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Tag Archives: Winter

Learning to Snowboard

12 Sunday Jan 2014

Posted by SaraS in Outdoors

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

learning, Snow, snowboarding, Winter

One of the things I mentioned in my Good Things in 2013 post was learning to snowboard. This was really a terrific experience.

It all came about as a somewhat impulsive idea when Renee and I were shopping for a new winter jacket at the Bob Wards outlet store. And it seemed a little outlandish at first. After all, I was nearly 42 years old, and I had never learned how to downhill ski. And my cross-country skiing abilities were…well, not that good. I can mostly stay upright, but my stopping and turning skills are pretty poor. For cross-country skiing, I tend to be most successful on flat, straight stretches.

I can snowshoe pretty well, but that is pretty much just…walking through snow.

So learning to snowboard sounded impossible. Especially at 42.

But…on the other hand, I had lived in Montana for seven years at the time, and it just sort of seemed wrong to live within a short drive to multiple ski resorts and yet never once go to one of them.

So we went on a mini shopping spree and picked up some basic equipment. Snowboard, boots, bindings, warm snowboard pants, and goggles. As an aside, finding goggles that work well over glasses is a bit of a pain.

The Bunny Hill, Lessons, and an Evil Rope Tow

We drove down to Lost Trail Powder Mountain for my first lesson on December 20, 2012. The plan was to do their “1 2 3” program. You get three 1-hour lessons with a lift ticket for each of those days. After completing the three lessons (on any days in the season), you get a punch card for an additional 3 lift tickets for practicing.

It is really a great deal.

I remember being extremely nervous on the 2-hour drive to Lost Trail, and looking back, I’m not entirely sure why. It just felt like I was going into completely unknown territory.

Once we arrived, it didn’t take long to sign up for lessons (Renee was doing a similar program for people with some snowboarding experience – called “4 5 6”). I remember worrying that I might end up in a lesson with a bunch of athletic little kids, and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my lesson would just be the instructor and myself.

Even though the instructor was probably in his 20s, he didn’t seem to think there was anything odd about me wanting to learn to snowboard.

I spent the first day on the bunny hill learning how to move around with the board strapped to only one foot. We progressed to learning how to stop and do basic turns; I ended nearly every attempt on my butt in the snow.

The good thing about just learning is that you go so slow that the falls don’t really hurt that much. That comes later, once you pick up a little speed.

I think the most memorable part of the first day was discovering that the rope tow is evil. It looked easy. I watched other skiers and boarders just grab on and glide smoothly to the top. Every time I grabbed on, I’d slide up a few feet before losing my balance and falling. I got good at scooting out of the way of the next person in line. I also burned quite a few calories hiking up the hill just to get to the top.

The rope tow at Lost Trail
The rope tow at Lost Trail

Overall, the first day was really not bad — although I had sore muscles the next day, and I had a hard time believing that I would ever make it off the bunny hill.

We went back two more times in late December for the next two lessons, and I slowly progressed, even with the evil rope tow.

Strapped into my board
Strapped into my board

My last lesson in the “1 2 3” program was on December 27. After the lesson, I recorded my bunny hill practice runs with my phone’s GPS; here they are shown on a satellite view. The little red marks are all the places I stopped.

Practicing on the bunny hill after my last lesson
Practicing on the bunny hill after my last lesson

Real Runs!

On New Years Day, 2013, we decided to go to try Discovery Mountain for a change. I started out on the bunny hill and the “easy chair,” which is a slower chair lift great for learning. No rope tow! Although I still fell every time I got off the chair. Again, I got good at scooting out of the way before the next skier or boarder dismounted the lift.

After lunch, Renee convinced me to try a real run — and a real chair lift. We took the chair up to Gold Bug, an “easy” green run.

Renee at the top of Gold Bug, my first real run
Renee at the top of Gold Bug, my first real run

It took me about an hour to make it down the run. It went sort of like this:

Ride a short distance. Fall in the deep snow off to the side. Thrash around for 10 minutes trying to get up. Finally get up, ride a few more feet and then fall again and start over. Repeat for an hour.

According to my phone’s GPS, it was about 20 minutes of actually moving down the hill, and 40 minutes thrashing or sitting in the snow. Not particularly encouraging. But it was also my first time off a bunny hill, and just a few weeks earlier, I was convinced I’d never get off the bunny hill and onto a real run. Progress!

GPS track of my first Gold Bug run…lots of stops again
GPS track of my first Gold Bug run…lots of stops again

About two weeks later, we went back to Discovery for my birthday weekend. This time, Gold Bug took almost no time at all!

