Snowboarding Put Me in Debt but Gave Me Something Priceless

A sport I thought was for ‘White boys’ helped me finally experience the outdoors

My cousin and me in more than a stack’s worth of gear each. Photos courtesy of the author

Winter mornings in Vermont hit different — always have.

At 6 a.m., the sun is but a whisper on the peak of the mountain. The towers of pine are weighed down beneath a midnight silhouette. The cold — the kind that shoots down into your lungs and then splinters — makes its presence known in the fog that builds against windows. And then, slowly and quietly, shadows emerge from the resort. Some contort themselves into yoga stretches, others huddle over coffee, but they’re all bound by a devotion to the mountain.

I started snowboarding in my early twenties. Before that time, I’d had no interest in what I’d considered “White boy sports.” Much to my mother’s chagrin, I was perfectly content spending my mornings sleeping in and my nights on the stoop with a bottle and the boys.

But my mother had remarried into a skiing family. And every year, as the trees manifested embers of leaves that would eventually leave branches bare, she’d call up and see if I wanted to join the family on a weekend ski trip. My response was always the same: “I don’t do that shit.”