Excellent replies guy's, I really appreciate it. Gives me all sorts of things to consider. I just won an Ebay auction for a snowboard with bindings and boots used but in great shape. I guess I'll start there. I've never skied or snow boarded on land or water so I guess I'll just take it slow and easy till I get the hang of it.
I would really like to hit the water in the summer on a kite board so I suppose the snowboard knowledge would carry over to the kite boarding somewhat.
I ride motorcycles off road so I figure my riding gear and helmets will help somewhat for protection.
I'm also building a kite buggy to mess around with too. May have to come up with some snowmobile skis for converting it to snow in the winter.
I have the HQ APEX 8m kite for the land but come summer I'm thinking of getting either a LEI or closed cell foil kite for the water.