Look at that! Hardly any stops this time!
Look at that! Hardly any stops this time!

Real progress!

We continued with several more trips that winter, both to Lost Trail and Discovery. I did a second round of three lessons (the “4 5 6” program) as well, just to have more professional advice and suggestions. I continued to dislike the rope tow, particularly the second tow at Lost Trail where I had to be oriented with my back to the rope. More hikes up the hill.

I continued to fight with dismounting the chair lift. By the very last day we went (in March), I managed to slide off the chair and down the ramp without crash landing. Progress! And I made it down a few “easy blue” runs at both Lost Trail and Discovery.

So Why Did I Do This Again?

Back before my very first lesson, when we were shopping around and buying gear, I remember the advice I got from just about every sports store sales guy once we mentioned that I was going to learn to snowboard. “Be sure to go at least three days before you give up. You’ll hate it the first day, you have to keep trying before you give up.”

I found this to be mostly true, although I didn’t hate it during my first day. Not until the next morning, when I woke up with sore muscles and my mind attempting to analyze just why this seemed so frustrating.

Then I figured it out. I was teaching my body an entirely alien physical skill. I tried to remember the last time I learned a new, purely physical skill. I couldn’t remember. Maybe when I learned to ride a bike? That was so long ago I had no clear memories of how hard it was. In my memory, I’ve just always known how to ride bike, just like those lucky toddlers out on the bunny hill who will never remember a time they couldn’t ski.

Once I realized that, the frustration faded a bit. It came back, frequently, especially on my first attempt with Gold Bug on New Year’s Day, but my best defense against the frustration was to remember that I was learning a new physical skill and it would just take time. And practice.

One thing I didn’t expect when I started this snowboarding journey was the amazing views of the mountains and forest from the ski mountains. When I thought about learning to snowboard, I thought about the technical difficulty of locking my feet to a board and teaching my body to guide it down the mountain while staying balanced and upright. Getting the chance to admire beautiful vistas of trees and snow and mountains didn’t even cross my mind. But even the view from the lowly bunny hill was gorgeous and inspiring.

Interestingly, this weekend I saw this article in the Missoulian making the exact point that everyone should ski at least once, just for the amazing views.

From a lift at Discovery
From a lift at Discovery
On our very last day, March 17, 2013, at Lost Trail
On our very last day, March 17, 2013, at Lost Trail

During some of our runs, Renee took some video of me with her phone and made this little video. This was mostly from the first few times we went in December and early January; hopefully by the end of the season I looked a little less stiff!

If the embedded video doesn’t work, click here

Now What?

This year, we had big plans for the 2013/2014 snowboarding season. Back in November, we had Christmas early and bought Go Pro cameras we could mount to our helmets to record our runs. We each had to have our own camera so we could record each other.

Life intervened with these plans when Renee became sick in early December and was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor. She had surgery to remove it on December 20, 2013 (exactly one year after my first snowboarding lesson!) and obviously won’t be careening down the ski hill until her skull and brain are fully healed. I’m hoping that the snow will still be around in late February and early March and she’ll be up for some late-season snowboarding. But if not, there’s always next winter!

Image

Photo of the Day: November Snow

01 Tuesday Nov 2011

Tags

Snow, Winter

DSC_0161 by SaraS
DSC_0161, a photo by SaraS on Flickr.

Via Flickr:
Snow in the backyard on the first day of November. At least it waited till October was done!

Posted by SaraS | Filed under Backyard, Photo of the Day, Photography

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Rusty’s Doghouse

16 Sunday Oct 2011

Posted by SaraS in Dogs

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Building Projects, dachshund, roofing, wiener dogs, Winter

Rusty's dog house

Susan is a groomer who works with Renee at Quick Paws. She has an eight-year old dachshund named Rusty. I believe she has only had him for a year or two, so she adopted him as an adult dog.

Anyway, Rusty has a problem with damaging her apartment while she is gone to work, so he currently can’t be indoors alone while she is gone. With the weather turning colder, this was getting to be a big problem.

Renee came to the rescue by building Rusty a cozy, well-insulated doghouse last weekend. We have many of our own projects that need to get done, but this is one that really made a difference for one cute little dog. The project had the added benefit of using up numerous leftover building materials

Renee did most of the work on this one herself; I only helped out towards then end, when we wrapped things up with the roof. Unfortunately I didn’t get many pictures of this project in progress.

