Splitting Up

I procured a split board in the fall to reconnect with my love for winter snowboarding. In general I'm retired from Oregon resort riding. It doesn't give me what I need and so I stopped thinking about it—stopped setting aside time for it.

With skins, poles and a dog, I can now explore in the deep snow heretofore only post-hole-able hinterlands. I went out to do that for the first time a few weeks ago, and the simplicity of it made me very happy. It felt so much more like "play" than any snowboarding I've done recently. Free from set agenda and people, from reliance on chairlifts or runs. Just me and a quiet ecosystem of powder dollops. And it was fabulous exercise. My body grew warm and my lungs worked hard. My face steamed into my goggles, and I sent a prayer up into the trees that my muscles would continue working, my heart keep pumping. They did. It did!

At the top—which wasn't even the top but an unassuming pause point where we decided to strap in and send it—I felt that old excited flutter for the descent. An old forgotten feeling. And just like that I was off, dipping through the trees with the dog hot on my tail.

I've long suspected but never really known until now—splitboarding is the winter recreation of simple people like myself. It's been warm here in town, but let it keep snowing up at altitude, so we can all get up and get out just one, maybe two more times.