Snow wasn’t the only thing falling from the sky on a recent Saturday afternoon in Bear Gulch near Mesa Falls, Idaho.

Twelve helmeted students could be seen flying through the air and landing in a cloud of white powder during an air-boarding trip hosted by the Outdoor Activities Department Saturday, Jan. 28.

A van full of snowshoes, air-boards and eager students left the Outdoor Resource Center on the north side of the stadium early Saturday morning for a day full of snowy trails, jumps, thrills and spills.

“It was great. … It’s a new sport that not many people know about,” said Adrian Clark, a senior from Sanford, N.C.

For those less familiar with the sport, an air-board on an average schoolyard snow hill would like be a Ferrari in a parking lot full of Geo Metros. The sled, which was awarded Popular Science’s “Best of What’s New” in 2003, is made of material similar to an ordinary air mattress, is arrowhead shaped and about 3 1/2 feet long.

Laying on top of the board face-first, a rider can use the handles on each side to shift his or her body weight from side to side and use the plastic fins that line the bottom of the sled to steer and carve across a slope. Some riders found the sled to be surprisingly responsive to these shifts in weight. Besides steering, the plastic on the bottom also reduces sled-to-snow friction, getting the sled up to speed quickly.

After arriving at Bear Gulch, it didn’t take long for students to find a couple of jumps that sent them soaring. Their faces said it all — with jaws set and eyes narrowing as they gained speed down the hill, coming off the lip of the jump, their eyes and mouths popped wide open with surprise. Upon landing, grins would break through snow-smattered faces.

Besides catching air, the air-boarders also did some trail riding in the gulch. “I actually liked the trail better,” Clark said.

In addition to being a longer ride, the trail riding also honed and tested his steering skills more than the shorter hill, Clark said. The next air-boarding trip will leave from the ORC on Saturday, Feb. 25. Tickets are available at the BYU-I Ticket Office.