I think I just heard a bear growl…
Sunday was a rare day here in Vermont. The sun made an appearance and it was fairly warm, so I decided to take the kids hiking at Smugglers Notch. The kids were thrilled to find a small patch of SNOW big enough to have a snowball fight with when we got there! We took our time hiking up the liftline, and we made it more than half way to the top of the mountain when I decided to cut the hike short. It was late afternoon and I wanted to make sure we made it back to the car before dusk. We decided to take a different trail on our way down the mountain and had two trails we could chose from - one blue – one black. This is the one we choose:
Now, on a snowboard I am certain this trail is challenging, but I feel confident in saying that by foot it is even more challenging. We were taking our time trying to get down the trail when my son says, “I think I just heard a growl.” I calmly told him there was nothing to worry about and we continued to slowly make our way down the trail.
I started to wondered what I would do if we did actually see a bear and then I ALSO heard a growl!! Having a slight panic attack I looked around and realized ~ I was on my own to protect the kids if there really was a bear near us. It took a moment for me to pull myself together, and then I remembered that the Notch road wasn’t to far from where we were. I came to the conclusion that the noise was probably motorcycles driving through the Notch. Reassuring the kids we were fine (and we were), I encouraged them to keep heading down the trail. I have to admit ~ I was nervous until we got to the bottom of the “Black Bear” trail!!
The kids and I had a great time hiking and I plan to take them again, so my question is: Are there precautions I can take to protect us if we ever encounter a bear while hiking? I know the chances of it happening are very VERY slim, but I would like to be somewhat prepared just in case…
Other than the “bear scare” we had an awesome time. It was nice to be at the mountain again…even without snow.
What’s next?
It has been a crazy few weeks. Finishing up my classes & graduating has been my main focus. Honestly, its been my main focus for the past 5 years. Sitting at my computer tonight, Sunday night a day after my graduation I am starting to wonder now what? I know I will get up tomorrow morning and go to my job at the bank, but then what? Will they acknowledge that I have obtained my degree? Should they? Or will it be business as usual? I am concerned that tomorrow will be a very difficult day for me. Kind of like the day after Christmas.
What expectations do I have for myself as a college graduate, and how am I going to reach my goals? I’ve decided to take a couple of weeks to absorb what I’ve accomplished, and privately review my goals and expectations. I know one thing for sure. Something has to change.
So, after a weekend of celebrating my graduation AND mother’s day I sit here tonight and wonder – what’s next? I guess we will all find out in time 
sNOwBoundaries.com – reflection.
This is the hill I learned on...it's hard to believe it got the best of me!! haha
I have had many conversations with people who have experienced the same agony during their first time snowboarding, and I’ve found the general consensus is that most never go back.
There was something about the mountain that hypnotized me though. I needed it, I wanted it, and I was determined to own it. So, the next morning I painfully staggered out of my bed before the sun was even up, and packed my stuff to head to the mountain for round two.
I love this story because it PROVES to me that IF you give up on something that’s insanely challenging you could quite possibly miss out on something that is insanely amazing.
If you read my blog you know how the story ends. I fell in love with snowboarding and the mountain and the rest is history.
A problem I struggled with my first year of snowboarding was my fear of falling. When you are afraid of falling; you hesitate. When you hesitate you don’t believe in yourself. When you don’t believe in yourself you fall. As my confidence improved I would catch myself JUST RIDING & I was fine – I was awesome – I believed in myself!
I try to spend as much time as I can at the mountain, but since I’m a Marketing Management major I actually spend a lot of my time studying. In January my marketing teacher told the class that we had to (at minimum) start a blog, twitter account, a LinkedIn account, and a Facebook account to establish our personal brands. I was excited but scared. My first thoughts were ‘who would care about my brand’ and ‘do my friends have to see this’ !? After reading the book CRUSH IT, by Gary Vaynerchuk I knew I wanted to CRUST IT but I was concerned because I didn’t know WHAT my personal brand was.
I’m a mom – I LOVE being a mom, but I’m not the best one. I mean- I can’t cook, I don’t do crafts, I have no time to volunteer at the school, we don’t participate in the sale things to earn money for the PTO, I’m not a member of the PTO, and…well you get the point. I will say I KNOW my kids better than anyone and I love them more than anything. But a blog about that may get kind of boring.
I’m a single mom – yeah, so are a lot of people.
I’m a single mom working full time & going to school – Hummm, I am proud of what I am doing but it doesn’t excite me enough to make it my brand.
I’m a marketer – I love marketing, but I am not a teacher.
I’m a snowboarder – yeah, so are a lot of people.
