By Suzanne Ward
In March, at 11:00 a.m., a group of 7 students and 2 teachers left from Minnetonka to go to Ironwood, Michigan, for a week of skiing. The people that went on the trip were: Randy Nelson, Joe Komarek, Trish McGuire, Amber Nustad, Suzanne Ward, Derek Benson, Matt McCrady, Vince Moreno, and Rhett Rasmussen.
We arrived at Circle Hills Lodge that evening and unloaded our belongings. All we really did that night was get settled in, and tentatively plan the agenda for the week ahead of us. Randy explained that there would be some homework involved; such as a daily journal, and 2 Time magazine quizzes.
The next morning, over breakfast, Randy reported that most of the resorts near us had rather bad skiing conditions because of the warm weather. Blackjack and Powderhorn were free, but Whitney and Indianhead were charging full price. We decided to go to Powderhorn.
Nothing at Powderhorn was in very good condition for real skiing. Most of the day, especially the latter half, we were just kind of sliding around in slush. It was rather disappointing.
The second day we went to Indianhead. It was really a better place to ski. Things never really got to the point where we just didn’t want to ski anymore. The temperature really got up there that day. In the afternoon, it reached somewhere between the mid-50’s and low 60’s.
Then, that night, it rained, and rained and rained. None of us were really too surprised when Randy said that we were not going skiing. So that day we went into Ironwood and learned a little cultural history.
The next day, we visited Copper Peak. Copper Peak is considered the best ski-jump in the country. There was no snow on it, but it was still pretty neat to see.
We decided to head out a day early, so on Thursday morning, we headed back. Over all, it was a good trip in spite of the lousy snow conditions.