Extreme snowboarding
There are different types of snowboarding. From the slight incline where learners practise to extreme snowboarding where life and limb are taken into your own hands. Snowboarding is a sport using a board (much like a surf board) that involves descending a snow-covered inclines. Snowboarding by itself is a fun and safe sport which is basically a cross between skiing and skateboarding. The board is attached to one\'s feet with bindings. It uses a single board as opposed to skiing which has a ski on either foot. The sport was developed in the United States in the 1960s and 1970s and became a Winter Olympic Sport in 1998
The balance and feel is sum what different from normal skiing since navigation through the snow is achieved on single board guided by the snowboarder, and unlike skiing or skateboarding, snowboarders let gravity do all the work of propulsion for them as they slide down the slopes. The method is to surf with both feet strapped to a board down a ski slope while trying to maintain balance. By shifting ones weight on to the heel- or the toe-edge of the board one can turn either left or right to steer in the direction you want to go.
It did not take long for snowboarding to catch on in popularity and it was only a matter of time before the most highly skilled practitioners decided to tackle harder and harder slopes. Finding more dangerous terrains or natural formations that allowed for stunts like turnpipes has become a quest for a certain type of daredevil who gets turned on by the danger.
Thus was born extreme snowboarding. Extreme snowboarding involves exploiting extremely tough slopes with the steeper the angle the better in the opinion of extreme snowboarders. It makes runs down these slopes extremely fast and difficult to control. Unlike the normal gentler civilian snowboarding slopes, extreme slopes will also usually have outcroppings of rock jutting out from the snow as part of the challenge.
These slopes are not to be taken lightly, and it is not a sport for amateurs to participate in. Given the speeds at which an extreme snowboarder can go, even a casual crash on the slope can lead to broken limbs or a broken neck from impact with the snow alone. Of course a lot of extreme snowboarding is on glaciers where the slopes are rock hard. When you factor in the presence of actual rock formations, you can see how this sport is one that is not undertaken lightly.
Extreme snowboarder slopes actually don’t have any of the usual conveniences of a conventional ski or snowboard slope. There are ski lifts for uphill transport, no way stations for shelter and relaxation. It is wilderness all the way. More often than not, during extreme snowboard competitions, the boarders actually use helicopters to get to the top of the course.
Like other extreme sports, snowboarding enthusiasts have been able to merge their styles with that of other extreme sports. One example, involves snowboarders actually packing parachute gliders on their backs these extreme sportsmen take a snowboard and do a run all the way down a slope which ends at a sheer-drop cliff, and once they fly off the cliff, trigger the chutes and hang glide all the rest of the way down the mountainside. If that isn\'t an adrenaline rush, I don\'t know what is!
Some of the more popular and challenging snowboard slopes are located in New Zealand and Alaska. In the Alaskan slopes, there are 4000 foot vertical run areas with gullies, ditches, and wind lips, as well as trees to contend with on the slope. There is also an area with natural half-pipe formations and rolls where freestyle exhibitions similar to that done for skateboarding can be performed. Some of the best extreme snowboarding locations are the Fall Wall, Mont Fort backside in Verbier, Suisse with its 1600 m drop and the Pas de Chèvre in Aiguille des Grands Montets, Chamonix, France with its 1500m vertical drop.
Given the risks anyone who would try extreme snowboarding should be an experienced rider, in physical and mental shape, and is familiar with avalanche safety and rescue it is required to learn first aid specializing in cold weather injury treatment, as well as survival, search, and rescue techniques for winter and mountainous terrain. Speed, technical ability, and finesse are the main factors an extreme snowboarder should consider while the terrain and airtime (for those who enter in competitions) are the restraining factors.
On their runs, snowboarders are also required to bring avalanche transceivers for emergency pickups in case of an avalanche or if they go off course and get lost.
Like most extreme sports, extreme snowboarding is most definitely not for the weak or the faint of heart. But for those who are up to the challenge, it offers one of the most exciting blood rushes around. |
