It was great! Well, okay. Had there been snow on the dune, it would have been better. However, it wasn't a bad dune at all!
Pete and I went with his parents since they live nearby. (Catered food!) When we left the car to check out the security, we found a flat chunk of sand just off the boardwalk. At the edge of the sand was an abrupt horizon line, and Lake Michigan was about 500 feet below.
Great! We ran back to the car to get my sanders and Pete's sandboard. Pete's parents poked their head over the horizon line and ran back to tell us that we were nuts. "It's 70 degrees! There's boulders all over the place! Et cetera!" They were getting pretty excited, but we assured them that we wouldn't die, and carried our ex-ski paraphernalia over to the slope.
When we were there last, there were about 20 people at the top of the dune. By the time we got back, there were about 40, and they were still showing up. No one was leaving. (You have to realize that this is Michigan. Snowboarding is something they see on Mountain Dew commercials, and skiing is something they do on flat fields.)
So, we set ourselves up and went over the edge. It took about 20 feet for me to scrape off the klister that I hadn't already managed to scrape off. After that, I could start to figure out what was going on. I had to lean way, way, way back onto my rear ski since the friction was so high. There were also a lot of variations in the friction and you scraped over more or fewer rocks.
Pete was having slightly more trouble. He was using a *really* old snowboard for this. It had a fish tail, and the front binding was roughly in the center of the board. The rear binding was all the way in back. It looked a bit odd as a snowboard, but it turned out to work great as a sandboard. You need all your weight in back! Eventually, Pete figured out the trick.
Falling turned out not to be problem. The sand was so loose, that rocks just moved out of your way when you fell on them. Sand got everywhere, but injuries weren't a big problem. (Though I did scrape up my knees when I tried going for speed to try to make it into Lake Michigan at the bottom. Bad idea!)
Going back up was a bit harder. Pete doesn't work out with me normally, so we went slowly. I went first so that I could kick steps for him. I went a bit too fast, though, so he was pretty tired at the top. So, we ate lunch and got excited about run #2.
The second time worked better. I think I got some good pictures of Pete dragging his hand in the sand for balance. You've probably seen pictures of snowboarders doing that, too, on really steep slopes. (Well, okay. I guess I didn't. You'll just have to trust me that it was cool.)
This time, I got the speed better, and Pete also had some lunch in him, so we had no troubles getting to the top. We were definitely ready for #3! Unfortunately, Ranger Sam showed up. "I used to do that in the 70's, but we don't allow it anymore." Ouch! Pete's parents were there, so we had to walk off. Too bad! Another run or two, and we would have gotten it figured out!
If you're curious what it did to the bottom of my skis, don't worry. My skis are no longer skis—they're sanders. The grooves are at least a millimeter deep. The edges are rounded, and even the bindings are noticeably thinner in places! Ouch! It would have been a lot better without the rocks, though. Pete's sandboard is in similar shape.
