Yeah brah, you can hang ten in the green room and shack yourself all summer bro. Or not.

As someone who has spent a big chunk of his life within a short walk or drive of a decent point break, but has barely managed to get beyond being slightly un-shit at surfing, I cannot help feel anything but pity for the landlubbers who head to the coast each summer in the hope of mastering the sport of Hawaiian royalty.

If riding switch is like wearing a chip hat and being attacked by seagulls, then surfing is like trying to do the same whilst riding a unicycle backwards down a cobbled street past angry yeomen who are pelting you with cabbages. Online snowboard retailers, in need of a steady revenue stream to satisfy their venture capital backers, will seduce you with images of hot babes / dudes, golden sands and the promise that surfing competence (or at least wearing technical boardshorts) will lead to exotic sexual relations with inquisitive foreigners at sundown. In reality you will spend all summer going straight in the whitewash, trying to get the seaweed out of your hair, burning your eyelids and being shouted at by frustrated locals who have had their break invaded.

“If riding switch is like wearing a chip hat and being attacked by seagulls, then surfing is like trying to do the same whilst riding a unicycle backwards down a cobbled street past angry yeomen who are pelting you with cabbages”

But since no-one will ever know if you are actually any good at surfing, as long as you learn when to use the word “dude” appropriately and get a couple of photos of you in a wetsuit, you will massively increase your chances of getting laid when you head back to the mountains in the winter – so it’s definitely worth the pain and humiliation.

Enhanced spatial awareness, fitness, smiles – trampolining is the perfect summer sport. It will help you eliminate the backflip to scorpion from your repertoire and make your core muscles glisten like those of a Health and Fitness cover model.

The only real downside with trampolining is that core snowboarders will accuse you of cheating. If you were a proper snowboarder (who are almost as grumpy as proper skateboarders) you would eat shit for months in order to learn your triple corks / frontside fives. Practising on a trampoline makes you a really weird combination of being both a pussy and a jock at the same time. Which pretty much makes you a rollerblader.

Still fun though. Especially if you do it in lycra with fluorescent leg warmers.

This is a tried and tested mechanism for handling boredom and hopelessness. As the months of doing nothing stretch out before you, rather than letting your inactivity and the worthlessness of your existence get you down – go and smash some stuff that no-one cares about any more.

Nothing beats the simple pleasure of breaking the windows of dilapidated industrial buildings, especially if you combine this with acne and a second hand iphone with a cracked screen playing tinny music at over 140bpm, and some fags.

It may not be constructive, it certainly won’t enhance your CV, but by hanging around on deserted industrial estates you may actually spot some urban rails to session when the snow returns, and you will almost certainly enhance your credibility with the grumpy skateboarders that you want to impress (although you may have to do some skag first though to win their trust).

For a proper snowboarder who can’t wakeboard, the summer months mean doing a shitty job, sleeping on a floor and eating dog food and toenail clippings to save enough money to be able to eke through the winter without starving or having to sleep in the bin shelters.

When choosing your summer employ, you should look for a job which is so utterly meaningless and depressing that, like traumatic childhood memories, you will simply forget about it when it is over. You will wake up somewhere around November, realise that you have got a few grand in your pocket, and be able to head to the mountains for another 6 month bubble without any negative thoughts whatsoever.

“You may find yourself actually considering the merits of a career… this is clearly stupid”

The temptation is to look for a rewarding job with people you like, but this will only start to confuse you. You may find yourself actually considering the merits of a career, thinking that you can earn a steady wage, hold down a relationship with someone who loves you, and still satisfy your shred craving with a few weekend breaks to the Alps and a 2 week holiday in March. This is clearly stupid.

You will be much more miserable if you work a shitty job, but this will make you much happier as you won’t be leaving anything worthwhile behind when you disappear off into the wilderness to ride pow like Mike Basich.