Matthew Boubel
Staff Reporter

The ski trip sponsored by CHOICES and the Residence Hall Association was named by senior Jack Lynch as “Ski Fling 2010.”

The Fling took place on February 7th in Sioux Falls, S.D. at the Great Bear Ski Resort. Two buses driven by John Guetter and Fred Seel transported the 21 Briar Cliff University skiers, snow boarders and tubers that made the trip, many of them being first timers. It was a great opportunity for those who have never been to something like this before, to get out and try something new.

When the group arrived around 3:30 p.m, snow was falling and the resort was filled with people. You could see the eagerness in the participants as they waited to get skis, snowboards and tubes. With many of the residents trying out skiing and snowboarding for the first time, they may not have had that look of eagerness rather than a look of worry. After everyone purchased their lift tickets and rentals, they headed to get fitted for skis and snowboards.

Once everyone was suited up and ready to go, it was off to the lift. This is where the first fall of the day took place.

“As I was on my way up the lift, it stopped for some reason” said Lynch. “When I looked back to see what happened, I saw that one of our guys was laying on the floor rather than on the lift.”

Sponsor Fred Seel started off trying to snowboard for the first time along with many of the other participants, but was quickly back on the skis after coming to the conclusion that you should simply, “stick to what you know.”

At this point, the entire group managed to successfully make it to top, without having the stop the lift. When everyone reached the top, they would get with their partners and friends and all go down different sections of the resort together. There were multiple different difficulty levels, and most people were able to try them all. Sophomore Katie Hunt even managed to find a secret drop off and hit it going full speed. Although not successful the first time, she went for it one more time and again hit the deck.

Towards the end of the trip, many of the residents did not want to leave. For this reason John Guetter volunteered to stay an extra hour and a half past schedule to allow those people to continue to get better and enjoy themselves.
Going on the trip was a good experience for many of the participants, many of which wanted to plan another one.

Sophomore Hopeton Hess said, “This is sweet. It would even be a really good team bonding thing for the soccer team to do at the beginning of the season to get know each other.”

Getting to know each other is something that many of the participants did. Other than a few sore backsides and a bruise here or there, there were no major injuries.
“The trip went really well,” said Guetter. “The weather wasn’t perfect but everybody seemed to have a great time.”