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As a rule, I think it’s best for new riders to take lessons. And I also agree that learning from friends can be hazardous. It can, for example, cause stress on a relationship by interjecting new, unfamiliar roles (student and teacher), criticism borne from frustration (“no, dummy, THIS way!”), and plain old disappointment. Further, the new rider’s snowboarding career can be impaired or delayed through the instructor’s poor snowboarding habits, or method of teaching.

Despite all those caveats, I gave my sister-in-law an on-the-snow overview of snowboarding a few weeks ago.

By some accounts, she ought to have been the one teaching me. While I’ve walked 15 miles in a day (in fundraising marathons long ago), she’s run marathons. While I used to peddle a 10-speed bike one mile to the train station each day, she’s been in long-distance bike races. While I was learning the basics of skiing with parallel turns, she was taking a lesson in bumps skiing.

In other words, if anyone in the family might take on snowboarding, she would be the one.

During a trip to Aspen, I spent a day riding the board while my wife, her sister, and their father were all on skis. I’m sure it was the first time that these life-long skiers had ever spent any time with someone on a snowboard. All of them were impressed, and my sister-in-law was suggested to her sister “If he can make it look graceful, maybe I should try it.”

I was happy to give her any assistance that I could. So a few weeks later I suggested that the best time to learn would be on a powder day. We also talked about a simple demonstration in the back yard.

So when we some new snow, I saw it as the opportunity. I took the board over to her house.

But what equipment to use? She had no board, and no snowboarding boots. Could she use her own boots in my (large) bindings?

In the end, we decided that she would simply use my equipment, including my boots. Now, I’ve got size 12 boots, and I think her shoes are size 6 or 4 or something like that. But she used them anyway. While there was more than enough room for her toes, the cinching string made the fit around the calves tight enough for the boots to be usable in this setting.

GOOFY LIKE ME
The snow had somewhat hard and wet, which would make for a rather slow ride. On the other hand, that may have been a good thing. We had a small space to work with, and there were trees around, so we didn’t want to get up too much speed.

We walked to the back yard, and I thought of what to do next. I asked her the typical “sliding” question: if you were to slide on the ice, which foot would end up in front?”

“Right,” she told me.

Goofy, just like me. That would make things easier.

I asked her to put her right foot in the front binding, keep her left foot free, and try skating. The snow was soft and wet, so she didn’t pick up a lot of speed. This was good; I had encountered a lot of problems skating my first time out, on an icy night. She did a pretty good job. Better than I had.

WHEE!
Then I asked her to put her left foot in a bindings as well. With both feet strapped in, she was going to have to learn how to balance over the board. First, I asked her to stand still. Then I told her to gently shift her weight from the toeside to heelside of the board, and then back again. And then to repeat the exercise.

So far, so good.

Next, we traversed the yard, me pulling her by the hand, and she getting a sense of how the board feels while in motion. It was something like teaching my brother to ride a bike so many years ago, when he pedaled, and I hung onto the bike for balance.

The next step: slide straight down a hill. With my sister-in-law still standing inside the bindings, I pulled her over to the bottom of a three-foot rise that tops out in the neighbor’s yard.

She got on her knees and “hopped” to the top. After helping her point the snowboard’s nose straight down the hill, I gave her a push. She slid 5 or 6 feet down into the yard.

Her husband, who was watching this spectacle from inside the house, said “You’re a shredder now!”

Her response was more brief: “Whee!”

We repeated the exercise twice. First she gave some extra pressure to the toeside of the board (thus making a slight turn left), followed by a ride that emphasized the heelside (a turn to the right).

I THINK I’VE GOT IT
Finally, I pulled her over to the top of a steeper (though still short) hill for an attempt at a toeside to heelside turn.

“Remember when you started making parallel turns on skis?,” I asked. “You had to rely on and overcome that moment of terror.”

“Your equipment has to point straight down the hill, move, and then you need to make a subtle adjustment and trust the sidecut of the equipment to provide the turn.”

I pulled her enough to get the trip started, and then let go. She started the slide down, started the turn, and then fell down.

So how did it go?

She was laughing. “I think I’ve got it.”