Wait! I’m a snowboarder AND a mom – a single mom who brings her kids to the mountain – which is not always easy. Every time I go to the mountain with the kids I learn something new. I am passionate about being a mom and I am passionate about being at the mountain = BAM! My personal brand: sNOwBoundaries.com was born.
Just as quickly as my personal brand was born, I started falling. I had plenty to write about but who would care? Was it anything people were going to value? How was I going to keep people interested? How was I going to get an audience to even LOOK at my blog! What did I want to accomplish? Why was I even doing this again? Oh, right – because I was told to.
The fear of falling doesn’t only hold you back when it comes to snowboarding. It has taken me some time to overcome my fear of falling a.k.a. failing when it comes to my personal brand. I have made a lot of progress, but I am not going to lie – blogging has its ups and downs. You have to post new posts often! You have to ADD VALUE with EVERY post to keep your audience coming back. You have to find the FINE line between what information is too personal to share, and what it ok.
Through social networks, contrary to my initial fear, I have been able to reach people who ARE interested in my blog. I have had the most success reaching my audience through twitter and by visiting other snowboarding or parenting blogs. In fact, when I finally believed in myself and was updating the blog daily I was averaging 22 views a day! I considered that pretty good since it was my blogs first active month.
To help drive traffic to my site I attached the sNOwBoundaries.com link to my Facebook page, my LinkedIn Page (just started using my LinkedIn account), and my Twitter page. I think that these resources have been/will be instrumental in driving traffic to the blog.
Recently, I had to step back from my blog for a personal brand re-evaluation. I felt like I was losing ME in trying too hard to cater to my target audience. It took me some time but I realized that in order for me to be successful I need to be true to myself! As long as I maintain the blogs focus on what I vowed to; snowboarding, mountain life, moms, and inspiration I believe my audience will find value when visiting my blog.
There are a couple of people who have been instrumental in driving traffic to my site. Thank you to fellow blogger David Z at agnarchy.com; he’s given me great feedback and advice that’s very much appreciated. Also, thank you to Courtney Wilson at www.ladyinshred.com who provided me with a contact for my “exceptional exceptions” page (I haven’t had to time to update this page yet, but soon!). Check out their blogs!
I have discovered that developing a brand takes time, confidence, knowledge, passion, and connections(social networks). Creating a personal brand is a challenge and it has its ups and downs. There have been moments when I just wanted to do what was required for the class and be done with it. However, knowing that overcoming challenges could lead to discovering something that is amazing has kept me committed to creating a successful blog and personal brand. With my personal brand I hope to find my dream job: Maketing at a Mountain Resort.
Thank you Dr. Elaine Young for everything, you are an amazing teacher!
Jay Peak, VT
Jay Peak, VT 4/11/10
The colors in this view were amazing...tried to capture them with little luck
I refuse to put my board up yet! Last Sunday I went to Jay Peak for the first time. I had a great time, but it was really foggy in the morning. I was a little out-of-sorts being at a new mountain and not being able to see anything. The Tram ride was interesting; it was yet another first for me.
Jay Peak Tram - Photo: http://bit.ly/agObOm
The Tram was packed FULL with people and since it was so foggy I couldn’t see anything out the windows. I had no idea how high we were, or when we would eventually reach the top of the mountain. At one point it stopped. Yes, my heart started racing a little! I couldn’t think of ANY reason for the damn thing to be stopping, so I started to wonder if something was wrong. Luckily – we made it to the top safely!
Despite the thick morning fog, spitting snow, and surprise pot holes in the trails we were able to get some good runs in. In fact, the snow was perfect on several trails! I’m hoping….really hoping…to get ONE more day of riding in this season! And then – I will put my board up and get my motorcycle out.
Spring skiing/snowboarding in Vermont: Bitter-Sweet
When my alarm went off at 6AM it was all I could do to open my eyes and to try and shut it off…I even contemplated just letting it blare for the minute it takes (I know this from past experiences) and sleep through it. However, it was Saturday and we were doing the one thing that can actually encourage me to get out of bed without pushing SNOOZE 10 times: skiboarding (Skiboarding is what my kids call going to the mountain. We call it this because one of my three kids skis, and I think he feels a little left out with all of the “Riding/Snowboarding” talk). So with the little bit of ambition that I had I reached for the alarm clock to shut it up.
This morning went relatively well getting ready. I had gotten everything ready the night before, so it was just a matter of getting dressed and packing the car. I was excited because it was just my boys and I (my daughter was at her cousins) so I was going to be able to take them on some more challenging trails. It was a beautiful morning and once we got to the mountain we were anxious to get our first run in. My son who skis was ready to head to the lift before my son who snowboards was ready, so I let him head down to the lift to wait for us. Conveniently, just after he disappeared my snowboarder realized that one of the straps on his binding had fallen off AND was missing.
