And Colorado Surfing is more than just surfing a curvy road standing on the back of a big, old convertible or truck. Colorado Surfing is also for surfers, skiers and anyone looking for new ways cruise and new places to venture.
---Where to mountain surf? On the way up and down 14,000 foot Mount Evans in Colorado. The auto-road goes all the way--- no hiking. And there are some steep chutes to ski if you've got your boards.
Also for skiers, the north-side of Mount Massive has some big ledge jumps south of the 4-wheel drive road over Haggerman's pass...
Other than that any smooth and curvy road is a "natural" for a little Colorado Surfing!" Just watch yer ass!
If you like surfing, skiing, and boarding, we need you! We'd like to set up a discussion group that lets folks know that the Great Wall of China is a steep and twisty little paradise for winter sports!
And surfing Ponape might be a groove. Ponape (also Pohnpei), in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, is a tucked-away little paradise with Nan Madol, the "Atlantis of the Pacific" stashed in the lagoon.
How you do it is easy! Ski right at a tree for your first Tree Mambo. Then edge a check turn right in the face of the tree-trunk as if to turn away from the tree. Let your body flop over as if to wedel away from the tree--- BUT --- un-weight your skis and let the tails continue towards the tree.
The un-weighted tails will bounce harmlessly off the tree and spring right back underneath you--- Voila! And you wedel off in coolness with a check turn in the other direction. If your bindings are set "light," well, you may be walking off in coolness. And if you screw up the check turn at the face of the tree-trunk? Well, Smacko! When you see the stars as you come out of the "inky blackness," you'll realize that you did an "Official Inky Black Mambo!"
Moguls? Practice by bouncing your feet off moguls. Yup--call it a little "Mogul Mambo." It's the best way to practice for trees and rocks. Just find a nice, steep-faced mogul and Mambo!
And yes! You can fly through the air and still land on your skis with a little "Rock Mambo" and "Cabin Mambo" too. For well-coordinated folks, string a couple together for a "Combo Mambo."
And you real back-country types, if you're bored you can look for a little "Bear Mambo..."
If you bounce off a rock and then pull a roll, then you've done a "Rock and Roll Mambo."
And remember, if you smack hard into the lodge, or into a lift-tower... and you see stars as you "come-to." Well, you just did "The Inky Black Mambo!"
Well... We're back and boy are the people in Boulder happy about that. Us international travelers usually pick a more of a surfer's paradise than some spot twenty miles north of Denver. But here's the list of what Boulder is. An old west town with a university that's put out more astronauts than anywhere else. A Research Mecca with sites from global climate to nuclear to new-age institutes. They've got a good rodeo but you are just as likely to see the Rolling Stones, a nudist convention or a love-in.
Sure, you've got real-estate types, marketing moguls and republicans, all trying to pave the beauty of Boulder into a strip mall. But still, walking the streets, you'll meet rock-climbers, disco types, vegetarians, jet-setters, kayak people, haiku people, street people, cave people, crazy people, techno-geeks, retro-freaks and if you wait long enough, pretty much everything else. Everything but Surfers, there were no Surfers in Boulder. So we set out to fix-up that situation.
We speculated a bit over a few "cold ones" and it came to us. We would surf Boulder, they need us! The awesome Front Range and snow-capped Continental Divide loom over the plains like a Tsunami. Boulder is right on the "curl" of the wave and we can surf that! There are, of course, skateboards and skis and all that jazz, but this stuff didn't seem to fit the scale of the mountains. So we looked around and found the equipment we needed.
A 1968 Chrysler Newport convertible. We hopped on for a "test surf" and "Hey, Pretty Rad You Ho-Dad." It took a bit of getting used to, but soon it was easy.
We cruised some mountain roads and found that we could hang-ten while leaning back big-time into a curve; and on the dirt it was a challenging ride. Sharp and square edges on our twenty-foot board meant we could walk around the car and surf up front, on the sides and off the back. And we mean "off" the back. Ouch! It wasn't long before we learned to practice the high-speed stuff in the back of a pick-up truck. In the mountains the helmets and pads came out and things got serious. In town it was Hawaiian Shirts, cocktails, and we kept things pretty slow.
In no time we were surfing smoothly, so long as the driver was cruising smoothly. And the number of "Colorado Surfers" on the Chrysler had grown to a small group. No problem here, we had a pretty good bar. And a permit. The police didn't appreciate us at first so we applied for a Tavern Liquor Permit, with the address 1968 Chrysler, Boulder, Colorado. This worked until they changed the law, but that was some time after we left.
Pretty soon we could surf around town so easily that it looked more like a cocktail party than a sport. In fact so many people jumped on while we were stopped at the red-lights that our new sport turned into a party. People took us here and there and up to Tulagi for a drink. Or they tipped us to a good party where we'd jump out for a bit and a crowd of new folks would jump on for a ride.
By this time the Chrysler was sporting an anchor, boat ladder and ski ropes(for the ladies in high heels.) Some local guys(Curt and Rod, no less) were now cruising with us in their own convertible(a low-rider, no less) with their own party complete with a Blues Band. Drum kit jammed in the backseat, and two guitarists on the trunk plugged into who knows where. The Band broke into Surfer Music once in awhile and spirits were high. Things couldn't have been better until someone suggested that "Colorado Surfing" should be an Olympic Sport. We quickly gassed-up, re-stocked the bar(read gassed-up) and left for the U.S. Olympic Facility at Colorado Springs.
You'd think these guys would show some appreciation for a home-grown American Sport and one in which we could probably medal. "Yow!" They tried to throw us off the property. We insisted on a demonstration. They insisted on calling the police. The cops showed up on the third lap of the 5,000-Meter Hang-Ten; and we were way ahead of the guys with batons. It took some talking but the police accepted our apologies. Though they sided with the Olympians on whether we could train at the facility without first taking part in pre-Olympic trials.
Our time in Boulder was over, next stop was New York City, so we sold the Chrysler. We bought a box truck, put on some "Iggy Pop" and practiced "Interstate Punk-Rock Slam-Dance Surfing" all the way to the Big Apple. But that's another story, especially the part about getting a permit.
Yes! We really do need you to help us start a Colorado Convertible Surfing NewsGroup! Post a message to us.config newsgroup on USENET and ask for a Colorado Surfing NewsGroup! Then we can all get together and swap some great spots to hang.
For starters, here are some quick ways to experience a carve, and to practice "s-turn" carves. What's a carve? It's turning on the side-cut of your skis... and it's like riding on rails. Staying on your skis can be difficult when you're carving a couple fast turns on a mogul face. And leaning into a big carve can spell "F-a-c-e-P-l-a-n-t!"
"Easy-Carve" is practiced at a pretty good speed on mild and smooth terrain.
"S-Turn Carve"
Remember, sometimes you blow the first carve of a linked s-turn; and you plant your face into the mogul so hard that everything turns black. When you "come to," and start to see "stars;" you'll know you just did an "Inky Black Face-Plant!"
Aloha from Bingo-Bongo- Just because the picture doesn't have any clothes on doesn't mean you can't check out the NewsGroup.
Flat-Out True, Real-Life Travel Stories. Yes, Chairman Mao is still the "Big Honcho" although he is horizontal and looking pretty waxy at a mausoleum in downtown Beijing. Dead dictators on public display are like stars in the Michelin Guide; the more the better.
Nervous Nineties! Humor about travel, current events, modern times, the future, auto racing and more.