We had just a little bit of untracked snow left at this point, so I helped her stand up, and she tried a heelside to toeside turn, doing pretty well.

“That’s a great start,” I said, before helping her out of the bindings.

“I think I understand how it’s supposed to feel,” she said.

One skier in the family down, four to go ….

While most people think of skiing and snowboarding as winter sports, you may be able to ride into the spring in some areas.

Spring riding does have its advantages:

• It’s snowboarding;
• Cheaper tickets;
• Lodging can be cheaper;
• Fewer people on the slopes mean more room to roam without interference;
• No bitter cold, either on the slopes or in the parking lot as you assemble your gear;
• Increased learning opportunities as you adjust to the changes in terrain and snow;
• Migrating birds that have returned from southern migrations and mountain steams that are thawing provide a new audio experience on the chairlift;
• Travel to and from the mountain won’t be a white knuckle experience, since you’ll be driving on dry roads or flying in clear weather;
• Take advantage of this sports novelty: go snowboarding in the morning and play golf in the afternoon;
• You can do your apres-ski activities outside without feeling chilled;
• Work on your tan more effectively than you can during full-on winter;
• The ski area will look different as the snow melts; get a better understanding of how it’s laid out by riding then;
• If you fall while trying a new trick, it won’t hurt as much.

But there are disadvantages of spring riding as well:

• Some terrain may be marked closed because of thin snow coverage;
• Some of the lifts may be closed, meaning that you have to choose your routes carefully;
• Your window of “good snow conditions” may shrink, with boilerplate in the morning and slush in the afternoon serving as bookends to the midday sweet spot;
• Too-soft snow can grab your board, causing you to spill or simply move at very slow speeds, which can leave you stranded far from the lift at the end of a run;
• If you ride through puddles, you may get wet feet;
• You may find a certain melancholy in seeing “dirty snow” and even bare spots;
• Some slopes may be littered with leaves, especially if the winter has been warmer than usual;
• The gaps between the snow and features in the terrain park may become larger as the snow melts;
• The base area may become muddy;
• You may stink, literally, due to increased sweating in higher temperatures.

You can be like this guy: Look son, no pants!

MAKING ADJUSTMENTS
The key to successful Spring riding is to make adjustments.

• Sleep in, but not too much. The snow may too rough to ride in the morning and too soft in the late afternoon;
• More than ever, use sunscreen;
• Wear lighter clothes and fewer layers. If you’re overheated, you probably won’t enjoy riding. Consider a lighter pair of snow pants, or wear ski shorts over your base layer. Your helmet may have an insert that you can take out for increased breathability.
• If you  boot up in the parking lot — one benefit of spring skiing is that booting up outside is much more pleasant — take a sheet of cardboard and a folding chair. That way, your feet won’t have to sink into a mud of an unpaved lot.
• Apply warm-weather wax to your board.
• Find some springtime gloves to prevent road rash if you should fall. Springtime snow is much more likely to resemble a pile of crushed ice, which is great for a frozen margarita or a slushie. But falling on it can hurt your skin.
• Scan the slopes for patches of dirt, grayer snow (indicates slower snow), and frozen hardpack;
• Once the sun starts baking the snow, stay in the shade. It may not be as visually appealing as riding in the open sunlight, but your overall experience may be better. Staying in the dark could mean staying at the edges of a trail (in the trees). If the snow condition allows — and often it won’t — check out the glades. Look for slopes that are sheltered from the sun by other parts of the hill or mountain;
• Softer snow will give a slower ride, so ride steeper slopes than you normally do. As the season comes to an end, though, you may find that some of those steeps are unridable, due to melting snow;
• Be ready to respond to a variety of conditions within a single run down the mountain; a slick spot in the shade may give way to a pile of slush or chopped up snow;
• Anticipate whether you will ride through over a pile of accumulated snow, or ride around it;
• If the snow is soft but not too grippy, try something new, whether it’s riding switch, doing some ground spins, entering the halfpipe, taking on small jumps or bumps, or even entering the pond-skimming contest;
• Look for standing water near the entrance corals of ski lifts and exit ramps.

