Hobbies
...hat even though the hill was not very steep I still got a lot of speed. Still not knowing how to stop, I made it to the bottom and passed the end of the towrope. About the middle of that day I taught myself to stop. It didn’t always work but for the most part I could carve heel side and stop. I spent the rest of that whole day on the bunny hill and also mostly on the ground. The next time out I went with my brother. We made a couple trips down the bunny hill and then I wanted to give the chairlifts a shot. Getting on the chair was no problem, but once I was at the top I only had one foot strapped into my board and I had to ride down a steep exit ramp. Of course I fell. Eventually I got the hang of that, but still did not know how to carve toe side or stop toe side. The next couple times I went snowboarding I went with my brother. He taught me a lot more. Every trip down the hill my brother would watch me and tell me what I was doing wrong and what I could do to get better. By the end of that season I had been to three resorts and found my favorite to be Alpine Valley Ski Resort in White Lake, MI. Alpine was my favorite for many reasons. The first is it wasn’t as windy as the other resorts. The back of the hill faced west and kind of acted as a wall to block the wind. Another reason I like it the most was it had a lot more runs and all of its runs were connected. I could take one chairlift to the top, weave through three different runs and then decide what chairlift I wanted to end up at. The last reason I like it the most is it has a wide range of slopes with varied difficulty levels. The next season I was a little rusty when I got out on my board again. I started out slow and eventually I got the hang of things. I really began to love snowboarding. My brother and I started racing through slaloms, going over jumps, trying new tricks, and making courses we could race through. I had a lot of fun that year. When it was over I couldn’t wait for the next season to get here. The following season came around and I was so busy with school and work I was not able get out on my board much. This was very disappointing to me. I hope that this year I will be able to spend much more time on the slopes. Maybe I will learn to do a back flip this year. There are many reasons why I like to snowboard. The first of these reasons is that snowboarding is relaxing to me. It may not seem to anyone that gliding down a hill of frozen water in the cold would be relaxing, but it is to me. It gives me time to myself and gives me time to think. I am not a person that likes to sit and think. I think the best when I am doing some type of mindless act. Snowboarding has become such an ease that it is a mindless act now. Even though it is only for a few seconds at a time I feel a freedom as I manipulate my way to the bottom of a steep hill. The ride back up is sometimes slow but is also very relaxing. The scenery from the chairlift is always much different from what you see coming down the hill. Snowboarding is a great work out...