Learning to Snowboard at 40

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Learning to Snowboard at 40

One skier's season of falling down in Vermont, and why you should try it too
Greg Lindahl · age 40 (41 in November, if the knees hold)

Who this page is for

You are over 35. You have skied for years, maybe decades. Your kid, or your niece, or the guy at work who is twelve years younger than you, rides a snowboard, and every time you ride the chairlift with one of them, you think: I could probably do that. And then you think: I would probably break my wrist.

Both of those are correct. This page is my report from the other side. I skied for 25 years, since I was a teenager, and last winter (the 1998-99 season) I put the skis in the basement and learned to snowboard from scratch. It was the most fun and the most embarrassing thing I've done since about 1977. I'd do it again. In fact, I'm about to.

Contents: Why I did it | Day one | The chairlift | Lessons | Gear for grown-ups | The first clean run | Plan for 1999-2000 | Advice

Why a 40-year-old man does this to himself

Three reasons. My daughter Kate (14) started riding two winters ago and stopped wanting to ski with her old man. My skiing had gotten, let's be honest, kind of automatic; I was doing the same runs the same way I did them in 1985. And I turned 40 in November of '98 and had the standard reaction. Some men buy a motorcycle. I bought a board off the rack at the end-of-season sale and told Kate I'd see her on the hill.

She said, and I quote, "Dad. No."

Day one (December 27, 1998)

Here is what nobody tells a skier: everything you know is wrong. Not "different." Wrong. On skis you face downhill, your feet are independent, and you stop by putting them in a wedge. On a board you stand sideways, your feet are bolted to one plank, and stopping is a matter of tipping the whole plank onto one edge, which you will do too much of, and then you will be lying on the snow.

There are two ways to fall on a snowboard. You catch your toe edge and go face-first, which is how you learn about wrist guards (see below). Or you catch your heel edge and go straight down onto your tailbone and the back of your head, which is how you learn about helmets. On my first day I did both, in rotation, for about four hours, on the bunny slope, in front of small children.

By mid-afternoon I could slide sideways down the hill on my heel edge, an activity snowboarders call "the falling leaf," in which you go back and forth across the hill like, yes, a falling leaf, never actually pointing the board downhill. I did this for the rest of the day and felt like a hero. My wrists, forearms and tailbone all hurt for a week. I was back the next Saturday.

The chairlift, or: my nemesis

Nobody warns you about this either. You ride the lift with only your front foot strapped in; your back foot is free, and you rest it on a little rubber pad on the board (the "stomp pad") when you get off. So you slide off the chair with one foot attached and one foot just sort of standing on the board, and you have to glide down the little ramp and out of the way with no real control while the next chair comes up behind you.

The first four times, I fell in a heap at the bottom of the ramp and they had to stop the lift. There is a special look the lift operator gives you. It says: I have seen a thousand of you. My daughter, riding the chair behind me, pretended not to know me. Time number five, I stayed up, and I let out a yell that a woman on the next chair took for an injury.

It's a small thing. It's also the single biggest reason grown-ups quit after a day. Get through the first five lift rides and you're over the hump.

Take the lesson. Take two.

I resisted this because I've been on skis for 25 years and, in my head, I know how mountains work. In my body, I did not. After two weekends of teaching myself, I signed up for a beginner group lesson at the little hill near us, and it fixed in two hours what I had spent two weekends doing wrong. Specifically:

I was standing up too straight and leaning back, which is exactly how you catch your heel edge. Knees bent. Weight over the front foot. The instructor kept saying "you're driving, not riding a bus."
I was looking at my feet. Look where you want to go. The board follows your head and shoulders in a way that skis just don't.
I'd guessed at my stance. The instructor watched me get pushed from behind and figured out I'm "regular" (left foot forward), and set my bindings at an angle that made sense instead of the angles the store guy picked. Huge difference.
She taught us to link turns by going from heel edge to flat to toe edge, on a gentle slope, one turn at a time, with the falling leaf as the fallback any time you panic. Which I did. Often.

The group was me, a woman about my age, a guy in his fifties, and three teenagers. The teenagers were riding by lunch. The three of us grown-ups were sliding sideways and laughing at ourselves. I took a second lesson in January, private this time, and that's the one where turns started to happen on purpose.