Framing the House and Building Walls

Renee used scrap wood to build a frame for the dog house. She designed it with a little peaked roof, sort of like Snoopy’s house. Since this is for a little dog, she ripped the scrap 2x4s (that is, cut them longways) for the frame.

Roof_rafters.jpg

Birdmouth cuts in the rafters

She did nice little birdmouth cuts for the rafters.

Then she cut foam insulation to size and placed it in the frame. At this point, it would have looked like a little house with white foam walls. She then covered up the sides with the leftover OSB sheathing.

insulated_interior.jpg

View of the interior with lots of insulation

https://muddypoodles.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/insulation.jpg

Insulation still exposed before all the sheathing was installed

Jigsaw_for_door.jpg

Cutting the opening

She cut a small opening in the front for the door with a jigsaw, keeping it small to keep as much heat inside as possible.

 

 

Weatherproofing the House

tarpapering_the_walls.jpg

Tar-papering the walls

This house needs to be nice and watertight to keep Rusty warm and dry. We had leftover tarpaper from the Great Cat Room Remodel. So she cut pieces of that and used the staple gun to attach them to all sides of the house, as well as the roof.

But a good well-built house needs good, attractive siding. Fortunately we had a big stack of cedar planks that served well as siding. She attached these using long screws.

old_grizzlyfence_countertop.jpg

The old Grizzly Fence countertop that provided the wood for Rusty's dog house

The wood siding was another recycled material. Renee started grooming at Quick Paws back in the spring of 2010. At the time, Quick Paws had just moved into their new location, which used to belong to Grizzly Fence. The room that was to become the groom shop had a large, old countertop covered with cedar fence pickets. We pulled all those old pickets off and removed the countertop to make room for grooming, but Renee anticipated that this wood might come in handy and saved it.

These cedar pickets were substantial, so adding them as siding quickly made the whole house very heavy.

Roofing and Finishing Up

Finally, the house needed a good roof. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any more of the Ondura roofing panels from the Great Cat Room Remodel. We had already donated the leftovers to Home Resource.

So we ended up going back to Home Resource and buying some regular house shingles. We actually bought more than we needed, but it was only $5. They charge $1 per vertical inch of shingles, so I guess we had a 5-inch tall stack of shingles.

The advantage is, this would make the dog house look more like a real house.

I helped with the roof. I was a little surprised to find myself pounding roofing nails again…I had really thought that the cat room remodel was the end of my roofing career. At least for this one there was no danger of slipping and falling off. Although I did have to stand on my toes to reach the nails up near the top of the ridge.

roof.jpg

Shingling the roof

Working with the shingles was pretty easy. They were already the perfect width for the little house, so I just laid them on one after another, starting from the bottom. After placing the first shingle, overlapping the next one covers up the nails, so the whole roof looks nice.

ridge_cap_and_roof

Ridge cap from the side

For the top, we used more shingles to create a ridge cap. The ridge cap is intended to cover the joint where the two sides of the roof meet. There are pre-made ridge caps you can use, but we decided to do the basic version. For this, I cut the shingles into 7-inch strips. Then I installed them along the top of the roof, similar to the way I installed the regular shingles. Again, adding and overlapping each new shingle over the previous one hid the previous nails. When I finished, I thought it looked a little funny because the shingles were still very stiff. However, once the house sits out in the sun and heat, the asphalt shingles should soften and “relax” a bit.

ridge_cap.jpg

Ridge cap from the front of the house

While I worked on the roof, Renee added trim pieces around the door and on all the corners to hide the seams. We were out of the old Grizzly Fence wood by now, so we used some pickets leftover from installing our own fence last summer.

At last, the house was done! The rough wood planks gave it a nice “rustic” barn look, and I happen to think that the shingles look great.

cropped_side_view.jpg

The finished house!

finished_back_view.jpg

Back view of the finished house!

finished_front_view.jpg

Front view - I love the trim around the door!

Delivering the House

When we finally finished, the house was so heavy we had to back the truck right up to the workbench so we wouldn’t have to carry the house very far. We slid it up on the tailgate and carefully drove to Susan’s house; she lives just down the street so it wasn’t a very long drive.

I should have brought my camera but completely forgot. Susan and her roommate were completely blown away by the dog house. I think Susan was amazed that Renee had built something so cool over one weekend! They found a nice spot for it right by the back door.

Later in the week, Susan told Renee that Rusty loves the new house. He goes out in the back yard, does his business, and goes right into the the little house.

So I would say the Rusty’s Doghouse project was a big success!

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