It’s our tenth anniversary!
And here is the story of how Lauren Traub Teton, founder and editor of www.SnowboardSecrets.com, became a snowboarder in her 40s and came to start the website.
How “Skiing on Shaped Skis” Turned Me into a Snowboarder
And a Snowboard Journalist
By Lauren Traub Teton
Growing up in Massachusetts, in a non-skiing family, I did have the opportunity to try skiing a few times. Once my family won a day-trip to a ski hill in Shirley, MA. I was about 5 and it was my first time on skis, and the dreaded rope tow was part of the experience. After recovering for 10 years or so I tried after-school ski lessons at Ward Hill, in Shrewsbury, MA. Dark, cold, icy it was, and I persevered, but then witnessed an unspeakable accident of a worker related to repairing the lift, and that was enough of the ski world for me for another 25 years or so.
Fourteen years ago, and in my 40s, I was a guest at a ski meeting at Stratton, Vermont. I was game to give it a try again, and low and behold, shorter shaped skis were a revelation in ease of turning. After my friends came out of their meeting, they commented how well I was doing and said “let’s go to the top.” I had never been in a gondola, and I just loved that mountain experience! Snowplowing down the longest run I had ever been on, with little confidence and ill-fitting rental boots, my feet, calves, and thighs were wounded by the bottom
At that moment I decided “maybe I am a snowboarder. Soft boots, mmmm!”
I took a lesson, and when I found out that the whole back of the snowboard could be used as a brake to keep me going slow, I was hooked! Fortunately I had done a little research and knew that I’d be falling on my butt a lot, and I actually packed bubble-wrap into my pants, and it helped a lot! Unfortunately the snowboard industry loses many or most first-timers at this point, the ones who aren’t wearing tailbone and wrist protection.
I took many lessons at many hills. Somehow, no teacher ever mentioned to me that I was supposed to stay on my edge! So I caught my edge and fell a lot. I wore in-line skate knee pads and wrist guards, and impact shorts and somehow avoided injury, except sore wrists and a big black and blue when I fell on my car key transponder. “Falling leaf” was my mode down the hill for almost a year. I finally learned to point the nose downhill (at Berkshire East, where the chairlift exit left no choice!) and link turns. The only snowboarders I knew were the guys in the shop who tuned my board.
After figuring it out, I was exultant, and wrote an article called
“You Don’t Have to Hurt Yourself to Snowboard” so I could share my tips. Then I needed a place to put it, so I started this website called SnowboardSecrets.com. I loved snowboarding and wanted to write about it. I raced in the Mountain Dew Vertical Challenge. I discovered the thrill of watching rail jams and other snowboard competitions. I started many snowboard websites. I reveled in snowboard fashion and the carefree fun lifestyle. My winters now had meaning and joy that I had never experienced. Thank goodness for those uncomfortable hard boots at Stratton and becoming a snowboarder!
Check out our snowboard video site – SnowboardSecrets.TV – filled with snowboard athletes and coach interviews, competition coverage, party coverage, gear, Flexmeters snowboard gloves and wrist guard videos, snow resorts videos
snowboard tips, and more!