{"id":98,"date":"2010-12-03T11:33:06","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T19:33:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/?p=98"},"modified":"2010-12-03T11:33:06","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T19:33:06","slug":"first-day-on-the-snow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/?p=98","title":{"rendered":"First Day on the Snow"},"content":{"rendered":"

I went for a refresher, all-day snowboarding lesson yesterday at Crystal Mountain<\/a>.\u00c2\u00a0 In short, I survived my first day on the snow this season.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m in recovery mode today.<\/p>\n

I had a good time.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a Thursday, so pretty much the only people on the mountain were those that didn’t work, had taken the day off to play, or worked there.\u00c2\u00a0 Good news for me because I didn’t have to worry as much about dodging other skiers\/snowboarders or getting run over by one as I would on a typical weekend day.\u00c2\u00a0 I turned out to be the only person in the lesson, so I essentially got a tailor-built private one for the price of a group one.\u00c2\u00a0 Very sweet!\u00c2\u00a0 My instructor quickly took me through the basics again, assessed my skill level, and helped me work on those basics that could use a lot of practice.\u00c2\u00a0 Most of it, essentially.\u00c2\u00a0 I had taken lessons before, so the mechanics of it are still with me, but I didn’t get a chance to practice any of it afterward so my body doesn’t always do what my brain instructs.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m still wobbly and unstable if I don’t concentrate hard enough at staying loose (read: not tensed up and freaked out) and in proper stance.\u00c2\u00a0 Which leads to falling over…a lot.\u00c2\u00a0 And getting back up again, with a slippery board strapped to my feet to make it just that much harder.<\/p>\n

But this time the mountains are close enough to practice what I’ve learned so that I retain it longer.\u00c2\u00a0 There are plans for a group of us to go play on the snow as soon as this weekend.<\/p>\n

I’m not horribly out of shape, considering that I’m a desk worker with a knitting hobby and occasional hiking adventures.\u00c2\u00a0 My major muscles withstood some pretty good pounding yesterday and are only slightly making their presence known today.\u00c2\u00a0 Not just because of the falling down either.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a waist-down kind of sport.\u00c2\u00a0 The top half of you, with the exception of your head\/eyes\/etc., has little to do while you’re upright.\u00c2\u00a0 They do a lot to get you upright, but once there assume what I call a relaxed “spaghetti” sort of posture.\u00c2\u00a0 Hips, thighs, knees, calves, and ankles do the rest to propel and steer.\u00c2\u00a0 To get an idea of which of my muscles are speaking louder than the rest today, think about what you’d feel like if you held your legs in a slight squat for four to five hours with periodic breaks.\u00c2\u00a0 My thighs were burning and my knees absolutely refused to be held in a bent position by the end of the day yesterday.\u00c2\u00a0 Today they only speak when I ask them to help me get out of the chair – which is an improvement over what I had expected them to feel like.<\/p>\n

So I was animated when I was telling Fiance all about it last night over dinner.\u00c2\u00a0 And I’m excited to go back and practice some more this weekend.\u00c2\u00a0 After a nice relaxing rest day today, that is.\u00c2\u00a0 I’ll probably go for a walk this afternoon, but nothing strenuous.<\/p>\n

Also of note was the drive up to the mountain yesterday.\u00c2\u00a0 The last time we were there was in early November when the road into that side of Mount Rainier National Park<\/a> was still open.\u00c2\u00a0 At that time the drive through the pines was nice, but the ski area was dreary.\u00c2\u00a0 This time though everything was blanketed with a thick layer of snow and the trees were just beautiful.\u00c2\u00a0 I took shots from the parking lot before I headed to the slopes.\u00c2\u00a0 As usual, the camera doesn’t always do it justice.\u00c2\u00a0 A light fog was just moving in to obscure the good light.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe I’ll get a better one next time.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I went for a refresher, all-day snowboarding lesson yesterday at Crystal Mountain.\u00c2\u00a0 In short, I survived my first day on the snow this season.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m in recovery mode today. I had a good time.\u00c2\u00a0 It was a Thursday, so pretty … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[43,20,17,19,18],"class_list":["post-98","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventuring","tag-crystal-mountain","tag-snow","tag-snowboard","tag-sports","tag-winter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=98"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=98"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=98"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.tangledstrands.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=98"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}