The Natural -- Amy Howat Of Bellingham

Fasten a short, fat-looking surfboard on Amy Howat's feet, push her down a ski slope and watch her become a world champion at snowboarding within a year.

Snowboarding has become a fixture at ski areas in recent years, and Bellingham's Howat has become a fixture on a snowboard.

Rebounding from a serious elbow injury in 1989, Howat, 18, is ready to regain her position among top women professionals.

Her official return was Jan. 5. She responded with the fastest time among women at a ski-product-sponsored banked slalom at Mount Baker, the kickoff event of the nine-stop Professional Snowboarding Tour of America.

``I'd like to end up in the top five of PSTA,'' she said, confident after her third-place finish on her home turf, ``and I think I've got a pretty good chance.''

Next up is the Mount Baker Banked Slalom, with heats starting tomorrow and Sunday at 9 a.m. Cost is $30 for amateurs and $40 for professionals.

Much has happened to Howat - and the sport - since she set her skis aside and stepped onto a snowboard four years ago.

Snowboarding magazine recently reported that one of every 14 people - 1.6 million and increasing - on the slopes are snowboarders, a 1,500 percent growth in five years. Half of the people visiting a ski resort for the first time this season reportedly will opt for a snowboard, not skis, the editors said.

Howat grew up on skis at Mount Baker, where her father, Duncan, is general manager. Duncan had a snowboard in the apartment, and Amy, then 14, decided to give it a whirl.

``I got into snowboarding because I was bored with skiing,'' Howat said. ``I wasn't real fired about it anymore.''

From her dad's perspective, Amy was searching for her niche. She had been a starter as a freshman in basketball at Sehome High, following in the footsteps of her older sister, Gwyn, a multisport standout who starred on two state championship teams.

``It was her thing,'' Duncan said of the new sport Amy pursued with passion. ``She made it unique to her.''

Soon Amy was doing tricks - some like those now called Dew Plain and Spaghetti Air - with the stare-provoking skill of male ``shredders.''

``Everything I've done in snowboarding has come natural,'' said Howat, an all-around athlete who also played soccer and softball. Learning at Mount Baker, considered a world-class haven for boarders, didn't hurt, either.

What makes Baker stand out is its terrain, she said.

``It has the best terrain for snowboarding - though I haven't been to Jackson Hole (Wyo.). There's such a variety - cliffs, chutes, moguls, dropoffs. If you're just a beginner, it forces you to be good real fast.''

At 15, she won the women's mogul and slalom titles at the 1988 nationals in Crested Butte, Colo. She was so smooth in the gates that only two men had faster times.

``Amy Howat is recognized as one of the best all-around female - and I hate to use the word female - free riders in the United States,'' said Ken Kelley of Nitro Snowboards, a Seattle manufacturer.

Jean Higgins, a Utah rider who won the Mount Baker women's event earlier this month, said: ``She's a really good rider. Anyone who goes for it - and it shows in her riding - can go a long way.''

Duncan Howat, recognized as an outstanding athlete and outdoorsman, said Amy is a gifted athlete, like her sister and mother, Gail.

``It's like Phil and Steve Mahre,'' he said. ``Of course, they worked at it very hard, but when they ski gates, you see it. When you watch any natural athlete, you see a flow that doesn't exist in most of us. Amy's talent is natural.''

At 5 feet 11 and 160 pounds, Howat said the advantage she has on the others - ``I'm definitely way stronger than most of the girls'' - is shrinking rapidly, and not just because she developed a love for bread on snowboarding excursions to Europe and gained a few unwanted pounds.

Howat said she must discipline herself.

``I don't have very good concentration skills,'' said Howat, who would prefer to cruise through the crud rather than go around gates. ``I've never had any coaching in boarding, and a lot of the others have a full-time coach right now. I'm thinking of joining a team next fall for that, because I have no formal training in racing.''

Howat said she realizes that if she wants to regain her national championship form, she must set aside plans to study journalism or visual arts in college and spent less time in her arts-and-crafts hobbies, such as making stained glass, painting or sewing.

Her time in the snow season is split between racing, half-pipe and mogul competition and training; in summer, she will continue with bench aerobics and working on a stair-climbing machine while taking 40-mile bike rides and a doing lot of ``jiking'' - a half-jog, half-hike up steep trails off Chuckanut Drive and Lake Samish south of Bellingham.

``Competition is definitely getting more intense,'' Howat said. ``I think I can put more energy in it - and effort - and start making some money.''