In spring, you may get this:

But be sure you watch out for this:

And on a really great day, you may get this, even in May:

Do snowboarders “scrape the snow” off the mountain? That’s an old accusation, but it’s not an entirely fair one.

Now, it’s true that a snowboard can scrape a lot of snow, and push it down the hill.

What is responsible for pushing snow around? People who take on terrain too steep for their ability, and who then resort to side slipping for an escape.

But skiers are well as boarders are guilty of the practice.

Still, grown-up riders would do well to act as if they are under special scrutiny from skiers. Act like an ambassador for the sport, that is, and work your way up to the more difficult terrain. That way, you will maximize carving and thus minimize scraping, and leave the hill in better condition for all of us.

Snowboarding is challenging enough, without having to deal with surface lifts.

I learned how to ski by using a rope tow. That was hard enough, but at least I had only one axis on which to balance: front and back. It was relatively easy to put equal weight on both feet, since each had their own ski. I simply had to make sure that I wasn’t leaning too much towards either the tips or tails of my skis.

But riding a tow on a board–which is what I had to do for my first lesson–is another matter entirely. It’s completely different, and ski schools that use ropes for teaching riders ought to be sued for educational malpractice. (Note to lawyers: that’s a joke.)

Here was my progression on a rope tow: ten feet up. Splat. Ten feet up. Splat. Ten feet up. Splat. Repeat a dozen times until “it takes,” at which point my attitude changes to “Am I actually going to be able to hang on the entire time? This is hard work!”

Riding a board on a tow requires not only having a proper weight distribution between tip and tail, but from heelside to toeside as well. So riding up on a board is at least twice as difficult as riding on skis.

T-BARS and POMAS
All this brings me to t-bars and pomas, which can still be found in older ski areas. Actually, they can still be found in large destination resorts. (Snowmass uses a t-bar near one of its summits.)

How do you ride those things on a board? I faced that question at a new (to me) resort. Thinking back to my early days on a board, I decided that I just didn’t want to face either the “splat learning curve” (worst case) or the “this is going to be a lot of work” situation (best case).

My wife was with me, and she was on skis. She had spent a lot of time during her childhood skiing days using surface lifts. In other words, she could have handled the surface lifts just fine. But even she had no taste for anything that required that kind of work. So we avoided the parts of the terrain that were not easily accessible by a chair.

The surface lifts do have one value: they open up some terrain for use. Just not by me.

It can be unnerving to ride switch. After all, you’ve got a rhythm down, and then when you go switch, everything’s changed. But some of the rules from “normal” riding apply. Among them, turn first, then edge.

If you try to turn without experiencing that moment of terror when the board is pointing straight downhill, you’ll probably have trouble making a turn. In short, you’re actually making things more difficult than they have to be.

As I struggled to make turns while practicing switch riding, I thought, “Why is it so hard to make this turn?”

True, my binding settings played a part. By riding switch, I ride with my back binding at a 20 degree angle, instead of 0 zero degree one that I’m used to.

But I knew there was more than that at work. It was as if I had to forcibly move the board by trying to lift my weight off the ground. It wasn’t going to work.

And then I remembered the need to turn before edging. I had a much easier time after that.

Riding forward, riding switch. It doesn’t matter. To make turns, point the board down the hill, and apply some heelside or toeside pressure, and trust the sidecut of your board to see the turn to completion.

If you want a good test of your balance and edging abilities, try this: spin your way down the mountain. No, I’m not talking about catching air; simply spinning on the ground is a challenge of its own.

I tried it on the bunny hill of a nearby micro-hill, so the grade was rather modest. Spinning around is a bit scary, but fun, once you get the hang of it. Spinning is one of those just-having-fun activities that can make riding so inviting. Try one thing, nail that down, and then try something else–perhaps, in time, spinning as part of jumps.

Like most new maneuvers, spinning is best performed on softer snow, since you may be falling more frequently.

UPDATE 3/20: At our micro-hill, I took on a slightly steeper trail and had no problem catching edges or, well, spinning out. The snow was even softer (though not too soft, obviously), which helped out matters. By the time I stopped on both runs (because the terrain was starting to even out), I was only just starting to get dizzy.

