We left Florida on Friday for our first snowboarding and camping adventure. We left as soon as Brandon wrapped up his semester exams and drove until 11:30. We stayed the first night at the Holiday Inn Express in Hickory, which was a 5K PointsBreak® hotel, making it basically free. I set the alarm for 6AM on Saturday so that we would have enough time to eat breakfast and get to Sugar Mountain Resort before they opened. We all dressed into our ski clothes and checked out. I had set the GPS to Banner Elk, so it took us a new way, through Morgonton. We still arrived right before 9AM and were able to get a pretty good parking spot. Ryan signed up for lessons, while Brandon, Trevor and I did a couple runs. We started out on the Green, but headed up quickly to try out the new run. It …keep reading …
Argument for Buying Used Snowboards
Originally posted to Reddit /r/snowboarding, November 2013. I’ve since upgraded some gear. There are quite a few posts on this sub where people asking for equipment advice. This is a great resource to have. But often many rag on the craigslist setups that are cheap and/or older. I would like to make an argument for them. I’m a 40 year old boarder. I’ve skateboarded, surfed, and wakeboarded my whole life. I had never snowboarded (until recently), although I’ve wanting to since I was probably 13 though. What kept me from it? 1) distance and 2) cost. Living in Florida with a full family makes a get away to snow quite a pricey endeavor. I finally bit the bullet a few seasons ago and hit Sugar Mountain (North Carolina) with the family. We rented their boards, took their lessons, bruised our asses, broke my wrist, and overall just had a blast. …keep reading …