Powder Trip : Crystal Aldana of Burbank Launches a Nomadic Career on the Fledgling : Pro Snowboarding Tour of America

All those highly paid baseball players should consider themselves lucky to be playing a sport that pays obscene amounts of money. If Darryl Strawberry had become, say, a pro snowboarder, he would be earning considerably less than his $5 million from the Dodgers this year, and his life style would be a lot like Crystal Aldana’s.

A bubbly 23-year-old rookie on the Professional Snowboarding Tour of America--which is itself in its rookie year--Aldana has led a nomadic, disjointed existence since the eight-event series began in January. Virtually living out of her car, she has been on a seemingly endless shuttle among airports, ski resorts and friends’ apartments.

“I don’t have a home--that’s the life of a snowboarder,” she said. Not that she’s complaining. “I love what I’m doing.”

Going into the last event on the tour, this weekend’s $50,000 Body Glove Snowbout at Arapahoe Basin, Colo., Aldana is ranked among the PSTA’s top women competitors. But her season winnings of $4,356 are less than half of Strawberry’s pay for one at-bat. Of course, she doesn’t have to worry about bear markets and tax shelters.

“I’m not in this to earn money--you wouldn’t be smart if you were,” she said, laughing. In fact, she’s thrilled to be getting anything at all. “I can’t even believe I’m getting paid.”

Aldana also can’t believe she’s not inside a UCLA classroom, where she’s supposed to be. A junior from Burbank majoring in communications, Aldana agonized over the decision to put school on hold. But encouraged by her guidance counselor, she took only one course during the winter quarter and then plunged into the world of pro sports.

“My counselor loves it,” Aldana said. “She said, ‘You’ll graduate someday.’ ”

With good intentions, Aldana signed up for the spring quarter. Unfortunately, the PSTA did not consult UCLA and scheduled its last event a week into the quarter, so Aldana will have to start classes late. “I don’t know how I’m going to pull this off,” she said with a sheepish grin.

Unexpectedly, snowboarding has “kinda swept me up,” Aldana said. Just a few years ago, Aldana, and almost everybody else, had never heard of the sport. She certainly never demonstrated any aptitude for it. Originated in the late ‘60s but hardly noticed until the mid-’80s, snowboarding combines surfing, skiing and skateboarding, sports in which Aldana had never been proficient.

“I tried surfing but just stood up for a couple of seconds,” said Aldana, whose only sport at Burroughs High was competitive cheerleading.

Aldana didn’t even try skiing until 1987, a year after finishing high school, and it wasn’t until ’89 that she took her first ride on a snowboard. She and a boyfriend went to June Lake for what she thought was a skiing trip. But her boyfriend was a snowboarder and talked her into trying it. Her initial reaction?

“I didn’t like it,” she said, “but I was mad because I couldn’t do it.”

PSTA competition is divided into two events: the giant slalom, in which the fastest time wins, and the half-pipe freestyle, in which competitors perform acrobatic maneuvers and are judged on technique and degree of difficulty. Although Aldana is good in the giant slalom, the half-pipe is her speciality.

Only a month after first getting on a snowboard, Aldana entered an amateur competition at Lake Tahoe, placing fifth in the half-pipe against 30 men. That gave her the courage to enter a bigger amateur tournament two weeks later. Competing only against women, she won both the giant slalom and the half-pipe, so she decided to get serious about the sport.

Photogenic as well as athletic, Aldana began getting her picture in national magazines, showing up in the fall of 1990 on the cover of Connections, which headlined snowboarding as “the sexy new sport on the slopes.” She parlayed her looks and personality into a sponsorship from Body Glove, the main sponsor of the PSTA.

“Crystal’s a very good snowboarder and also conducts herself on a very effervescent and high-energy level,” said Scott Daley, promotions manager for Body Glove, a Hermosa Beach company. “She’s received a lot of magazine coverage because of that energy.”

Training during the week at Bear Mountain, Aldana practices on a U-shaped half-pipe. Riding goofy foot on a 60-inch snowboard, she’s like a skateboarder inside an empty swimming pool.

Her specialties are aerials, including “air to fakie” and “stalefish,” which she describes as “grabbing the heel edge of the snowboard in between your feet and boning out your back leg” while airborne.

Like skateboarding, snowboarding can be dangerous. Two of Aldana’s male friends broke legs this year. Aldana broke her tail bone in a freak chairlift accident last fall and recently sustained a bruised arm when another snowboarder crashed into her during training.

“My folks kind of worry,” she said. “If it was up to them, I’d be in school. But I try to make it as safe as I can. I always know what my limitations are, but I do push it.”

Aldana, who finished third in the half-pipe in last weekend’s PSTA event in Eldora Mountain, Colo., is expected to battle Shannon Dunn and Kirstie Elder for the top prizes at Arapahoe Basin.

The event will determine the overall women’s champion, based on points, with the winner getting a trip to Tahiti.

Aldana, who trails Dunn by only 20 points, wants the trip and seems to have the confidence to get it.

“Most of my competitors have been riding longer than me,” she said, “but I’m getting better and better.”

Is she considering making snowboarding her life? “I give myself two or three more years,” she said.”It’s so vigorous and takes so much out of you.”

She thought for a moment, then expanded her vision.

“You know, people who are 30 are still winning,” she said. “I guess I’ll stop when I’m not having fun any more.”

BACKGROUND

Snowboarding has been called surfing on snow, but that doesn’t mean you can ride the old single-fin log down a frozen wave. Made from ski material, modern snowboards are only four-to-five feet long and have bindings set crossways facing either left or right. Boards cost from $350 to $500, boots from $160 to $310. Snowboards and snowboarding equipment can be rented at ski resorts and surf and ski shops. The prices are the same as for ski rentals, about $20 a day.