A few weeks ago I bought some new snowboarding pants. The stereotype still lives.

Are baggy pants still in style? Though I really don’t pay attention to what anyone is wearing on the slope, I would have to say yes, based on my late-season shopping purchase.

A recent outing in falling snow left me soaked, and I had decided it was time for some new pants. The ones I had were bought primarily with skiing in mind, and I just didn’t need really good waterproofing qualities. But now, I do. So it was off to my favorite local shop.

They featured retail prices at 50 percent off. Not bad for something I can see, touch, and try on for myself.

In t-shirts and sweatshirts, I normally go with an XL, or even XXL. Looking over the pants, I saw right away that XXL was going to be too large. I tried on some XL pants, but they produced tents around my calves. And I have big calves, so that tells you just how jumbo-sized those pants were.

So I went down to a mere “large.” (The medium were too tight, of course.) Even these are a bit too big, however. For one thing, it sometimes feels like they will fall down when I’m getting ready for a turn. Talk about a distraction; try making a turn when you fear that any moment now, your pants will be around your knees. It took me a while to find the belt loops, so now I wear a belt. It helps some.

But now I’ve discovered another “bigness issue.” I normally put the pants on in the house and then drive to my mini-hill. The getting-ready phase involves walking around, collecting items, putting them in the car, etc. When I go about the house without shoes on, it’s easy to trip on the leg gaiters that are part of the pants. So they’re even a big long–and I’m 6 foot tall.

Oh well. At least they do a good job of keeping me dry.

There’s a reason why people prefer bluebird skies. It’s not just that sunny, cloudless days are prettier than overcast ones, or that they give a psychological boost. It’s also easier to ride on a bluebird day.

The principle is simple: the more daylight you have, the easier it is to see the snow, and respond accordingly. The more daylight you have, the softer (and more forgiving) the snow is. As long as you bring adequate sunscreen and shading for your eyes, what’s not to like?

So when you try out a new ski area, stop at the beginning of the day to figure out where the sun will rise and where it will set. If you can, plan your day accordingly. Follow the sun. As sunset approaches in the afternoon, trails that are still illuminated by sunlight will be easier to ride than ones that have gone “dark.”

It’s a simple idea, of course, and an obvious one. But sometimes the simple and obvious ideas are the best ones to follow.

Let’s give skiing its due. You seldom have to think about bindings.

Even the easiest-to-use snowboard bindings (whichever they are is occasionally a matter of contentious debate) require some attention. Most obviously, you have to secure one foot into a binding once you unload from the chair lift.

You never have to deal with that on skis. Stand up, off the chair and ski away. OK, so you do to secure your poles, but that’s a lot less work than working on a binding. And even the poles don’t need much attention if you have a Leki trigger system for your poles, as I do.

On the other hand, it IS pleasant to walk back to your car in soft boots, carrying only a board and not two skis and two poles.

Riders are at a disadvantage when they unload from a lift: they don’t have both feet in a binding. And that’s why flat run-offs from lifts are useful. I would consider them the sign of a rider-friendly resort.

My favorite lifts unload riders and skiers onto a large, flat area, with plenty of room for one-legged riding, and for locking in bindings out of harm’s way.

But some lift run-outs are steep, dropping six, twelve, or more feet from the unloading area. To make matters worse, some of the run-outs develop little gullies that can catch you up, and can push you one into a little j-turn. This is fine and perhaps even desirable for skiers. They’re already in the bindings. But riders? It’s a different story, especially for people still learning.

I find the prospect of dropping down twelve feet with only one foot in the binding nearly terrifying. So if I think a run-out is especially steep, I’ll put my back foot into its binding sometime near the top of the lift ride. (It’s a violation of the rules at every place I know of, but hey, I need to not fall and create a traffic jam.)

Unloading with two feet in presents its own challenge: making sure that I point the board completely straight ahead, to avoid having the board pushed sideways, which would in turn propel me onto the ground after catching a toeside edge.

Flat rides off a lift are a good thing. Ski areas ought to use the off-season to do something (I’m not sure) to recalibrate unloading areas.