A classroom on the slopes

Matt Unrau

The two school buses rolled into Lookout Pass Ski Resort around 9:30 a.m. on Thursday. The two school buses held two grades of Plains Elementary students that would need 85 pairs of skis and 170 individual ski boots.

The 85 adults and students would first jam onto one bunny hill where they would get 60 minutes of lessons from 15 different ski instructors.

Then the group would get another six hours to ride down three different slopes in two states for a field trip that many of them will not soon forget.

“If I would rank this on a scale of 1 to 10, I would definitely rate this a 9. A 10 is the best field trip ever. I never want to leave this place,” says Sixth Grader Justin Longmore.

It was the second time skiing for Justin, and he started out the day on the bunny hill with the rest of the students taking lessons, but as he finally got the chance to go down the actual mountain he admitted that the field trip was now a ten.

The change of heart is common for the students as most of them have never been skiing before and expressed a high amount of trepidation as they jerkily walked over to the bunny hill in their ski boots.

For many of them, it was the fear of falling that they had to overcome, which was helped from the instructors who taught them how to fall down first and then get up before they even learned how to ski.

The next part of the lesson involved controlling your speed. One student in particular knew the importance of controlling your speed. As he raced down the bunny hill straight as an arrow he yelled to everyone who would listen, “watch out, I’m not that skilled!”

When skiing, slowing down is all about the pizza slice, where you bring the front tips of your skis together and force the back of the skis apart forming a triangle. The bigger the slice the slower you go. However it’s important not to get that big of slice otherwise you will be constantly doing the splits like a fifth grade boy unfortunately learned the hard way.

Not all the students were new to slicing through the powder. Sixth Grader, Doug Damschen ,has been skiing since he was 11 and he was helping many of his fellow classmates conquer their fear and give them pointers.

“If they fall I can get them back up and I can help them get their skis on,” says Douglas. After falling he says it doesn’t take that much convincing for the students to want to hit the trail again.

“I tell them they don’t have to do it, but most of the time they want to go on it again,” says Douglas. “People start to like it more when they are better at it.”

Of course it’s not all about the lure of fresh powder for the teachers to go to all of the trouble to bringing their students 120 miles out of the classroom to the top of a mountain. Fifth grade teacher Mrs. Rehbein says the trip offers a unique learning experience.

“The best thing is that they get to be outside and enjoy the area that they live in, but they also get to connect with each other and the school staff in a different setting in a different way,” says Rehbein.

As for the skill level of the teachers, it varies as much as the students with some of them going straight to the chairlift and some nervously edging towards the bunny hill. But any potential embarrassing wipeout in front of your students is also a good thing according to Rehbein.

“When they watch you wipe out it makes you human,” says Rehbein. “When your teacher biffs it, I don’t know how to describe it it’s a relationship building experience.”

Afterwards, Mrs. Rehbein admits that she did wipe out twice during the day, but no students were around to see it. It was only some other adults to witnessed the falls and had to help her collect her skis that had been strewn out onto the mountain.

“I don’t think I made too much of a display there,” said Mrs. Rehbein.