Every Day’s A Snow Day at Ski & Snowboard Adventure
Let’s be honest, we all love summertime, and nothing is better than summertime up at Camp Chi with hanging on the Noar deck, practicing volleyball with the SIT’s, enjoying Friday shuks and song sessions. I mean I wait all year long for those magical eight weeks to start. However, I have to confess that wintertime is a pretty special time at Chi too! Not only is it incredibly beautiful to see the powdery white snow cover the trees and cabin tops, but it’s fantastically quiet and peaceful. That is until the campers arrive for my second favorite time of year at Camp Chi—Ski and Snowboard Adventure.
Where else can you start off the day with a ski or snowboard lesson (if you need one,) and take to the slopes? I have seen campers go from unable to put on a pair of skis at the beginning of day one and then race past me on a black diamond by the end of the day. Campers ski with a staff member to make sure that they are ready before moving on to the next slope, but everyone cheers on each other’s impressive gains and can’t wait to see how much more we all improve.
After a long day of skiing, there is nothing better than relaxing with friends. Some nights during winter camp we go out for pizza, whereas other days we will just make hot chocolate and relax by a fire. My favorite night of the trip is usually after a few hours to relax and rest up, when we head back up to the ski hill for some snow tubing. And then there’s Shabbat, where we take a break to be with our new friends, holding our own version of Shabbat where we reflect and share about what we are enjoying most so far and looking forward to most over the next few days. We always hear so many amazing answers including peoples first times down the hills, funny stories that happened on the tubing hill, and happiness about the bonds that they have made together!
Although we all love skiing and snowboarding, it is not easy to ski all day throughout the entire trip. Because of this, we do a ton of fun field trips to balance the time. Last year we went to Knuckleheads, an indoor amusement park, and tried many things including the go- carts, high ropes course, roller coaster, and 3D video ride! We also went to two different indoor water parks, one at Chula Vista and one at the Kalahari Resort. One afternoon, when everyone was particularly tired, we took a break and just went to a movie theater. Everyone appreciated the time to relax and rest up. Last year, by far my favorite field trip is when we took the entire group to the local curling arena to try out our luck with this new sport. Although none of us had ever tried curling before arriving, when we left the owner of the rink asked if any of us were local because they could have used us for their next curling tournament!
Yep, we will be doing some of my favorite activities again this year by popular demand and a few new surprises. My sister Rachel will be there as well A.J. Teplinsky. And maybe this will be the year I will finally try snowboarding with a few courageous campers by my side helping me navigate the bunny hill! Or maybe I’m better off sticking to tubing!
Kyle Kolling is the Camp Chi Program Coordinator. Kyle, a SIT of 2009, has spent 19 summers at Camp Chi, and 10 years as a staff member. Kyle joined the full-time team in 2016 and is responsible for all teen programming, including Noar, the SIT program and Breakaway.