About a two hour drive to the north of Beijing lies a resort called Nanshan where, for very reasonable rates, it's possible to ski or snowboard. Rising early on Saturday morning, a group of us travelled to Nanshan in a tour minibus to see if we could get through the day without serious injury and possibly come away with a new skill to boast about to friends.

I hadn't previously known there was a place near Beijing where it was possible to race down a snowy mountain with scant regard for personal safety but being that Beijing is almost surrounded by mountains it shouldn't really have come as a surprise. From a distance it's almost impossible to see where any snowboarding could take place, the mountains seem completely bereft of any snow - a sharp, muddy landscape rising high into the horizon looks like the last place where such an activity can take place. A second glance showed that there was a small patch of white on the brown mountain that looks totally out of place - a bright postage stamp stuck apparently at random on the jagged brown envelopes jutting up into the sky. It turns out that this is a completely man made resort with snow machines used to turn the dry, featureless landscape into a daredevils dream.

I had never been skiing or snowboarding in my life and was looking forward to trying my hand (or foot I suppose) at a sport which people either get hooked on and spend their lives looking for a good resort to go to every year or nearly destroy themselves and vow never to attempt again. A quick show of hands amongst our tour group showed that nearly all of us were complete novices, which meant I felt a little better about my first attempt being almost certainly doomed to abject, and most likely painful, failure.

After hiring the necessary equipment and deciding that getting lessons were pointless (we wouldn't understand a word the instructor would be saying), we made our way to the nursery slope and began the boarding up process, all the while looking down at the other hapless beginners as they made their way down the mountainside, often utilising their faces as a means of transport instead of the board. Strangely not put off by this harrowing sight, I clamped my feet onto the board and began to manoeuvre into position at the top of the slope in preparation for my very first attempt. To my eternal surprise I didn't fall over immediately, managing to remain standing for at least five whole seconds before the world turned upside down and I ill advisedly used my head to stop myself from falling further down the mountain. Encouraged by the start I had made (having not fallen over straight away, not having used my head as a brake) I gamely got up and continued - managing to reach the bottom with only two more nearly fatal crashes. Aching, covered in snow but still oddly excited, I got the lift back up to try again.

A few attempts later, I discovered that balancing on the board whilst hurtling down the hill was not my problem, I could manage that without too much anxiety. My issues were turning and stopping successfully. If there happened to be someone in my way then my only course of action was to deliberately crash and hope that my momentum would not carry me into the unfortunate victim in front of me. Similarly, having reached the bottom of the slope, the only way I could manage to not plough spectacularly into the queue for the lift was to wipe out and hope not to kill or maim myself (and others) in the process. Of course the problem with not being able to stop, or slow down, brought with it another, potentially more dangerous obstacle; that of maintaining a manageable speed so that when I did have to sacrifice myself to save others it didn't hurt too much. On many occasions I built up speed to such an extent that the sound barrier surely didn't stay intact and when the inevitable came and I had to slow or stop I made a human sized crater in the snow and lay there trying to breath properly and checking my limbs for any bone-like protrusions.

I was given a good tip in order to control my speed a touch more painlessly and effectively; heels and toes. If I could spin the board so that it was perpendicular to the direction of travel and use my heels or toes (depending on which way I had spun the board) then I would succeed in slowing and even stopping without running the risk of shattering my now fragile skeleton. The key to putting this into practice is to not build up to the velocity of a patriot missile before swivelling the board. It took me a couple of outrageous wipe outs (marvellous snowboarding parlance for enormous, death defying crashes) before trying to begin my descent on heels or toes (one memorable crash saw my shades and hat flung from my head and into a gaggle of laughing locals on the lifts). By the end of the day I had managed to master the art of using my toes to prevent more pain, but not my heels. Every time I tried, I dug the board in too much and sent my backside spinning over my head and into a bone crunching landing. I'm sure I managed to actually deposit some snow onto my bones during some of the more spectacular falls I had.

As we clambered gingerly into the minibus to make our way home, we all reflected on what had been a painful yet surprisingly fun way (and cheap - the whole day, including lunch, had cost us about £35 each) to spend the day. Despite the fact that I was pinned to my bed the following morning with severe muscle and bone fatigue, I could definitely become addicted to snowboarding.