Equipment

There can be a lot of equipment or gear you could bring along for snowboarding or skiing. Some of the basic equipment is snow pants, a jacket, extra layers (if you want), boots, gloves, and a hat. Snow pants can come in pretty much any color you want so you can choose from a wide variety. You can wear any kind of jacket you want when you snowboard but if you really want to you could buy a snowboarding jacket. Snowboarding jackets aren't as big as regular jackets but they are warm because they are specially insulated. You can also find jackets that have pockets where you put your headphones through so they aren't exposed. Jackets also come with a bunch of other things so it also depends where you buy it and who you buy it from. It's up to you if you want to wear extra layers because you might get cold and you can always take layers off. You should bring extra layers just in case because you never know how cold it will get through out the day. Snowboarding boots come in single lining or double lining. You should buy double lined boots because your feet could get cold and that would be a waste of money if you bought single lined and then bought double lined. When you snowboard you also want to wear long socks because the boots will make your legs irritated. Snowboarding companies also make socks especially for snowboarding and or skiing. You want to wear a thick pair of gloves when you snowboard because you don't want to get frostbite on your hands. If you can get waterproof gloves you should wear those because your gloves can get really wet and it gets kind of uncomfortable after a while. You can also just bring 2 pairs of gloves if you want to change during snowboarding but its up to you. Any hat will do as long as it can keep your head warm its good. You could also wear a hood hat, which is a hat, but it goes over your whole head and covers your neck. If you don't like wearing hats you could always wear a helmet because they act like a hat also. You can also get a helmet with speakers in it so you can plug your Ipod into it instead of wearing headphones. If you wear a hat you might want to wear something that covers your neck because snow can easily get on your neck or it could get cold and it doesn't feel good. You could wear a scarf or a neck scarf, which goes over your neck and can cover your mouth and nose to keep your face warm. They also make face masks that are tight around your face to keep your face warm. Something that is also an important thing to wear is goggles. You can go without goggles but it helps so wind isn't getting in your eyes and so snow doesn't get in them if it's snowing. You can go to any snowboard place to get these things including one of the most popular ones Burton.

Snowboards

There are many different companies that make snowboards such as Burton, Morrow, K2, Element, Oakley, and many more. Some brand snowboards are better than others but that doesn't mean they aren't good, they still ride just as good as others. The snowboard companies that make snowboards also sell all the equipment that is useful while snowboarding. Snowboards can be anywhere from a hundred some dollars all the way to a couple thousand dollars. When snowboards are sold they don't usually come with bindings, which can also cost up to a couple hundred dollars. If you are a beginner you don't need a super fancy snowboard you just need one that fits you and that won't break on you. Snowboards can come in different styles. There are snowboards for doing tricks and for riding slopes. A regular snowboard can be used to do tricks too but if you know you want to and will be doing tricks more than you should get a trick style board. One of the best snowboards right now is the Burton Method it's reinforced with titanium but it is also the lightest snowboard ever so far. The bigger you are the bigger the snowboard you will need because if you have a small board it will be more sensitive and turn easier. You don't want to big of a board either because then it will be harder for you to turn, and it will take the fun out of snowboarding. The easier way to tell if a board is a good size for you is to see if it's up to your chin. If it's exactly at your chin it's perfect but it's ok if it goes a little over or a little under. An important thing to remember when you get a snowboard is every couple of times you go snowboarding is to get it waxed. To get it waxed you can take it up to a ski/snowboard shop and get it waxed which will probably cost you around 20 dollars depending where you go. You could also wax it yourself but it might make a mess. Waxing your snowboard makes it go faster because it melts a thin layer of snow touching your board, which reduces the friction making it go faster.

