THE LIST – 10 things not to do on a powder day
Fresh pow and a solid crew. What more could you want? Image:: Red Bull Content Pool
Mountainwatch | Ryan Garner
There’s no better feeling than waking up and peeking out your bedside window to find it has snowed half a metre overnight. At this point, you call in sick right away. Unless your girlfriend is a snowboarder, you should probably tell her you‘ve been called into work for an ‘urgent meeting’. A word of warning: unbeknownst to many eager-beaver powder-seekers, if you’re not properly prepared you can quickly blow it.
In order to make sure you can get the ultimate ‘bang-for-your-buck’ from your next powder day we compiled a list of 10 things you should most definitely avoid.
Do Not…
10. Wear tall tees… at all
There is nothing worse than taking off your pants after shredding pow all day and jumping on the couch with your last fragment of energy and hearing the squelch of your moist T-shirt soak through to your thermals. Also, it’s not 2009 anymore, the tall tee days have passed… unless you ride for Technine.
9. Rock a wide stance
The other most “gangsta” tradition is rocking the widest stance in your crew. Although you may believe this gives you a constant groin stretch for maximum maneuverability – on a powder day it will simply leave you nose-heavy making it much harder to ride. Besides, you’ll look like a kook doing cartwheels down the hill every few metres anyway.
8. Forget to fasten your powder-belt
No matter how many years you’ve been riding, one procedure on a powder day that should never change is firmly fastening your powder belt! Nothing will kill the vibe faster than rag dolling down a run and having your jacket fill with snow.
7. Layer like an onion
Nothing is worse than standing around at the top of the run waiting to cool off after bending down to do up your bindings. Layering like an onion will leave you sweating like a fat kid in a candy store while all the punters sideslip your fresh lines.
You can tell they have their powder-belts fastened Image:: Red Bull Content Pool
6. Leave the red light off
You just reach the top of this luscious line that you have spent and hour or so hiking, the sun is out, you drop in and bomb a few cliffs. The last thing you want is to miss the shot, restraining you from claiming it at the bar.
5. Pack the wrong goggles
No one likes to snowboard blind. Picking the right goggles for your day of hard shredding will make or break your attitude for the next few hours. Failing this, it will lead you straight into a tree well leaving you struggling to escape and on the edge of certain death.
4. Forget your facemask
Picture this: you bomb a line and your face shots pierce your skin leaving you crying like a little bitch! After hours of shredding, you head to the pub to chat up the ladies. You head to the bathroom and your face is as red as shaun white’s hair. All of a sudden you understand why the only woman giving you the eye is the beefy bush-pig at the Banj’…
He didn’t eat a nutritious breakfast, now he’s gonna land on his mate Image:: Red Bull Content Pool
3. Forget to wax your board
Some riders don’t view wax as important. But that’s cool; they can aspire to blowing their knees out on knuckles and being last to the bottom during the Chinese Downhill with the crew.
2. Build a booter without a run in
It happens far more frequently than it should, and no one is proud of it. The whole crew turns around to hit the freshly built jump and you realise that everything above you is flat. The vibe has been killed and you think of all the better ways you could have spent your powder day.
1. Forget to eat a nutritious breakfast
The most important rule by far! You should know when you get up in the morning and look outside at the glistening plains of freshly fallen goodness that there will be no time to stop for lunch! Eat your Weet-Bix or you will struggle to find that vibe all day!
Follow the list and you will be shredding like Gigi Image:: Red Bull Content Pool
