Just started boarding least season (January). I bought used instead of renting. Was lucky enough to cut my teeth on the slopes in Jackson Hole, WY.

I ride a 155 GNU Altered Genetics and am considering going longer because of the AWESOME powder out west.

If you haven't ever boarded out west then you are missing out big time. It is expensive, and it will ruin you for the ice patches that pass for ski slopes in the east/southeast..... but its so worth going at least once.