Senior Ashton Beattie poses with his friends at the end of the Show Me trail at Hidden Valley Ski Resort. “I actually hated [snowboarding] at first, but then once I started to do it a lot more and do it with my friends, I actually started to enjoy it. It stuck with me,” Beattie said.

Ashton Beattie – Snowboarding

Emma Iswarienko, Staff Writer

Snowboarding has not always been a part of senior Ashton Beattie’s life but, after he went to Hidden Valley Ski Resort in seventh grade with his uncle and cousin, he fell in love with the sport and has been doing it on and off ever since.

“The first time I went, I got on the lift to go on the hill, then I started wandering off into these woods and I ate it down the hill. I couldn’t get my straps off my boots because I was too short to reach them, so I [just] sat there for a while in the snow,” Beattie said.

In addition to accidents on the slope, Beattie has had near-fatal experiences on the chair lift. Beattie has had a dangerous experience not only on the slopes, but also on the chair lift.

“I was with five of my friends, and we were all trying to get on this one lift at the same time. I didn’t get on all the way, and they were holding me by my arms, I was dangling 30 [feet] in the air. It was one of the scariest moments of my life,” Beattie said.

After four years of snowboarding, Beattie’s favorite aspect of the sport remains the rush of adrenaline that follows a challenging trick

“When I landed my first-ever trick it felt pretty good, I had a lot of adrenaline when I did it,” Beattie said. “[When] I finally got the adrenaline off of my shoulders and just landed, it was the best feeling.”