$200 and a sprained wrist

for two years, i avoided the slopes. after a six months in lake tahoe, my daily routine consisiting of strapping into a snowboard and riding the chairlift, the snow-capped mountains lost some of their allure.

at least that was my story when people asked.

it was only partly true.

yes, i no longer possessed the motivation of a few years back, when i would wake at 4:30 a.m. call in sick from my car on interstate 80 as i sped towards the hill. but equally responsible for my absence, i didn't relish the idea of sucking. not compared to the average winter warrior, but relative to myself. and with each passing day, i knew i'd drifted a step further from my prime.

it started the following year. i met a bunch of friends i'd worked with at the resort for a week of boarding. they had spent the past season in telluride. i recovered from a car accident then wrote film reviews for a website in san francisco. and it was pretty obvious.

by the end of the first day, they ahd showed off numerous aerial maneuvers and hazardous rail slides. all i had to show were a pair of tired legs that could barely keep myself upright during a high-speed heel side turn. my friends, who i had matched spin for spin less than a year ago, were now a completely different class of rider.

so i stayed away.

but i did miss it sometimes -- the liberation that comes from floating two stories above the ground as you clear a 40-foot tabletop jump and the coarse swoosh that accompanies a carved toe-side turn. so after some prodding from a friend, i relented, and accepted an invitation for some president's day boarding.

the evening before, as i dusted off my snowboarding bag and unzipped it to make sure all my equipment still resided inside, my mood suddenly elevated. perhaps, all the skill would rush back, i thought to myself. buoyed by this unexpected elation, i began imagining, then acting out, the impressive spins i would toss as i sped down the hill. the glory days of my 24th year, when i cruised into the terrain park and threw a switch five and built a ramp taller than myself on the hill in back of my house to huck inverted spins, would all be revisited tomorrow. sure there would be signs of rust. i wouldn't be quite the same caliber rider -- it would be foolish to expect that after so long away -- but the magic would start to show a bit more with each passing run.

the day's beginning seemed auspcious. the first run was shaky, but each moment on my board increased my comfort level, and after 90 minutes i felt poised to make the previous night's visualizations reality.

half an hour later, i didn't hit the wall, i hit a building. the legs turned to jello and my only motivation for turning was to balance the pain between two different muscle groups. a lunch break didn't help. neither did taking a run off. and finally, as if there hadn't been sufficient disappointment already, i took a nasty tumble on a large patch of ice on the day's last run, -- literally five feet from the parking lot -- and sprained my wrist.

so that's what i have to show for my glorous return to winter sports. $56 for a lift ticket , $35 for gas and rental car, and $15 for a dessicated slab of tri-tip and two bottles of water. quite the aching muscles today as well, for which i'll be spending $90 for a massage on thursday to try and alleviate.

sure was fun though. no joke.