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  • Brad Mitchell: When You Go Extreme

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    Sonia Fernandez Menendez
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    Brad Mitchell discusses safety precautions for extreme snowboarding, including always being accompanied by a guide and wearing a helmet. He notes that landing is a complex skill that takes time to learn, and falling correctly by relaxing and rolling is important to avoid injury. For high-risk situations, he recommends having a device that can signal for rescue if buried in an avalanche.

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    Brad Mitchell discusses safety precautions for extreme snowboarding, including always being accompanied by a guide and wearing a helmet. He notes that landing is a complex skill that takes time to learn, and falling correctly by relaxing and rolling is important to avoid injury. For high-risk situations, he recommends having a device that can signal for rescue if buried in an avalanche.

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    39 views3 pages

    Brad Mitchell: When You Go Extreme

    Uploaded by

    Sonia Fernandez Menendez
    Brad Mitchell discusses safety precautions for extreme snowboarding, including always being accompanied by a guide and wearing a helmet. He notes that landing is a complex skill that takes time to learn, and falling correctly by relaxing and rolling is important to avoid injury. For high-risk situations, he recommends having a device that can signal for rescue if buried in an avalanche.

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    of 3

    Part 2

    Brad Mitchell: When you go extreme


    snowboarding, you head for the highest peaks and
    the steepest slopes, taking little more than a map
    and some basic survival equipment with you. Unlike
    in ski resorts, you won’t see any signs telling you
    there are rocks, or trees around [9], so it’s up to
    you and your guide to make sure your route is as
    safe as possible. Of course, you should never
    attempt to go down a slope on your own. It’s
    essential to be accompanied by a guide [10], who
    must go first every time as there may be no clear
    route down through the rocks and other dangers.
    They’ll also show you the way up to your starting
    point, which may involve a long, difficult climb, and
    may wear a backpack containing supplies. I know
    some snowboarders like to take a helicopter up to
    the top, and that’s quick and easy – though
    expensive – but I always prefer to go on foot, with
    a helmet on [11], of course. When you finally get
    up there, the view is always
    completely different from the way it looked from
    below. People say to me it must take a lot of
    courage to start going down such a steep slope,
    but if you’ve reached that point then you must be
    a pretty experienced snowboarder and what’s
    really required is a tremendous amount of
    confidence [12]. You never know exactly which
    way you’re going to go or what you’re going to
    encounter on your way down, and you often find
    yourself having to make split-second decisions,
    but that’s part of the fun. There’s nothing quite
    as exciting as suddenly having to perform a series
    of jumps as you descend [13], and then managing
    to stay on your feet afterwards. The ability to do
    that is obviously something that takes those new
    to extreme snowboarding quite some time to
    learn. And whereas doing a reasonably good take-
    off seems to come fairly naturally to most of us,
    landing is a more complex skill to acquire [14], as I
    found in my early days out on the mountain side.

    Falling correctly is also something you need to


    practise, initially at low speed and on gentle
    slopes, and later in conditions more similar to
    those you’ll encounter on the mountain. Rule one
    when you lose your balance is not to panic [15], or
    else you’ll get tense and be far more likely to
    injure yourself than if you’re relaxed and just let
    yourself go with the fall. Often the best thing to
    do is roll out of the fall, but it’s natural to try to
    use your arms to try to slow yourself down and if
    you do so remember that elbows, if you fall on
    them, are much stronger and less likely to be
    injured than wrists [16]. Following a high-speed
    fall, you might find yourself covered by some of
    the white stuff that has fallen with you. There
    may be just a few feet of it and you can usually
    pull yourself up to the surface, but if you can’t
    you’re in big trouble and that’s why I’d never go
    down a slope without a small device fastened to
    my body [17] that sends out a signal to the rescue
    services if I get buried. I know some safety
    experts recommend also taking a medical kit, but
    somehow I think that if I were buried under ice,
    my priority would be to get out or get rescued.
    I’m always looking for new challenges. Competition
    snowboarding was something I looked at, but
    there were just too many guys showing off.
    Teaching snowboarding is certainly something I
    might do one day, but what I really dream about is
    parachute snowboarding [18]: going straight down
    a mountain, flying off a cliff and then floating
    down to the valley below. Now that’s what I call
    extreme.

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