[Day One: The Injury]

It took me years to get around to learning how to snowboard in the first place. I grew up in a desert, the burning wasteland of Phoenix, surrounded by saguaros and desert-landscaped front yards. Snow was never really in the picture after my parents had moved from Chicago to get away from it, so consequently a trip to the wintery mountains in the north was never a vacation destination. Summers were spent skateboarding the streets and dried up canals of Tempe and Scottsdale.

I vividly remember laughing at the Burton Back Hill board hanging next to the Logan Earth Ski on the wall in the 'Vans California Daze' skateboard shop at the mall. It seemed like the funniest thing I could imagine, why would anybody want to ride a water ski on the snow. If I had only know then what I know now, I might be as good as Mike or Tina Basich. Well, maybe not that good, but I can dream can't I.

"So I played hooky one day to take my first turns with none other than my boss (Cool, huh,) and a friend, bit it in grand style on the first run and tweaked my knee hard, but I survived ..."

When I moved to the Pacific Northwest in the late '80s, the idea of snowboarding started sounding more and more appealing. I started to make friends that would take off on the weekends to go to far away sounding places like Whistler and Mount Baker, but as life sometimes goes, other things always seemed to occupy my time. It took about eight years of procrastinating and making excuses about my knees before I decided to finally say what the heck and throw caution to the wind. If I messed up my knees, I would just get them fixed. (It also didn't hurt getting some great insurance with my new job.) So I played hooky one day to take my first turns with none other than my boss (Cool, huh.) and a friend, bit it in a grand style on the first run and tweaked my knee hard, but I survived, walked it off and rode for another 3 hours. That was all it took, I was a goner. Hook, line and sinker.

In the middle of the summer I took my snowboard out just to look at it. In late September, I waterproofed my boots even though they didn't really need it, just to be able to have an excuse to think about getting back on the snow. The moment I arrived in the office from the San Francisco X-Games this summer, I was greeted with the question "Do you want to go to a snowboard camp at Copper Mountain this winter?" I think I redefined the measure of "in a heartbeat" with my answer.

So I'm getting ready to fly off to Copper Mountain, Colorado to attend a three day long Delaney Snowboarding camp. I have no idea what is in store for me, but it should be interesting to what new tricks they can teach this old dog. I expect to ramp up on the basics and just get better, can't say that my goal is the halfpipe, but it would be cool to brave the trees and catch a little air this year.

— Dave Ballantine, MountainZone.com Staff