March 7

This last week of school was "ski week" here at HMI. Talking about the week, Dan said it was "wicked awesome." Many of us bragged to our friends back home about our awesome week of skiing. It was, all at once, the most tiring, exhilarating, and busy week of our lives since arriving at HMI (and that's saying something!). We didn't have morning exercise (AMX), but instead had three full hours of skiing in the morning.

Each day, after our three hours of skiing, complete with instruction and just having fun on skis, the van ride back to campus was full of chewing, music, and exhausted conversation about how fun the past hours were. Then it was a sprint back to the West Building to elbow our way into a shower, followed by another sprint to five straight shortened classes, one after the other. It became a common theme to shout, "Ski Week!" after someone was too fatigued to understand what was going on in class, even though they were shortened by half an hour. Classes were five times harder due to the fatigue. However, none of us would have given up ski week for anything. We all had the time of our lives on the slopes at Ski Cooper, and whether we were in the never-ever group or in the advanced crew, by Friday we were all zooming down, amazed by what a cool school we go to.

It was busy though. So much to learn, so little time. Ski week had a huge impact on our classes. Every period of classes was reduced to an hour to make time to ski in the morning. We had to learn about the removal of Indians in the Midwest in less time than during an ordinary week. In Science we packed a lesson about trophic cascades into four hours of class time, two hours of which were spent participating in a lab where everyone was assigned a group such as Hunters, Wildlife Biologists, Wildlife Advocates, Ranchers, and Local Government. We were to discuss the impact of Wolves on the environment and their effects on surrounding communities such as Hunters and Ranchers. It was a very interesting debate since everyone got into his/her character and defended his/her assigned viewpoints. It was a very engaging way to learn the effect of a trophic cascade and the importance of apex predators. All of the classes are super interesting and we're all excited to catalog animal tracks on our next expedition.

This week, we also selected our cabin representatives. One student from each cabin was elected by their fellow cabin members to represent their cabin in faculty meetings on Mondays. These students will be responsible for communicating needs of the student community to the faculty and communicating the needs of the faculty to the student community. They will also be responsible for running cabin meetings in their cabins on Tuesday nights, a task that the apprentices have been handling up until this point.  The cabin representatives selected were Sam L., Charles, Nina, Erinn and Daly.  

To keep us going throughout the busy week, all of the cook crews made a variety of delicious meals. The highlight was, perhaps, Wednesday's Thanksgiving dinner. Conforming to an unwritten community idea that all of the holidays occurring while not at HMI should be celebrated over the course of the semester, the cook crew prepared a delicious Thanksgiving feast, with turkey, gravy, stuffing, greens and cranberry sauce. The next holiday will have to wait until after expedition, but it is sure to produce a mouth-watering meal as well!

Today, to cap off an incredibly busy week, we all participated in a pre-expedition ski day with our expedition groups to work out any kinks before we go. After a delicious brunch of eggs, bacon, bagels, and chocolate chip banana bread, we broke up into our expedition groups and practiced valuable skiing skills for our expedition. Groups practiced skills such as beacon checks, skiing uphill and downhill through trees, and falling down in deep snow banks. Although some people fell voluntarily, most of the time falling was unplanned and groups had fun pulling various group members out of the snow. Every group had lots of fun and various members of the different groups wish that we could be on expedition at this very moment. Now everyone is definitely looking forward to leaving for the mountains on Wednesday!

By: Nina Murray, Stephany Subdiaz, Sam Learner, and Lauren "New Girl" Makee