Snowboarding on Mt. Bachelor

Ever since I got to Mount Shasta, I have wanted to learn to snowboard.... so I went to Bend, Oregon this weekend to learn to snowboard on Mt. Bachelor. Everyone said that it was a great mountain to ski on. It hasn't snowed here in Mount Shasta so the snow park here never opened, but it would have been nice to be able to go up to the mountain every weekend and practice snowboarding but it just didn't happen. So my boss let me work 4 9 hour days so I could get off at noon on Friday to drive to Bend. Me and abby packed up and hit the road for yet another road trip! I didn't run into any bad weather or bad roads so that was great! I rented a one bedroom cottage to stay in and it was just perfect! Here is a pic of the cottage.

Then Saturday morning I got up and got ready for my adventure. I dressed really warm and got to wear my new gear I just recently bought. I got to the ski lodge and I had no clue what I was doing and it seemed like everyone there had been there a million times! Oh well I got signed up for my lesson, got my gear and headed out to the lesson. Here I am about to start the lesson and a pic of the little hill we practiced/fell on. :-)

So the biggest goal of the lesson was to learn how to stop. We learned how to stop on heel edge and then on toe edge. I have never spent so much time on the ground lol. I started to get the hang of going down backwards and stopping on my toes. Because one it didn't use my quads as much and two if you fall you fall forward up the hill versus down the hill. We practiced and practiced for 2 hours and then were on our own. There was a guy that was there alone and he was going to try and go up the lift and practice after lunch so we hung out and attempted the lift and green hill after lunch. Getting on and off the lift is a task in itself with a snowboard but we did pretty good I would say. Here is a picture of me going up the lift and the hill I came down.

The first time down I actually got the hang of going down forward, stopping on my heels. The steeper the hill I would go backwards and then when it leveled out some I would turn and go down forward. I still sat down a lot when I felt like I was going too fast. My quads were really feeling it when I would ride for a little bit without falling. So i made it down and headed back up for round 2. My legs at this point were getting really tired so I could tell I couldn't keep my balance as well so I was falling a lot more. So I was going pretty good down backwards and relaxed and I think I relaxed too much and the back of my board caught in the snow and up in the air I went backwards, feet and board in the air and I landed hard on my back and got a little whiplash. At that point I had had enough lol but I had to complete the hill. So I turned around, went down forward, slowly, and took the board off! I had a great time but it was definitley a work out getting up off the floor that much is hard work!! Today I am sore all over but atleast I don't have any broken bones! I survived my first experience with snowboarding and it was absolutely beautiful up there.