DEATH KNELL FOR A GREEN SHREDDER

A GOOFY-FOOTED TWO-PLANKER BAILS IN SHREDDER-HEAVEN HOW I SURVIVED SNOWBOARDING AT SUNRISE

You bet I was tweaked. By both definitions. Y In half a day, my world had turned into blasts of blue and white; white, when I was thrown down on my stomach with my face planted in the snow; blue, when I was flipped over and dashed on my back, glaring at the sky. By the end of the day, my entire body was hurting, and the way I was ranting, anyone would think I wasn't all there.

I was a skeek, a near-middle-aged twoplanker. Any shredder would have known it right off the bat. Snowboarding wasn't going to come easy to me. Yet, thinking back, it seemed like such a sick idea! I'd heard through the Arizona skeek grapevine that Sunrise Ski Resort in Arizona's White Mountains had officially opened its new Snowboard Park. Originally set for an inaugural opening during the 1995-96 ski season, the park was hardly used that winter due to a sad season of scarce snow.

But 1996-97 was a watershed year where snow was concerned, and the park enjoyed its first official season. Sunrise Snowboard Park was built with its own sound system so shredders could be serenaded with their much-loved and very hard rock. Other features included wood and metal railings, metal pipes, and snow bowls all the structures a shredder needs to master the sport's airborne stunts. Best of all no two-plankers allowed. No shouts and curses as you whizz by on your single "stick"; no slow snowbunnies in your way. Here was an exclusive place where you could master all the official airborne feats: Chicken Salad Air, Roast Beef Air, Nuclear Air, Fresh Fish Air; you name it, a shredder finally had the place to do it. It was more than a park. It was shredderheaven.

Why not try it, I asked myself. I'd been skiing for several years, and I thought of myself as a fairly coordinated and athletic person. What was the big deal? I'd be cruising on one stick instead of two.

I TOOK MY FIRST STEP OUT OF SKEEKDOM. I rented my snowboarding equipment at a ski shop in Phoenix.

"Hey, good for you! I don't see many people your age trying to learn how to snowboard." I knew the young ski technician was trying to be complimentary and encouraging, but I had the urge to put him in time-out.

"Once you try it, you'll never go back to skiing," he continued cheerfully, coolly flipping his hair back and out of his bright blue eyes. "By the way, are you goofy-footed or regular?"

"Hmmm," I replied.

"Okay, look, when you slide into first base, do you lead with your right foot or your left?"

I took my mind back a couple of decades and tried to find a slide in there someplace.

"My right foot," I answered.

"Goofy-footed," he said, frowning.

"No, wait!" I said. "Maybe it was my left."

"Nah. You would know right off the bat. Anyway, maybe you're a fakie."

"Excuse me?" I asked, with near-middleage attitude.

"Maybe you can lead with either foot," he said, with 20-year-old cheer.

I got my equipment, paid my rental fee, and hoisted the stick up over my shoulder. As I was leaving, the technician asked me where I was going for my lesson. The new park at Sunrise, I told him.

"Phat!" he said. This kid was begging for time-out.

"Excuse me?" I said again.

"You know... like, uh, cool; really exceptionally great!"

"Yeah, I knew that," I said.

OPERATING FOR NEARLY 27 YEARS, SUNRISE Ski Resort is owned by the White Mountain Apache Tribe. It stretches over three peaks within the White Mountains of eastern Arizona. For downhill skiers, the $48 million area offers 65 trails, 80 percent of them groomed for intermediate and beginner runs.

For many years, the resort has accommodated both snowboarders and skiers, but the unique aspects of snowboardingespecially the "air" feats - ultimately convinced resort operators to create a second park, according to Pat Cruz, Sunrise general manager.

"Although our wide downhill runs have allowed skiers and snowboarders to coexist in years past, the popularity of snowboarding combined with its acrobatic requirements have grown to a point where the activity needs its own unique area," Cruz said, diplomatically addressing the long-existing conflicts between skiers and snowboarders. Opening Snowboard Park, he noted, has demonstrated Sunrise Resort's commitment to its young adult market of shredders, a market that is growing fast.