It took me a minute to gather my thoughts and figure out HOW I was going to deal with this issue. Then I had my son grab his board; we met my other son at the lift and walked to the ski shop at the resort. Luckily, they were able to fix the binding and before long we were heading up the mountain for our first run!
It was a picture perfect morning with t-shirt wearing temps. The boys had a great time exploring new trails, and even experienced their first black diamond trail. My skier who is fearless was a little apprehensive about it, but he took his time and did a great job! By early afternoon we were ready for drinks and a snack so we headed to the car. In order to get to the parking lot we had to take the T-Bar which was another first for the kids (I am laughing as I write about this haha). I had them watch other people first, and then explained to them that you DO NOT sit on the bar! I told them that you just LEAN on it and let it PULL you. Well, they both tried to sit on it unsuccessfully! By take two though they ended up figuring it out.
At the top of the T-Bar you have to pass through the park, so we hung out for a few minutes to spectate. There are several jumps in the park, some small and a couple of big ones. We watched a couple of young kids hit the smaller ones, and then my skier asks me if he could try it. I agreed and told him to head towards the parking lot (the trail BEFORE the big jumps) after he was done. He stands up and starts speeding down the trail. To my surprise he doesn’t turn towards the little jumps… suddenly I realized he was heading straight towards the BIG JUMP!! I was shocked! He didn’t slow down……he didn’t hesitate…..he just flew right up the ramp caught about TWO FEET of AIR and then went down…………I couldn’t see him land from where I was and I had no idea what kind of shape he was in!! (keep in mind he just started skiing this year, and I think people tend to work up to jumps like these with PRACTICE!)
Obviously, I flew down the trail to see if he was ok!! I was extremely relieved and pissed when I reached him and saw that he was fine! Apparently he crashed after he landed, so he was trying to pick up his skis and poles which were in all different directions! I will be honest, I was yelling. I had NO IDEA that he was going to try to make that jump, and it wasn’t what we had agreed on! The whole way UP to the parking lot I kept mumbling…. “I can’t believe you did that!” But, by the time we reached the parking lot I was laughing. I mean really, it’s awesome that he tried it! Not to mention he got awesome air on his first jump EVER!
I WAS NOT prepared for him to try that jump but apparently he was.
After a late lunch we ventured out for a couple more runs as the late afternoon fog rolled in. I think the boys were a little nervous on the empty foggy trails that they had never been on before. I was having a blast though watching them make their way through the more challenging (muddy and grassy in some spots) terrain. They did awesome!
By 3:45 the trails were empty, the sun had disappeared and the base of the mountain looked like a ghost town. Signs of the season winding down were everywhere from the bare spots on the trails to the puddles at the lift lines.
After an eventful and fun day of Spring ‘skiboarding’ the boys and I decided to call it a day and headed to the parking lot, but to our surprise our day was not over yet! At the parking lot we met up with some friends of mine that I met at the mountain earlier in the season. We hung out for a bit visiting with everyone & unwinding from our day.
It’s bitter-sweet, spring in VT. There is nothing like being at the mountain, especially with warmer temps, sunshine, and BBQs! We live for mountain days, but the fact is that was probably the last day at the mountain this season for the kids.
“Why can’t I just do what I want?”
I asked myself this question today….. “Why can’t I just do what I want?” and was serious. I followed that thought up with a frustrated, “Why do I HAVE to do things I don’t want to!” ……………. once reality caught up with me & I noticed I was whining like my 9 year old I began to laugh out loud – in the grocery store. People were staring & to my complete disregard some started laughing with me.
Long days at work, evenings filled with methodical dinners & cleaning, and late-late-late nights doing Homework are taking a toll on me. My only savior has been escaping to the mountain on the weekends for some ME time, or Q.T. with the kids.
This past weekend I wasn’t able to make my escape and NOW I literally feel like a fish out of water! Gasping for air – grasping for my ME time! I neeeeed it!! Sometimes I feel a little selfish & irresponsible for MAKING time to go to the mountain as much as I do, but CLEARLY my survival depends on it.
Right now, I WANT to chill and watch this movie (Neverland)! BUT I can’t. Because my homework is sitting next to me impatiently waiting for me to give it some attention. Why can’t I just do what I want!!
Actually —if I think about it realistically –in a indirect & frustrating way I AM doing what I want. After all, I chose to go to college so I can eventually “do what I want”. For now, I will just enjoy the Neverland TEASER and hopefully soon I will be able to make some time to watch the movie.
My surfing thoughts.
