Et Bon

What a feeling. I am currently sitting in the chalet, upstairs at Mont Habitant- the ski hill that I learned how to ski on at the age of 4, watching both skiers and snowboarders come down. The sun is just peaking through the clouds and there are VERY light flurries descending upon the hill. The snow conditions are good, a decent mix now of groomed and natural after a good number of people have come down. The wind is there but it's easy to handle with all your gear on. All in all a pretty ideal day to be up.

It is now 11:15 am and the hill opened at 9. Therefore you are probably wondering what the fuck I am doing inside. Well I am already injured. Not majorly or anything but enough that if I were to keep going I could do some serious damage to my arm and that would not be pleasant. Therefore I made the choice to stop, even though I was only out there for an hour and a half, and only got to do one full run down the hill... we started on the bunny hill.

I am proud of myself though. I can get down a hill without any major issues doing what I know how to do. So far all the hard falls I took today were when I was pushing myself out of my comfort zone and attempting to get better at snowboarding. You see I began skiing at the age of 4 and I even won the gold in my ski class when I was 8. However we stopped coming up around that time and my ski skills are adequate to get me down and get me down pretty gracefully at that. When I was in grade 9 I decided to try my hand at snowboarding. I did it on a trip to Mont St. Anne and was pretty bad. Not awful but not awesome. I skied a few times after that, since I was more comfortable doing that and I owned equipment. Last winter I took my brother's board and came up to this very hill.

I had magically improved! 9 years later I could now get down a hill successfully on my heals and I managed to get onto my toes a few times. I decided to buy myself a board, bindings and boots- got them at a clearance sale for $172!!! This morning we began on the bunny hill. I was good. I went down on my heals. Went down on my toes. Went to carve and feel. HARD. On my butt and I'm pretty sure I have bruised my tail bone. Then we got up on the actual hill- small hill but still the hill that requires you to take the real chair lift up. About half way down I fall on my knees and put my arms out to brace myself from falling flat on my face. Kill my arm. I don't even understand how much it hurt. I am 99% sure it is not broken though because I actually have full range of motion still. When I bend my arm all the way up though it's painful and I can't really put any weight on it.

Hence why I am now sitting indoors writing this post rather than continuing to push myself to learn and get better at boarding. For $20 a day though I am happy I got an hour and a half in and I am prepared to get back on the hill when I get back into town in February! Today I am thankful for my very patient brothers who are really good and could easily have done 10 runs by now... and yet they are each teaching friends and helping them learn and get down the hill. It really is pretty amazing to watch them in their gifts.

Et bon, in the end I have had a good morning.