There is just something about snowboarding; I don't know what it is. I mean...I do know what it is, but I don't know why it is. That feeling you get when you wake up, knowing that today you are going up to the mountain no matter what the weather is like, is just plain awesome.
The drive up to the mountain always gets my nerves all wound up. Maybe it's because I had an insanely bad uncontrollable sliding fall in Montana once, or maybe it's just my neurotic fear of heights, but whatever it is, I feel it every time I go out. The snowy roads that just twist, wind, and switchback up some ridiculously high mountain where the base of the resort is halfway up the damn enormous snow covered rock, make me feel like one wrong brake, turn, or sudden wheel movement could send me and whoever else with me, careening off the edge and turn the car into a cartoon like snowball tumbling from a couple thousand feet up into the air.
When I pull into the parking lot of whatever mountain I decided to risk my life on for the day, is when the nerves start to finally dissipate. They never go away entirely, but once I'm out of the car, standing in the snow-packed parking lot, that's when the feeling of pure joy comes over me. The hard snow crunching under your shoes when you step out of your car, the cold air that is so cold it almost hurts to breath it in through your nose, it's the little things that just begin to remind me of what a good day it's about to be.
Taking off my shoes with my foot up on the rear bumper of the car, the trunk open with the almost comical amount of equipment and snow-clothes bursting out of it, and then finally shoving my now cold foot into my snowboard boot and lacing it up lets me know what I came to do.
All of those previous feelings, all the nervousness, the excitement, the anticipation, disappear once my board is strapped on and I'm finally off the lift and riding. The packed powder gliding by under my feet, the sun, snow, wind, or whatever else in my face, are all just tiny things that make up the entirety of pure bliss.
