do it! Ha!
We spent the rest of the afternoon snowboarding. After a quick lunch and a few more runs, I called my last run. There seems to be this superstition among snowboarders (skiers too?) about calling your last run. You can’t call it at the bottom of the hill or else you will get hurt. This makes my deceleration of “That was my last run.” a finality that couldn’t be debated. Ryan was still rearing to go down some runs, and I was exhausted. I grabbed the keys from him and went to the car to nap while he got a few more runs in.
We met up around 3:30 pm and decided to check out the lodge a little bit more. It turns out that Sugarloaf does not have any night skiing and promptly closes down at 4 pm. It seems that everything else shuts down early. We noticed a cute little doughnut place that we took note of for the next day. We also picked up a stomp pad for my board at the store for the next day in the hopes that it would help me to get off the chairlifts a little bit easier. With our exploring over we headed back to make dinner and call it a night. We were planning on setting our alarm a little earlier the next day in the effort to get to the hill earlier.