I had planned to post my first blog quite some time ago, but unfortunately the Australian snow season took a while to get going. Thankfully, things are well and truly in full swing with excellent snowfalls over the last few weeks. This might just be the bumper year people have been waiting for. Unlike, many of the other bloggers on the site, I am not a professional or for that matter competitive in any free sport just someone who loves to snowboard and write about it!
My first trip of the season was to be a girly one. My riding buddies and I decided we would ditch the boys and head up to the snow ourselves. The plan was to hit Mt. Buller the closest ‘decent’ mountain to Melbourne, Australia and have a day of gossip, laughs and of course plenty of riding. My friend Tanya, her friend and workmate Elise and Elise’s sister Danielle were my snow loving buddies for the day.
The day started at the unsociable 4am! I think the prospect of a days snowboarding could be one of the only things to get me out of my bed at that time. I was the driver for the day so I had to make sure I was wide awake before hitting the road, I picked up the girls, we packed our boards and were on our way. Road Trip anyone!!!
Three and a half hours later we arrived at the mountain, excited for our first day on snow since August ’07. You just can’t beat the first day on snow after those torturous months away from the snow, and even more importantly greeted with great conditions and even some sun poking through the clouds. Would you want to be anywhere else? Our day started as it would continue, some mellow turns lots of laughing and story telling on the chairlift. All without boys telling us to hurry up or that we were holding them up. Don’t get me wrong it’s great having the guys around to push us sometimes, but every now and then it’s nice to cruise along making wide turns down a run instead of trailing behind the cloud of snow spray created by the straight lining guys!
My fellow boarders Tanya and Elise carried on where they had left off last season, perfecting the art of linking their turns and attempting some steeper terrain. Both doing really well, progressing as the morning went on. Danielle, the lone skier in the group was excited to ski with boarders – a first for her. It was interesting to hear how as a skier she sees the runs differently and she held her own in the skier vs. snowboarder banter! We were all just getting out snow legs back and poor Elise injured herself. Despite the fact Elise hurt herself, we couldn’t avoid the comedy commando/slow mo dive she did to retrieve her runaway board as it flew off down the hill, (yeah we know she should have had a leash on!). Later finding out the she had torn a ligament in her shoulder. Not much fun! She put on a brave face and continued on for the rest of the day…good work girlie!
We kept going right to the bitter end…even at one point weighing up whether or not we would make it down one more time before last lift! We decided not to risk it and headed back to the car…tired but happy! Our inaugural girls snow trip was not only a great start the season but it will be the start of an annual tradition!
Back with the boys, we are off to a place Falls Creek this weekend – one of the larger Aussie resorts. The snow has been falling all week so it looks like it will be a good one.
