April Winchell

It's a Lot Like Surfing, Until You Fall

As many of you already know, I write and produce all the radio commercials for Snow Summit.

Strangely, in all the years I've been doing their advertising, I've never actually been up there. All those seasons extolling the virtues of snowboarding, and I've never set foot on one of their resorts.

Well, all that changed this past weekend, when I finally took them up on their generous offer for a free, fun-filled weekend of snow play. Hot damn!

We checked into our hotel on Friday night, and immediately took advantage of the giant bath tub, which was inexplicably located next to the bed. I think it was meant to be romantic, but it's hard to get hot when you're shaving your armpits in the living room.

On Saturday morning, we made the short drive to Snow Summit. Here's a photo of me in my gear, and as luck would have it, it was the last time I looked as though I knew what I was doing.

The lovely people at Snow Summit comped us to a 3 hour private snowboarding lesson with incredible instructors. Really, they gave me every possible opportunity to succeed, so I can only blame myself.

I was awful. I mean, I really, truly sucked. I'm not just saying this for comedic effect. I was an embarrassment to the entire mountain.

I know that a lot of it had to do with my mindset, which was beyond negative. I just kept having visions of being airlifted off the mountain, or being dug out of a snowbank by a dog with a keg around his neck.

I'm not trying to make excuses here, but understand that I came from a family where sports of any kind were practically outlawed. My other wouldn't even let me have a bike, for God's sake, and I didn't put a pair of roller skates on until I turned 40 (don't ask how that went). So doing anything that requires coordination is extremely challenging, and that includes making eggs.

After a little over an hour of falling down, I began to feel that this might not be the sport for me. It all crystallized when I looked up through the snow drift I had crashed into and saw a 4 year old girl doing tricks on her "My Little Pony" board. At that point I politely thanked the instructor, and stumbled off to the lodge for coffee and a cigarette.

I decided that my only course of action at this point was to engage in an activity I could do, and could do well.

Fortunately, there was an IHOP just a few miles away. I was delighted to discover that after three years on Atkins, I could still put away a stack of pancakes. It all came back; the buttering, the pouring of the syrup, the stacking, the cutting of the wedges . . . it's like riding a bicycle.

On Sunday, we went to a kiddie park so I could engage in snow sports I knew I could do, like tubing. After all, you're already on the ground , how far can you fall?

Buoyed by my ability to stay inside the inner tube, I racheted up the excitement and went on the Alpine Slide, which is a sort of luge for the dim witted.

I took a chairlift to the top, where, I'm proud to report, I took the "fast" lane all the way down. When I got the bottom, a photographer recorded my moment of glory.