"Joe Ramirez" wrote in message ...

Joe, sorry your first experience was a bad one. The best takeaways
from everyone here is 1) don't go on a weekend and 2) don't go when
its icy (which is tough to call since the condition reports always
lie).

I go to 7Springs a lot and its a nice hill. Particularly the North
Face area once you've gotten the hang of basic skills. So, don't
discount the resort.

Regarding your $130, I'd contact the resort or write a letter and
pretty much spell out all the negatives from your post here. It is to
the resorts advantage to teach you correctly because then you'll come
back and spend more $ with them on lifts, food and rentals. If you
get the right person on the phone or send a letter to the owner, I would
be very surprised if you did not get 2 free lesson/rental vouchers
for you to give it another try.

Or go to a small mountain.

Yes, go for the private lesson.

As unrecommended as this is, when I learned we just rented boards, went
to the bunny lift and figured it out. We had tips from a couple people
and asked other boarders we saw for advice which most provided. These
days most people recommend taking a lesson to increase your learning
curve, but if you're patient and have someone to give you tips along the
way, you can figure it out on your own like many people do. (Instructors
rarely admit to this since they see only the carnage of self-teaching
gone bad...the ones that get through it don't come crawling to them!

Try it again. Its a fun sport,
-todd