In December of 2008 a friend of mine asked me if I had ever tried snowboarding. My response: “No”. Then he asked if I had ever considered trying it. Without hesitation I followed with another, “No”. I went on to explain that I wasn’t really a ‘mountain girl’ but that recently I had been thinking about skiing again. Since he snowboards and has for years he was able to convince me to give it a try.
That conversation ending up changing my life forever. Yeah, that’s a rather dramatic statement but true none the less. After all, I found my passion and myself on the mountain.
I now see myself being confronted with another adventure to try. I have heard a lot of talk about surfing through snowboarding acquaintances and I’ve found myself intrigued. I initially thought that surfing was completely out of the question for me since I live in the Northeast. It seems though, that there are several people in the area who travel to the coast of MAINE and enjoy some sweet east coast waves. Is this true? I don’t know…it’s just what I’ve heard.
Now, I have several thoughts to hurdle before I even begin to consider this adventure. For starters, I’m a 32 year old mom of three kids; is this really something I should be doing? In the past few years I have become a firm believer in living life to its fullest - I am not going to get another shot at it so I am a least going to enjoy it. My kids know this and I hope that they also have the same desire. It’s not about being irresponsible – it’s about being responsible… for your happiness. I think my kids would LOVE the idea of having a surfing mom, and probably would hope to join me eventually!
Where do I get surfing equipment, where would I surf, and who would teach me? After doing some research via the world wide web I was I able to find a website with information about surfing lessons in Maine. The best part about this site – they are highlighting their WOMEN’S surf camp! OK – this is my sign! I HAVE to check this place out! http://bit.ly/aYSCFi
OH, I forgot to mention a couple of other things. I do not like COLD water (or being cold period) AND I am afraid of water. I remember when I first started snowboarding I thought being out in the COLD weather was going to be an issue for me. Interestingly, it rarely bothers me when I’m at the mountain. As far as being afraid goes: Fear is only my conscious suggesting that I approach things cautiously. Intuition stops me from doing things that are truly dangerous. I normally don’t let fear prevent me from trying new adventures, so I suspect it won’t hold me back if I decide to give surfing a try.
The bottom line for me at this point is: Do I really WANT to try surfing? I will get back to you on this one.
Just what I needed *smile*
Top of Sterling Lift Smugglers Notch, VT
Today was awesome! It was warm, sunny, and fairly quiet at the mountain. I was able to get a lot of good runs in and the snow was pretty good. At first it was a little crunchy but the bright morning sun did a good job of softening it up.
First run of the day.
Hanging out in the Alley
ohyeah!
You people with your flowers and your pedal bikes CAN…
It seems like everyone around me is glowing brighter then the sunshine these days and they all want to chat about how HAPPY they are that it’s springtime. Spring? Really, do you think I’m happy about this? Spring is nothing but a means to the end of me being able to enjoy my passion; my obsession. I now consider snowboarding my obsession since I cancelled two doctors’ appointments just so I can go to the mountain tomorrow. Yes- this is unreasonable, but as everyone feels the need to point out – its springtime and my days are numbered!
I really have no use for spring. It’s messy & awkward. Mud is constantly gripping onto my shoes & the temperatures mess with my body. I wear a sweater and I’m hot. I wear a t-shirt and I’m cold. By the end of the day my hair looks like I stuck my finger in a light socket.
In case you didn’t notice this springtime intrusion is making me a little cranky. This morning I realized it was a problem when a person on a pedal bike went speeding past my driveway and I mumbled, “you people with your flowers and your pedal bikes CAN KISS MY….” ummm I’m sure you know where I was going with that. Honestly, I have no problem with flowers or pedal bikes. I am just truly sad to see winter slipping away before my eyes.
Luckily, I’m pretty good at realizing when negativity is bringing me down and know when it’s time to make an effort to change how I feel. I decided to make a list of things I like about spring:
1) SPRING RIDING – Bluebird Skies & warmth oohhhyeahh -I’m going tomorrow!
2) GEAR & EQUIPMENT SALES! Nothing like a little retail therapy to make things all better.
3) BBQ’s – so much fun!
4) LONGER DAYS – I have more energy to do things in the evening when it stays light out longer.
OK, that’s all I have but it’s a start and I feel better already! At this point I am even willing to muster up a “Happy Spring” to those of you who are excited about winter taking a bow. If there is ANYONE else who is struggling to say goodbye to winter, I hope my list helps you through this difficult time.
Broken Wrist
Based on feedback I’ve received people are curious about what to expect if you break your wrist. I’ve updated the “Mountain Healthy” page with information about what to expect based on my personal experience. Always feel free to email me if there is a topic you would like me to discuss snowboundaries@gmail.com
Mountain Healthy: http://bit.ly/aXhsPZ
