Logan “Terje” Tittle

I took Logan snowboarding today (January 10, 2008). He has literally asked me to take him everyday since the first snow of the year. Today was the perfect day to go. For all the international readers or people from the future who are reading this you may not know, but yesterday about 20 inches of the greatest snow graced Northern Utah (also caused lots of car accidents). It was perfect for snowboarding. Logan has only been on a snowboard once and it was last year on a relatively small hill. He mostly just sat on the board and rode it like a sled, which was still fun. I decided to take him to the same hill this time. It is perfect for him to start working on the basics.

He started out well and kept his balance pretty good, but struggled to keep his board pointed down hill. If you have ever tried snowboarding then you know that this will cause your board to turn sideways resulting in you catching your edge and face planting in the snow. Fortunately for Logan there was plenty of powder to cushion the falls.

After riding for a while I asked Logan if he wanted to sit on the board and ride down like that instead. He said “No, not until I figure this out.” How awesome is that? Well he didn’t have a whole lot of area to really work on his balance, but once he was able to go most the way down he decided it was time to start working on some new tricks. He started doing what he called a “Heelie” which is basically the same as a wheelie, but on a snowboard. Later I asked “do you mean a wheelie?” He said “No, a heelie because you go back on the heel (referring to the tail of the snowboard).” He did pretty damn good for his first time. One time he was able to successfully get the front of his board about a foot or so off the ground; returned it too the ground and rode the rest of the way down the hill. From the bottom of the hill he yelled “DAD, Did you see that wicked Heelie?” Of course I saw it.

Next he wanted to move to a new spot. He had been riding where others kids had made a small sledding path. Powder is much more difficult to ride in, but he wanted to go for it. So we picked his spot, but before sending him down we had this conversation:

Me: Logan, do you know what this kind of snow is called (pointed at the untouched powder)?
Logan: No.
Me: This is called powder. That stuff over there that you were just riding on is packed. This has not been touched by anyone, it is fresh powder. This is what snowboarding is all about; this is the best snow in the world. This is your first fresh powder run of your life. Are you ready?
Logan: Yes.
Me: Ok.

Then I showed him how to put his weight on the back of his board so that the nose didn’t sink into the powder causing him to become stuck or to crash. Then I sent him on his way and he made it all the way to the bottom of the hill. I seriously almost cried. He was so pumped. He ended up making about 5 runs in the fresh snow. One time when he was close to the bottom he hit a little jump that some hooligans had built previously. Now, he was definitely not going fast enough to jump off it, but the sudden bump caught him off guard. This would cause a lot of people to crash, but he survived and has officially made it past his first jump without crashing.

As you can tell I am pretty proud of this little outing. He had so much energy and didn’t get discouraged at all. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera with me, next time. I decided to add “Terje” to the title because of this professional snowboarder. His name is Terje Haakosen. Here is an absolutely ridiculous video of him tearing down the steepest mountain I have ever seen anyone ride. It looks like is completely vertical. I would not survive what he makes look fairly simple. Definitely worth checking out.