"We have Moguls Now!"

The base lodge at Bear Creek
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Last night my cousin's husband Ken went and bought his own snowboard, boots and bindings at Pinnacle so it's now official, we are all on BOARD! He got sick of renting and the prices and really wanted his own stuff so since Pinnacle was having a big sale he got his gear.

So today Me, Jen and Ken, went to Bear to snowboard and break in his new gear. We met Dorian and Chas there who had taken their first Learn to Ride lesson. They ski and wanted to try riding.

So it's now official, we are all on BOARD!

Ken coming up the carpet lift on the bunny slope at Bear
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We went to Bear about 5 p.m. and the place was almost deserted! We couldn't believe it, normally the upper parking lots are pretty full and you may as well forget the lower 2 lots. We pulled right into the lower lots and only one was full.

We could see the beginner's slope and there was nearly no one on it...we were so excited! We found Dorian and Chas and we all went up the magic carpet together. As we were going up we could see quite a few sets of bumps on the beginner's slope, I remember thinking "Oh my god, we have moguls now". It was cool to go over those, so far we really hadn't been on any terrain that did anything much besides going straight downhill.

Jen going up the carpet lift
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I have to say they were a challenge and really forced you to get some speed and steering control of the board. Once again the condition of the snow was different. It amazes me how different the slopes can be from day to day. I never paid so much attention to the condition of snow before but it really impacts the way you ride. The past few days were about 40 degress and most of the ice we encountered over the past weekend was gone and the snow was slushy. The slushy snow seemed to slow the boards down some but it also seemed like the board sunk into the snow alot more. I got trapped in the flats a few times, God does that suck!

We did quite a few runs down the mogul side and a few on the steeper side of the slope. It was really nice to have alot of the slope to ourselves. We had a good time. I worked on the falling leaf. I really need to work on my toe side turns and linking. Dorian and Ken were trying to jump to moguls, they would but they couldn't land them. We spent about 3 hours riding before everyone was tired and ready to go home for the night.