Riding the Rails at Colorado's Premier Winter Resort

by Gavin Ehringer

Over the years, I have had a lot of opportunities to work with the snowboarding instruction programs at the various Colorado resorts. I am particularly impressed with what is happening at Beaver Creek.

Spike Eisenmann has been directing the snowboarding at Beaver Creek for several seasons, and his experience is reaping big benefits.

Spike is a character. He has a hairstyle that must require a can of hair goo every day to get it to stand on end. He has a smile that could be used in a toothpaste ad. He seldom wears a hat, even in the coldest weather. But he is very serious about providing an exceptional snowboarding program.

When Spike's normal workday is over and the other instructors already are home with their wives and kids, it is not unusual for Spike to get in a snowcat and go out with the grooming crew to make sure that the learning areas and terrain parks are groomed to his high standards.

Recently, Spike sent me out on the slopes with one of his premier instructors, Ben Welsh. In the off-season, Welsh is a Professional Golfers' Association teaching pro. He has great teaching skills.

Although Welsh is something of an all-mountain generalist, like myself, he has been concentrating on mastering the skills of the terrain park. Since this is an area where I am particularly weak, we decided to head to Beaver Creek's aptly named Park 101. This terrain park, situated just below the beginner's learning area on Chair 8 (the Cinch Express), is ideally suited for gaining confidence on terrain park features.

We decided to concentrate on rail slides and 50/50s, two essential elements of any terrain park rider's repertoire. Park 101 has simple terrain park obstacles placed at or just above the ground. As Welsh promised, "If you make a mistake, there isn't much risk involved. You can just ride off."

And so I did. Again and again. One of the hardest things about performing rail slides or 50/50s is staying perfectly flat on the board. In other riding situations, you are either on your backside or frontside edge.

But when you are sliding on a rail, you have to make your board perfectly flat, with no weighting on either edge. It goes against the muscle memory developed over countless hours of riding, and you have to fight with your body and mind to get yourself to level the board out and let it and the obstacle do the work.

Everything comes down to the setup - how you approach the obstacle and the position of your body before you get to the rail or box.

I had a lot of trouble, initially, putting myself in the right place to get up onto the box obstacle.

Typically, I would set up on the backside edge, which threw me into a turn as I made the slide. I found myself falling off the side of the box, which probably would have caused me to crash were the box not a mere 2 inches off the snow. We were working on 5 0/50s, the simplest rail slide maneuver. All it requires is that you ride straight to the obstacle and then stay relaxed as you follow the rail to the end.

Welsh helped by critiquing my entry and getting me to hop the board, stay flat on the approach and look down the line at the end of the rail. Within a half hour, I was achieving success. So we moved on to a more challenging terrain park, the Zoom Room. Here, the obstacles were bigger and higher off the ground, but not intimidating. The skills I had learned gave me an instant level of success, and I easily performed the 5 0/50 on an arching "rainbow" rail.

Afterward, Welsh literally held my hands as we practiced the more demanding rail slide. Here, the rider approaches the obstacle as if doing a 5 0/50 but turns sideways while on the obstacle so that the body is facing perpendicular to the rail. As in all rail maneuvers, only a subtle amount of movement is required. With Welsh's assistance, I was able to pull off a few rail slides before our session ended.

No matter what level you are, lessons with a certified snowboard instructor can reap huge rewards. With the confidence I gained from Beaver Creek's progressive approach to learning and to its terrain park designs, I no longer fear terrain park features.

I look forward to my next snowboarding session, when I hope to attack the terrain park with newfound enthusiasm.

For information about Beaver Creek and the Beaver Creek Ski & Snowboarding School, www.beavercreek.com

Gavin Ehringer covered snowboarding for the Rocky Mountain News for 15 years.