By Molly Latterner and Steve Kopischke
On Sunday Feb 8th, Randy met with us at Perkins at about 10:00 am. The group of people chosen to go on this trip out of the eighteen that signed up were: Steve Kopischke, Jon Fairbourne, Shaun Johnson, Jeremy Latcham, Molly Latterner, Aaron Hoerst, Trevor Scott, Hilary Carignan, and Audrey Lopez. With our fearless leader Randall T Nelson.
We started the long drive to Michigan around 10:30 am. The ride wasn’t bad. Randy said we were one of the most talkative groups he had taken to Michigan. We got to the condo around 4:30 pm, unloaded the van and went inside to have a quick meeting.
Randy let us know what was going on and told us dinner would be ready around 7:00 pm. He said we could go to the lodge, go snowshoeing or just hang out at the condo.
Everyone did as they chose and was back on time for dinner. After dinner Randy announced that our curfew was 10:30 pm. Everyone was cool with that and off we went. Everyone was back on time and we went to sleep. {most of us}
On Monday February 9th at 7:30 am Randy gave us a wake up call. Almost everyone admitted that this condo was one of the first places that ALWAYS had hot water. We left the condo around 9:00am towards Big Powderhorn Ski Hill. Randy gave us our lift tickets and we headed out. Steve, Molly, Aaron, Hilary and Audrey headed for the smaller intermediate hills.
Everyone in this group were beginners except Steve. Steve said “I haven’t been snow boarding for a while, I want to get used to my board again.” Getting off the lift was hard for the beginners but not for Steve. It didn’t take long for Aaron and Molly to catch on but Hilary and Audrey had a lot of trouble. Steve tried to teach Hilary and Audrey but it didn’t work very well.
After lunch Steve, Molly, and Aaron decided to go with Jeremy, Shaun, Jon, and Trevor to try out the more advanced hills. Hilary and Audrey stayed in the chalet because it took them so long to get down the first hill.
Molly decided to ruin the rest of the first day by getting a mild concussion and having to go to the hospital. Randy took her while the others stayed at the ski hill. Randy had to leave Molly at the hospital to go back and get everyone else back to the lodge. We headed back to the condo and ate around 7:00 pm.
Tuesday about the same as Monday, wake up call at 7:30, breakfast and then off to the next ski hill. The second ski hill we went was Black Jack, the coolest ski hill we went on this trip. Randy went inside to get our lift tickets. He didn’t get one for Audrey because she wasn’t going to snow board at all.
Black Jack was the only ski hill we went to with a snow boarding park. Hilary stuck to the bunny hill and Molly hung out by herself on the larger but easy hills while everyone else went towards more difficult hills.
Everyone was having so much fun either going off jumps or watching people go off jumps that we stayed until they turned off the tow rope. Even turning off the tow ropes couldn’t stop us. We just kept walking back up to the top of the hill. Randy finally came over and told us it was time to go.
We piled in to the van with all our gear and headed back to the condo. We did the same thing as every night, eat, go to the lodge or go snowshoeing.
Wednesday was the coldest day of the trip. We went to Indian Head where the chalet was at the top of the hill instead of the bottom like most other ski hills. It stayed cloudy and cold all day long. The snow was the worst of all the ski hills, it was practically ice. Right as we got there Steve, Shaun, Aaron, Jeremy, Jon and Trevor went down the hill and weren’t really seen again until lunch.
It was a great trip. The weather was good most of the time and everyone got along pretty well. No one was injured and most importantly, we all had a good time.