Snowboarding at Crystal Mountain

Today I woke up with a very sore neck and butt. I went snowboarding with a few close friends after 2 dry seasons. I enjoy snowboarding but it often feels like a hassle to plan and get to the resort. Sometimes bad weather can also make it miserable. 

Up until the day before, I wasn't sure if we would still go snowboarding because the weather forecast seems like it was going to be quite wet and snowy, which makes the driving condition very poor. None of us are very experienced driver in the snow so it made me a little nervous. I checked in with my friend and made sure she felt comfortable driving and let her know that if she doesn't, it is also okay if we don't go. Safety first. 

It turned out fine. We decided to take the shuttle, it is a little longer but safer option for all of us. To our surprise, the whole process was much faster than expected. We left Bellevue at 7:30 am, drove to Enumclaw where the shuttle pick us up at 8:30 am, and arrived Crystal Mountain at 9:30 am, picked up rentals and started snowboarding at 10:17 am.

I picked up snowboarding like riding a bicycle, and did better than I had expected. I didn't practice too many "S", I still feel scared of steeper slope and "heel" all the way down, then "S" my way down, and getting stuck on flat parts. It was still a lot of fun. We had a friend learning snowboarding for the first time, so we spent some time teaching him and waiting. He did really well for his first time, and seemed to enjoy it at the end once getting the hang of things. I was also impressed that he barely fall getting off the lift. 

We snowboarded the entire day until 4:30 pm with 2 breaks in between. We ended our trip with nice hot Korean food and visiting another friend who is leaving for California the next day. It was worth the sore neck and butt, the hassle of waking up early, freezing in the wet cold weather to spend quality time with friends.