Wipe Outs/injuries

One of the most deadly things about snowboarding is the wipe outs. Even if your good you could still easily wipe out because all it takes is one little bump to throw you off balance. Your board could also get stuck in the snow when you turn. The reason they can get really bad is because you're going fast and its down hill and you have something on your feet so you won't land correctly. Also, when you fall you can also keep sliding which might hurt you a little more. Usually the most common injuries on a snowboard are the breaking ankles because you can't take them out. Some other common injuries are breaking wrists, concussions, knee injuries, neck injuries, and other kinds of broken bones, and dislocations.. Knee injuries are usually caused by extremely hard collisions such as crashing into things. Concussions can easily happen because all it that really needs to happen is that you just slip backwards. For wrist injuries you can easily break them by falling on them and bending them. Neck injuries can happen if you try to do a trick and land on your neck or if you fall and bend your neck. You could also break your collar bone. You can prevent yourself form getting injured by wearing wrist guards, ankle guards, knee pads, and even wearing a helmet because you never know when your going to have a bad wipe out. Also to prevent injuries because you cant wear protection for everything is to ride safely and not go out of control. Many pro's have had some bad wipe outs one you probably know of is Shaun White at the X-Games where he came down from doing a trick and face planted on the side of the half pipe. My friend Colton Wicinski broke both his wrists while snowboarding a while ago by just falling somewhat lightly on them. Now this doesn't mean he's bad at snowboarding because all it takes is one little mistake for you to break a bone or get some other serious injury. An injury that is really bad is frostbite. Frostbite has four stages the third and fourth stages could result in amputation or they could fall off. The first stage is when the top layer of skin gets hard and numb but doesn't do any permanent damage. At the second degree blisters usually appear and blacken but they aren't that bad. Wherever you got frostbite the blisters will go away in about a month but that part may always be permanently sensitive to heat and cold. Even though frostbite can easily be protected many people still get it because they think they will be fine but remember it's easier to get over a long period of time in the very cold weather so watch out and dress warm when you go.

Tricks

There are many tricks you can do on a snowboard including a 180, 360, 540, 720, and many more spins. You can also do flips like a front flip and back flip. You can also do combinations like a 180 front flip or 180 back flip. Flips are usually done more in half pipes because you can get more air. To do a 180 spin your front foot heel ward, with your back foot moving toe ward. During the first 90 degrees of rotation, it will be feel kind of like doing a heel-edged stop at first. Make sure that you do not get in front of your board. Instead stay directly above it or behind it a little but not too far. Finish off spinning, and remember that your board is the thing that needs to be facing downhill when you land, your torso position isn't as crucial. Put your feet down firmly, but don't slam them. Keep your knees bent as you land, locking them will hurt. Put a little bit of weight on your heels to make your board turn a little to counter your momentum from spinning when you touch down. To do a 360 you look over your leading shoulder to look where you are going! If you keep looking down the hill instead of in the direction of your spin, your body will not rotate, and you are going to land sideways on the snow - a prelude to a lot of pain. As you pass the first 90 degrees of the rotation (facing completely forward) grab your snowboard. Hold the grab and keep following through with the rotation about another 180 degrees (facing the take off of the jump.) At this point let go of the grab and start to look for the landing. Then to land just brace your knees for impact. To do a front flip you throw yourself fowards when you get to the top of the jump but you can't move your shoulders or else you'll start spinning. You don't have to worry about the landing because you'll probably land on your board or butt. It doesn't hurt to much landing on your butt if you practice on a smaller jump. Drop in or slowly proceed down a large snowboarding ramp. To do a back flip you need a larger ramp because you need enough speed to get high enough off the launch ramp to successfully perform a back flip. Approach the launch ramp at a slight angle so that when you begin to back flip, your head is already clear of the ramp instead of it possibly falling back directly toward the launch ramp. Launch yourself off the ramp and begin to throw your shoulders back as you push your momentum around back toward the ramp. This will make your rotate feet overhead backward. Make one full rotation so that you are back facing the same way that you started, and begin lining up a clear spot for your board so that you land safely back down. Once you land your board should be the first thing to hit the ground. You shouldn't start doing combinations of flips and spins till you master both of the tricks because you could really injure yourself.

Terrain Parks, Slopes, Half Pipes

A terrain park is pretty much just a skate park except for snowboarders. There are rails, jumps, boxes, and a bunch of other crazy things to go on. You can do a lot of different grinds on a rail but the easiest ones are turning your board 90 degrees so your grinding like you would on a skateboard. You can also just go straight on it just how you would on the snow. Jumps in a terrain park could be big or little, most places usually have some medium jumps and then they might have some huge ones. You can do a lot on a jump you could do pretty much anything you want to but they all take practice. Boxes are pretty much just like a rail because you just grind them but they are easier to sty on because they are usually bigger and might not be slippery. To go on a box you have to stay like you would on the ground because it's wood and if you did you would fall down. Some other things in there might be a park bench and rails and boxes that are longer and shaped differently. If you don't want to do any tricks or anything you can just go down slopes. For the slopes there are different difficulties for each hill, green circle stands for easy or beginner, blue square stands for intermediate, and then a black diamond is hard, and then double and triple are expert. The easier slopes aren't as steep and they usually take longer to get to the bottom. The harder slopes get steeper and steeper and they usually don't last as long because you're going faster. When going down harder slopes you don't want to go full speed because you will lose control and it will be easy to fall down because you have so much momentum. It will also hurt a lot more if you do fall. Something you can do as I explained in my first blog was carving which is moving your board back in forth to slow yourself down. You can also turn your board sideways to stop or slow down. In a half pipe you go into it and go up and you out of it and do tricks. They have half pipe tournaments where people do tricks and they get points for each run and whoever gets the most points wins. In a half pipe it is important to get a lot of air because then you'll have more time to do better tricks and you might not fall as much because you won't be messing up tricks. Half pipes are different because you don't land the same way because in a regular jump you go forward and in a half pipe you go up and then down so you will have to get used to landing differently.

