As part of his Christmas present, we told my nephew Jake that we’d take him snowboarding. He’s 7, so I didn’t think I’d be able to teach him, but fortunately we found $10 beginner lessons at Mt. Brighton, in Brighton, MI. He needs some more practice, but I think he did very well for a first timer. He was tentative on the tow-ropes, afraid to hold on tight because it went “too fast”, so I ended up running up the bunny hill a few times just to make sure he could get all the way up. That’s tiring.
Tentative as he was on the tow-rope, he was not tentative on the slopes. Although he hasn’t yet learned how to stop (without using his ass as a brake) or turn, he has no fear of pointing his tip down the fall line and just bombing. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not, but I feel like it took me a long time to get comfortable riding flat-based down groomers (without catching edges) and he’s already got that down. He just needs to learn to control himself! After his lesson, we spent about an hour with him on the tow-rope before he decided he wanted to go on the “big hills”. He would later admit that he didn’t really like being on the chair, but he really liked going down the big hills.
I was worried that he wouldn’t like it, or that he’d get frustrated and want to quit, but at the end of the day we had to make him stop. It was obvious to me that he was getting very tired, even though he wouldn’t admit it — after I saw him catch an edge and face-plant (he was wearing a helmet) I decided that was enough for one day. He’d been out there for about four hours.
Great news is that he wants to go again, so I’ll probably be taking him to Crystal Mountain in early March as long as the snow holds. Crystal has an excellent children’s program so I think he could definitely learn some there.