Gear for grown-ups (in order of importance)

Wrist guards	The number-one beginner snowboard injury is the wrist, because your instinct when you go over is to stick your hands out. Wrist guards go under your gloves (or get gloves with them built in). I bought mine after day one. I should have bought them before. Learn to fall on your forearms with your fists closed; it's what they teach you, and it works. At 40 a broken wrist is six weeks off work.
Helmet	I never wore one skiing. I wear one now. When you catch a heel edge, the back of your head hits the snow, and hard-packed snow is not soft. Kate wears one too, because I said if I had to, she had to. This has turned out to be the best negotiation of my parenting career.
Padded shorts	Yes, they make padded shorts for the tailbone. Yes, they look ridiculous under your pants. Nobody can see them. Your tailbone will send a thank-you note.
Board and boots	Rent for the first couple of days if you can. When you do buy, get a plain, soft-flexing "all-mountain" or freestyle board that comes up to somewhere around your chin, and soft boots with regular strap bindings. Softer is more forgiving for learning. I didn't need anything fancy and neither do you. The board I bought was last season's leftover at 40 percent off, and it's fine.
Waterproof pants	You will spend a lot of time sitting in the snow, strapping in. My ski pants were fine for skiing because I didn't sit down all day. By 11 a.m. on day one I was soaked through.

The first clean run: February 13, 1999

Eight weekends in. It was a Saturday, cold and sunny, the kind of day Vermont gives you maybe six times a winter. I took the lift (didn't fall), strapped in at the top of the easiest blue run on the mountain, and rode to the bottom without falling once. Heel turn, toe turn, heel turn, toe turn, all the way down, a little wobbly, not fast, but linked, with the board pointed down the hill in between like it's supposed to be.

Kate was waiting at the bottom. She'd ridden ahead. She looked at me and said, "Okay, that was actually pretty good," which from a 14-year-old is a parade. I bought her a hot chocolate and myself a coffee and we sat in the lodge and I was happier than I'd been on a mountain in ten years. Then I went back up and fell getting off the lift. Naturally.

By the end of March I could ride most of the blue runs on our mountain, slowly, and I'd stopped hurting after every day out. I never went back to the skis all season. They're still in the basement.

The plan for 1999-2000

It's the last week of September as I write this and the maples are starting to turn, which in Vermont means about eight weeks till the lifts spin. The plan:

Season pass at our local hill instead of day tickets. I did the math from last year and I'd have saved money by late January.
One more lesson early in the season, before bad habits set in, to work on riding "switch" (with my wrong foot forward), which the instructor says is the thing that separates people who plateau from people who keep improving.
Try a green run in the woods. Slowly.
Get my wife Ann on a board for one day. She has agreed to one day. She has also said the words "your funeral." Report to follow.
Keep up with Kate on a run she picks. Not going to happen this year. Writing it down anyway.
The halfpipe: no. Absolutely not. I'm 40, not stupid. Ask me again at 42.

Advice for anybody over 35 thinking about it

The first three days are the price of admission. Everybody, and I mean everybody, falls all day for the first two or three days. It is not that you're old. Kate fell all day too; she just bounced. Budget three days before you decide anything.
Take the lesson before you teach yourself the wrong way. Skiers are the worst about this. We think we know.
Wrist guards, helmet, padded shorts, and go on a soft-snow day if you can pick. A fresh few inches makes falling almost fun. Ice makes it a hospital visit.
Go with someone younger who already rides. Not for instruction (they're terrible at explaining it; they just do it) but because they'll keep you out there when you'd otherwise go sit in the lodge.
Stretch, before and after. I'm serious. I was sore in muscles I didn't know I had, mostly the ones you use to get up off the snow forty times a day.
Ibuprofen and a hot bath are part of the equipment list at our age.
Don't compare yourself to the teenagers. They have no fear and no mortgage. You have both. You'll get there; it just takes seven weekends instead of two.

If you're a grown-up who tried it, or who's about to, write me. I'd like to hear how it went, especially the lift part.

Related pages on GeoCities.us

Ridgeline Snowboard & Ski Tune - shop page, if you need a tune or wax. My board still has the rock scrape from March.
Kickflip Kyle's Skate Page - Kyle is 15, which is the correct age to learn any of this.
Winter Camping for the Sane - Bill and Nora in Minnesota. I'm not ready for that either.
Back to the Pipeline neighborhood

Photos: Ann took a roll of me falling down. It's at the drugstore. I am in no hurry.

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since March 1999