Proponents of the sport note that the popularity of snowboarding is a result of a renewed interest by teens and young adults in the skateboard. In fact the relationship between snowboarding and skateboarding in the 1990s is much the same as that between surfboarding and skateboarding from the mid-1960s through the early '70s. That's when I grew up in Huntington Beach, home of the World Surfing Championships and any Woody-driving surfer worth his sea salt had a skateboard stowed in his (or her) garage.

But, surprisingly, most historical accounts are that the real grandpa of the snowboard is the downhill ski and not the skateboard.

Writer Les Crane notes in his 30-year history of snowboarding that an industrial gases engineer from Muskegon invented the first snowboard on Christmas Day in 1964. Sherman Poppen was watching his daughter, Wendy, try to speed down a mountain slope while standing on her con-ventional sled. He went into his garage, found a couple of small Alpine skis, bolted them together, and gave the newfangled thing to her.

That winter, the same year the Beach Boys sold 12 million albums, Wendy was the most popular girl on the mountain. Her friends begged Poppen for their own "stand-ing sleds."

By the early 1990s, there were more than 50 companies manufacturing snowboards, and many others are creating ever-newer versions of boards, boots, bindings, and the coolest in shredder ski clothes. There are millions of snowboarders today, televised worldwide events to showcase the champions among them, and hints that snowboarding may become an Olympic event.

Yet while many ski resorts across the nation have allowed snowboarding to coexist with the gentler, kinder Alpine and tele-mark skiing, few have created dedicated areas for them. Snowboard Park at Sunrise Ski Resort is among the handful, and it's believed that most major resorts will follow.

GROMMET BAIL LAME POSERS

SUNRISE SNOWBOARDING INSTRUCTOR Shawn Mayer assures me I'll be able to get off the chair lift, even with one foot dangling off my board and the goofy one strapped in. It seems to me the lift is speeding up as we get to the end, and I have no idea how I'll get off — walking and skating at the same time.

"Just do it," Mayer tells me. Ah, the advice of the decade, and the death knell for lames like me who require explanation.

The lift adventure comes after several hours of instruction, and my confidence is at an all-time low.

I step out of the lift and am propelled forward, neither foot working at all. I do a perfect rolling down the windows and bail right in front of the lift.

My face is planted in the snow, so I can't see Mayer, but I'm sure he's hoping no one knows he's with me.

"Just do it, huh?" I ask him, pulling myself up.

You could say that Mayer and I haven't had an easy time together. Down the snowboarder's bunny slope we've been dozens of times — he shredding, me bailing. Each time I climb up the border bunny hill to start another descent, he tells me the same thing: "Keep your body forward." And, each time that I do what I think he wants, I fall. The only variation to this is whether I fall on my face or on my rear end.

"I AM trying to lean forward," I yell at him, falling for the zillionth time. "Can't you say it another way? Say it in French or Spanish... anything. But don't you dare say lean-your-body-forward again!"my maturity and experience to their best advantage!

Mayer merely stares down at me and waits for me to get back up. But I refuse, and tell him I'm calling it a day. For the first time since we met, he smiles.

Taking off my "stick" and refraining from hurling it into a nearby garbage can, I settle my nerves and soothe my ego in the best possible way: I blame my failure on Mayer. "He's a grommet," I mutter. "He's only 19 years old, and he's never even been on a pair of skis. Started with a skateboard, and this is all he knows. How could he possibly teach someone like me how to snowboard?"

On my way back to the day lodge, my board loaded on my shoulder, my pants appropriately baggy, wearing the appropriate snowboarder sock hat pulled down to just above my eyes, I vow I will try again. And next time, I tell myself, ha, ha, I'll get an older instructor, one who can use

SNOWBOARDING AT SUNRISE

In the meantime, I think, no one knows how miserably I failed. I look the look, walk the walk, and can even talk some of the snowboarder's talk. I straighten up, imagining the skeeks in the lodge and how they will admire me as I lay down my board and swig down a brewski.

"Poser," I hear a shredder mutter as I trudge by.

Oh well, I think. So I didn't fool them. One more lesson, and I'll be as sick and phat as the best of them.