Snowboarding

When Tiziana Roberts’ 12-year-old son, Elijah, tried snowboarding for the first time during March break last year, he spent much of the first morning on his behind. “He’d been wanting to do it for so long,” says Roberts, who enrolled both herself and her son in lessons. Though Elijah is quite athletic and had some skiing experience, it took him a while to get the hang of it. “I think he thought it was going to be easier. I asked him how it was going and he said, ‘My arms hurt, my head hurts, everything hurts.’ But he was progressing. He did a lot better than I did.”

There’s no doubt about it: For young people, snowboarding has all but replaced skiing as king of the mountain. Doreen Rivers has been on the slopes with her daughter Michelle, eight, and sons Peter, ten, and Ted, 14, since they were preschoolers and she’s seen snowboarding go mainstream in just a few years. “It took a while to accept snowboarders. There were a lot of resorts where you couldn’t do it – it was banned. Then last year at Horseshoe [near Barrie, Ontario] they built a halfpipe front and centre, right under the main chair lift.” Her boys still do both sports, but “all their school friends just want to snowboard.”

So how difficult is it for preteens to get into? Well, Elijah and his mom might accuse Greg Daniells of exaggerating when he says that snowboarding “is probably the easiest sport you’ll ever learn.” Daniells is the B.C. co-ordinator for the Canadian Association of Snowboard Instructors and will be running the Whistler Summer Snowboard Camp for kids this June and July. He stresses that it’s much easier to pick up than skiing for several reasons. “You have one board instead of two, so it’s a lot less technical. The wider surface area allows you to plow through a lot of surface conditions, like slush or deep powder. One big board is also very practical – it’s shorter, it’s easy to pivot. And you don’t have poles.”

Doreen Rivers agrees. “At one resort we go to they have a boarding program and it’s just one season. They say at the end of the season, ‘Well, you’ve learned everything we can teach you.’ Whereas skiing you can learn forever.” That’s not to say your child will be an expert in a year – and he won’t be doing the aerial acrobatics that scare the life out of parents – but the basic skills can be mastered fairly quickly.

Rivers has noticed that equipment prices have been coming down in the last year or two, enabling more and more kids to participate. Newcomers don’t need a lot – snowboard, boots and bindings are the basics – though decent new gear will run you a hefty $600 or $700. Second-hand equipment will be considerably less, of course, and Rivers says it’s become easier to find as the sport has grown in popularity. In any case, there’s no need to lay out big money at first, since virtually every mountain resort will rent the equipment for around $30 a day.

Helmets are also essential for young boarders. They’re usually mandatory at schools or camps, says Daniells. “The snowboarding industry has been promoting helmets quite a bit in the last couple of years and there are lots of guys, even in their twenties, who are wearing helmets.

They’re becoming a cool thing.” (Snowboarding helmets, specially designed for the sport, are shaped more like hockey helmets than the motorcycle-style ones that pro ski racers wear.) He says that knee pads and wrist guards – like you might use for rollerblading or skateboarding – offer extra protection, though they may be cumbersome to wear with winter clothing.

Of course, a big part of snowboarding’s appeal to preteens isn’t just the equipment, but the whole culture that goes with it. “Shredders,” as boarders sometimes call themselves, have their own language (incomprehensible to their parents), their own music (Pearl Jam and Metallica were favourites at the Nagano Olympics) and their own look. “When Peter finishes skiing for the day and switches to snowboarding, he changes everything,” says Rivers. “He changes the pants, the jacket, the hat…. The clothing is pretty grunge. There are no bright suits like you see skiers wearing.”

Daniells stresses that ski suits are perfectly suitable for snowboarding, but recognizes that most kids (and adults, for that matter) think they’re uncool. “They want to look the part,” he says. “And there’s a wide variety of snowboarding apparel out there.”

“Most of the snowboarding clothing is somewhat longer and waterproof in the back,” explains Rivers, and there’s a reason for that. “You have to undo [the bindings] before you go up and you have to sit down at the top of the hill to do them back up, so your butt can get pretty wet.”

Fashion statements aside, the important thing is to wear good-quality gloves, a hat (if you’re going without a helmet), goggles, snow pants and long underwear.

Once they’re dressed to the nines, it’s time to start thinking about lessons. Most resorts offer instructional programs for kids, with private lessons running about $30 to $35 per hour and group lessons about half that. “Certain hills have packages for the day that are about four hours of instruction,” says Roberts, “which is better than just getting an hour and then going out on your own because the instructors can watch you and make corrections.”

Snowboard instructors must be certified to work in Canada, and they’re taught to rein in kids’ enthusiasm and teach them safety. “Kids are a little impatient initially,” says Daniells, “but it’s important for them just to learn how to turn for a day or two.” Daniells assures nervous parents that their ten-year-old is not going to crash into trees during her lesson. “If you go with a good instructor who keeps the kids on the proper terrain, you can basically eliminate all the horror stories you hear. I keep the kids going so slow that all they can do is fall over. I tell them, ‘You’re not going to wipe out, because I’m not going to let you go fast.’ ”

Of course kids like Elijah Roberts have somewhat different expectations.

As his mom remembers, “I think he thought he was going to be doing the halfpipe in half an hour.”

By Holly Bennett

Originally published on Today’s Parent