Man vs. Weather: Moeller's Ski Club Braves the Elements in 2019
Picture by Serge Melki
When it gets cold and snow begins to fall, most people want to stay inside and remain warm. Others want to go outside and go skiing or snowboarding. Although some of Moeller’s clubs don’t do the best job of getting the word out, Moeller’s Ski Club is a great program that not many people are involved in.
For the people who have never skied before, the club is great for building up skill. Senior John Gardner about has been skiing with Moeller, and even though he has been skiing for almost ten or eleven years so far, he would recommend the club because it helps build skill and confidence. The club goes to Perfect North every Thursday after school for a couple of hours. These hours build up quickly, so confidence in your abilities after a few days skyrockets. As I have been told from many coaches and close family members, the only way you get better is through practice and practice takes time.
The club does not require a season pass there, but it is highly recommended. A benefit of being a part of the club is that you can get discounted passed before the seasons starts. I am not going to go into depth about which pass is the best deal, but if you wish to look at the different passes, you can visit their website.
2018 Season Conditions
Speaking of the start of ski season, the weather conditions were not ideal for a perfect start to the season. Perfect North opened December 9, which is a little later than most people wanted it to be, but when they opened, they only had a little more than 50% of the park open. Over the course of the next few weeks they began to open more runs, but they were still not near 100% open. The season began to not look so hot going into the New Year. Runs were made visibly more narrow, as grass and mud were common features to the side of various slopes. Some of the runs had markers to tell people not to ski here, as there was not enough snow. Even though the snow dwindled at times, they skated by to some cold weekends to be able to blow enough snow to open the entire park.
Picture by Serge Melki
Junior Donovan Duffy has had some strong opinions about the weather effecting the ski season. Donovan said, “the worst part about this season has been the rain.” During a typical season, all the rain would turn into snow and make the year last longer. We have been fortunate enough to have had an amazing few days where Perfect North made enough snow that the rain has not killed the place. This means that the entire park is still open, and most people don’t expect that.
The best conditions of the season so far was on Thursday, January 31. Senior Ski Club member Ryan Rufo told me about the conditions. He said that there was more powder there than any other day, even from previous seasons. Comparing to the average day at Perfect North, which is ice with little powder on top, the 31st was almost strictly powder. There was so much snow that they used the same markers as earlier in the season but instead of warning people for no snow, they needed to warn us of too much snow. Although Perfect North is the best place around, the club has gone to different places to ski before.
One of the places that the club has gone to before is Seven Springs Ski Resort. Seven Springs has ten more runs than Perfect North, and twice as many lifts. Comparing Perfect North to Seven Springs there seems like a clear winner. Perfect has a 400’ vertical drop, 800’ peak, and 100 acres of land. Seven springs has 750’ vertical drop, 2,994’ peak, and 285 acres of land. If the club could go to seven springs each week they would but unfortunately it is not that close. Seven Springs is about five hours away while Perfect North is only about 40 minutes away.