January 16, 2012
By: SIA Staff

This past weekend, four SIA employees hit the slopes for #LSSM at Whitetail Mountain in PA. It was a beautiful day at Whitetail; clear, sunny and a crisp 25 degrees. The four boarders included Minna Casser, Anovia Daniels, Emily O’Hara and Lindsey Auer.

It’s pretty safe to say that we made everyone around us aware of our presence and excitement. We stepped out of the car and started cheering, asking strangers to take pictures, while also asking for some tips for our day.

The morning began with getting fit with the right rental equipment and making sure we rented wrist guards! It is advised for first-timers to wear wrist guards! After about an hour of filling out paper work, collecting our rental equipment, and making great friends with Whitetail employees who helped us make sure we were properly dressed; we were sweltering so we knew it was time to get outside. Lessons were on the hour so we decided that we would mess around on the convenient closed in area that we saw immediately. After a peaceful ride up the magic carpet, we laughed and tumbled on our way down. For some reason we never put two and two together that we were in the kid’s area, despite the fact that we were the oldest of the bunch.

So when we realized we weren’t in the right area it was time to hit the bunny hill for our lessons! Our instructors were so generous and made us all feel comfortable, and by the end we all felt as though we made progress from earlier in the morning when we could barely stand up. This was especially the case for Minna as she quickly turned into Shaun White and left the bunny hill for bigger and better things while everyone else kept on trying!

At Whitetail, there are different stations set up for learning. If you demonstrated a particular task at that station, you were able to move on and learn more. It was a very interesting and smart approach for lessons. Everyone progresses differently so this made it feel individualized. The afternoon consisted of falls, bruises and spending some quality time with the snowy ground. The car ride home consisted of sore legs and Chik-fil-a! Needless to say, it was a great learning experience and extremely fun. The feeling of learning a new sport is really special, leaving us excited to continue snowboarding in the future! #LSSM