Snowboarding on a Budget

The question has irked me for years now: I see those $700 women's boards in the store and I wonder how much better they really are compared to my $300 set.

Being short on funds, I don't get to upgrade to the latest and greatest board every year. Instead, I have a repair kit that I use to file off the rust, seal the gaps, and iron on hot wax. I found the kit at Goodwill and this saves me $25-$40 bucks every few trips because I can hot wax and tune it myself.

But recently, my seven year old board had been

looking a little down. The chunks had become pretty irreparable and the rust was running deep along the edges. I decided to make an investment in the sport I love so much.

Searching frantically on retail sites, eBay, and craigslist, I found a particular board that caught my interest, but that was way out of my price range: the Feelgood ES, the most supreme women's all mountain snowboard made by Burton. Too bad, I mumbled to myself as I cruised the price range of $600-$700 for just the board and let out a few sighs of depression.

But then, I suppose my body's defense mechanisms set in because I found myself fairly accepting of the fact that I would never get to ride this board, let alone own it. I found a much more reasonable board to purchase and I told myself that the ES couldn't really be that great--it's just a slab of wood painted and waxed with a pair of bindings strapped to it. I never knew then just how wrong I would be.

Miraculously, I found a brand new Feelgood ES, Escapade bindings, and a new pair of Solomon boots that a girl in Connecticut was selling for only $500! Apparently, she had bought the set for over $1,000 and had then proceeded to break her ankle on the first run down the mountain. Having forsaken the sport altogether, she wanted to get rid of the snowboard as soon as possible. Needless to say, I was so excited that my face hurt from smiling as my friends and I drove the 5 hours to CT to pick up the board.

Yet, I realized that $500 was quite a lot of money. In fact, it was practically all that I had saved up in my bank account. Yet, my passion for snowboarding and my optimistic outlook on life assured me that happiness is worth more than money and that I would get a job to replace the missing chunk of cash in my account. Both turned out to be true, in the end.

The first time I set foot on snow with my board was December 6th when I had organized a 30 person trip from my school, Bryn Mawr College, to Camelback Mountain Resort in the Poconos. It was early in the season, but the resort had a whopping 17 trails open which was my fix before real winter set in. Plus, I got to ride my new baby!

The contrast from my old board to the new one was honestly shocking. I hadn't thought that it would be instantly altogether magical; rider rides board and board does what it is told. Yet, the feeling of control that this board gave me was sincerely awe inspiring. The runs were covered in ice, but I felt like I was moving through butter. Many sections were extremely flat, but I found myself speeding past struggling skiers and skating snowboarders who watched me, pea green with envy. When I went off jumps, it felt as though I was landing on a pillow. I got compliments in the lift lines and starry-eyed stares when I locked up my board to go eat lunch. To say the least, I was beaming with pride and love for my new board--it had woken me up to the concept of snowboard quality. I was riding on the Cristal, the BMW, the Malibu mansion of the all mountain boards, and boy, oh boy did it feel good!

I have not yet been on a trip to the mountains again because the east coast has had pretty poor weather recently and I have been finishing up my first semester of senior year in college, but I just keep thinking that if ice felt like butter, then what in the world will powder feel like? Until I find out, I will just continue to dream about snowboarding in the clouds, air below me and sun above. The truth is: the real thing probably won't be that different.