It is a Friday night in mid January, and you can feel yourself gaining speed as you slide down the double black diamond run at Mt. Holly. You are strapped into your snowboard, carving heels and toes before seeing your best friend crash 20ft ahead of you. You begin laughing, until you realize you are almost too close to them to stop and quickly fall right next to them. Your laughter soon joins together as you lay back on the fresh powdered snow, feeling the chill from the ground through your coat, and looking up at the lights illuminating the hills as the sun drops below the horizon. The rest of your friends race by, slightly slowing down to make sure you’re okay but more to laugh alongside you. You are here because you decided to join the Ski Club along with many other students from Berkley!
Ski Club is open to both Berkley middle school and high school students, operating during the Ski season, typically late December to late February on Friday evenings. As Mt. Holly is about a 45 minute drive from the high school, many members take the bus that leaves directly from BHS. Still, a significant number of older students with licenses opt to drive themselves. This year, the club has over 300 members. For all who participate, Ski Club is a fun experience and quickly becomes a highlight in the winter season.
To get a closer look at what a typical Friday evening looks like for Ski Club members, I spoke with Freshman Lucas Eyler, Junior Vega Nischan, and Senior Gretchen Stief. All three participated in Ski Club during middle school as well during their years so far at Berkley High.
Freshman Lucas Eyler began Ski Club in 7th grade, and enjoyed his years of it in middle school, so he decided to continue into freshman year. He snowboards at Ski Club, but has also snowboarded multiple times outside of it, including local hills like Pine Knob and Alpine Valley. He explains how Ski Club offers a different experience than regular ski trips, saying, “It’s more fun to go with friends from school, and just be able to have a good time with them.” Eyler has taken the bus every year and finds it is very convenient. “We bring in our boards and other stuff in the morning, and after school everybody throws them in the storage areas underneath the bus,” he says. The bus leaves relatively quickly after school, stays at Mt. Holly for the evening, and then leaves to bring the students back to Berkley around 8:45 pm. Eyler also noted that it gives them a decent amount of time to be there, but he still wishes it could be longer.
Stief, on the other hand, does not take the bus to Ski Club anymore. She used to in middle school, and a bit of high school, but now drives there with her friends every Friday. “It is easier to just carpool and drive ourselves for a lot of reasons,” she claims. “First, of course, it saves us a lot of money.” Students who drive themselves are able to skip the bus fee, which this year came to about $180 for the season. “We still have to pay the $30 membership fee, and of course for the lift tickets each time, but it’s nice not having to pay for the bus.” Besides the pricing, Stief enjoys the flexibility for her and her friends to be able to arrive and leave on their own timing. “It is nice not having to have everything ready for the bus, like we can stop and get food on the way if we want.” Also, she noted how “[they] also get to stay later than the people taking the bus, and [they] usually do until close around 10pm.” The lines get shorter as the various school buses leave, and it gives them at least an extra hour on the slopes. Still, she acknowledges that, especially in the unpredictable winter weather, the 45 minute drive each way as highschoolers can be tiring, especially after spending hours in the cold.
Junior Vega Nischan has been doing Ski Club for five years now, having joined in 7th grade. She explains that “Ski Club is a fun way to unwind with friends on a Friday night, having fun and not really worrying about anything else.” Like Eyler and Stief, she snowboards, but actually started off skiing. She switched after a few years because she “just liked how snowboarding felt.” So, once she got her own board, she stayed with snowboarding. With that, she explained how it is really nice to have your own equipment if you plan to go a lot, because rental costs can add up quickly.
More on the pricing, one of the major benefits of Ski Club is its affordability. Nischan explains that “When you go out of school, it can get really expensive, but I like how the pricing for Ski Club is discounted and is still essentially the same pass.” For example, a Friday-Sunday evening lift ticket, from 2-10pm, tallies up to $59 dollars for the if you’re not with Ski Club. If you want to rent, it is an additional $45 for the skis/snowboard, and another $16 for a helmet, tallying up to $120 just for the day–before (overpriced) food or drinks.
In contrast, Ski Club members pay $30, instead of the $59 for a lift ticket. Rentals are also very discounted, at $35. Though it is $30 for the membership fee, it quickly pays for itself if you go more than once. So, while skiing or snowboarding can be expensive, joining Ski Club can provide significant savings of over $55 each week.
Besides its financial benefits, as the members explain, Ski Club is a convenient and fun way to enjoy time with friends while doing an activity you love. Nischan shares how one of her favorite parts is not even the snowboarding itself, but simply “going up the lift with friends, talking, debriefing about anything, with the scenery surrounding you.” From experience, simply going up the hill on the ski lift feels very surreal in itself; you’re out of earshot of everyone, and it’s very peaceful. Whether you’re an experienced skier or snowboarder or just learning, Ski Club is a welcoming, low pressure environment where the goal is just to have fun, whether that is race your friends down the hill, doing tricks at the terrain park, spending time in the lodge or just learning how to get down the hill.
Overall, Ski Club has become a beloved winter tradition for many Berkley students, from middle school through high school. It offers an affordable, fun, and flexible way to go snowboarding or skiing with friends. There is no commitment to go every Friday, so you can join at any time in the season. If you’re interested, reach out to office staff or current members to sign up and be a part of it!