Proffesional Snowboarders

Throughout the world many snowboarders have become pro including the one that most people know Shaun White, Seth Wescott, Terje Haakonsen, Shaun Palmer, and many more. Shaun White was born September 3, 1986 in San Diego, California. White is also a pro skateboarder, Tony Hawk helped Shaun become a pro skateboarder by the age of seventeen. Shaun White switched to snowboarding at six and earned a sponsorship at the age of seven. He has participated in two Winter Olympics' which he won gold at the half pipe in both, and has one a medal in the Winter X Games since 2002. He has won fifteen medals at the X Games, ten gold, three sliver, and two bronze. He is also the first one to complete the double mctwist 1260 which is two backflips and and three and a half rotations. Seth Wescott was born on June 28, 1976 in Durham, North Carolina. He began snowboarding at the age of seven but also grew up skiing. In 1989 he stopped skiing to focus only on snowboarding. He has won two gold medals at Snowboard cross. Terje Haakonsen was born on October 11, 1974 in Vinje, Norway. In the 1990' s he won the ISF world championships in the half pipe three times in a row. He also won five European championships in the half pipe. He also won the U.S. open in half pipe three times and the Mt. Baker Banked slalom 6 times. He also created his own flip called the Haakon Flip. Shaun Palmer was born on November 14, 1968 in South Lake Tahoe, California. He is a pro snowboarder, skier, mountain biker, and motocross rider. He built his own snowboard and dropped out of high school to become a pro snowboarder. He earned his spot on the U.S. Olympic team in 2006 but tore his Achilles heel and was not able to participate.

Snowboarding History and Basics

My name is Marcus Shamberg and I decided to do snowboarding because I like to snowboard and I think people should learn how to Ski or Snowboard. I am qualified to do this topic because I like to snowboard a lot and I like to watch it. Some topics i will be talking about in my blogs are professional snowboarders, doing tricks, and different types of boards. Snowboarding started in 1929 when a guy named M.J. Burchett cut out a piece of plywood and secured his feet with clothesline and horse reins. Then in labs a guy named Sherman Poppen tied two skis together with a rope and he called it a snurfer. When in college Dimitrije Milovich rode down hills on cafeteria trays. This inspired him to snowboards; his design was based on the surfboard. Jake Burton who used to compete using the snurfer created his own style of a snowboard. His design was made out of laminated wood, he also had ski like bindings to help control. Another guy who made his own design of snowboard was Tom Sims. His design was similar to a skateboard; he glued carpet on a piece of wood and put a piece of sheeting on the bottom. Snowboarding is becoming more and more popular throughout the world and new and improved boards are being made. There is a lot you can do in snowboarding such as just going down the slopes and carving, which is turning your board back and forth to slow yourself down. You can also do tricks and go to terrain parks, which has ramps and rails and other things. In the Olympics' there's snowboard cross which is just going through a track in the fastest time possible. You can also go in a half pipe and do tricks like flips, spins, combination's of flips and spins, and your own tricks. To ride a snowboard you need to have good balance because if you don't you will fall down because there are bumps all over the place and you could easily lose your balance and fall down. To turn you lean on your toes and heels and you move your hips to make it easier so you can turn faster. Some things to prepare for snowboarding is to dress warm because it can get really cold over time, to have a snowboard if you want to and make sure its waxed, have warm boots and long socks because if you don't your feet can get frostbite and you wont be able to snowboard for a while. Also to bring food and drinks unless you buy food there but food at ski resorts can get pretty expansive but that's up to you. Have a helmet just in case, have warm gloves because your hands can get wet and also get frostbite, wear goggles and a face mask or something because a lot of wind blows in your face while going down the slopes.