The chairlift can be a huge source of anxiety when learning to snowboard. You only have one foot strapped in, so it takes a little practice. Follow these tips and watch you and your worries slide away smoothly.
- Practice "getting ON the lift": Go to an open area. With just your front foot in the binding, practice skating by pushing yourself along with your back foot. Try pushing from the front side of the board, then try it with your foot on the back side to see if one is easier for you. Get reasonably comfortable with skating before you skate into a lift line.
- Practice "getting OFF the lift": Go about 10 feet up from the bottom of a hill in an open area. Follow the instructions for steps 6 through 8 below until you are comfortable gliding to a stop with just your front foot in the binding.
- Get on the chair: With your back foot out of the binding, skate into the lift line. When it is your turn to ride the lift, calmly skate forward to the designated line. (Relax, this is the easy part.) As the chair comes around, have a seat, keeping your snowboard pointing forward until it lifts off the snow. Now you can prop it up with your back foot or use foot rests if the chairlift has them.
- Helpful tip: Try to get on the lift with just one other person, if at all possible. If there are 3 or more of you riding the chair, try not to be in the middle.
- Getting off the chair: As the chair approaches the off-loading ramp, twist yourself sideways a little bit in the seat so when you make contact with the snow your board will be pointing straight. Keep the nose of your snowboard up.
- At the top: When you get to the top of the off-ramp (where it starts to slope down), stand up with your weight on your front foot. Place your back foot down on the board just in front of the rear binding (on your stomp pad if you have one) and as you do so, distribute your weight evenly between your feet.
- Glide down straight: Cruise down the off-ramp with both feet on the board until you're in the clear.
- Come to a stop: Slide your back foot about an inch over the edge -- over the frontside edge if you need to make a frontside turn (right for regular-footers, left for goofy-footers) or over the backside edge if you need to make a backside turn (left for regular-footers, right for goofy-footers). Turn your board and come to a stop.
- Strap in: Skate to an area that is out of the way of other people coming off the lift behind you. Strap or step into your bindings.
- You did it! Now go ride and have fun.
