Hearing the crunch of the white flakes under his boots and smelling the crisp cold air is what gets Paul Kinnear, ’06, going for the day of boarding on the mountains.

“”I love the rush I get when I board and land a jump,”” Kinnear said, “”and even though I often land on my face, boarding is just good times. I can’t go very often but I hope to go back up to the mountains in February.””

While Kinnear may not be as graceful as a bird or professional boarder, he spends occasional weekends at Badger Pass or Sierra Summit.

Snow skiing and snowboarding are two of many winter sports that students spend their weekends and sometimes risk their weekdays to drive up to snow-covered mountains and enjoy the slopes. Some students have fallen in love and become addicted to these winter sports.

“I love snowboarding,” Nick Carrera,’05, said. “Sometimes I go up on school days and go on the ‘boarder [snowboarder] park with some of my friends. I try to ‘board as much as I can.”

Although some students enjoy spending school days skiing or snowboarding in the mountains, they are also missing work in their classes. Students, who risk skiing and snowboarding during school can miss important tests or quizzes.

“I am not disappointed in them, [students who skip school to ski or snowboard],” Scott Falk, campus teacher, said. “But I am against the idea of missing school for the mountains. Kids miss so many opportunities to learn when they go to the mountains. I think they have plenty of time on weekends and holidays to snowboard and ski.”

Not only is there a risk in mental development from missing school, there is also a physical risk that anyone takes when they get on a ski run.

“I’ve hurt myself a grand total of three times,” Mikey Wills, ’06, said. “I broke both my wrists while I was snowboarding and that hurt a lot, but when I tried skiing I went off a jump and broke my tailbone.”

While skiing and snowboarding do create a rush for most, there is also a lot of patience involved in the sport.

“I love going up to the mountains,” Jessica Berg, ’07, said, “especially with my friends, but I hate waiting on the chair lifts because it takes forever to get to the top of the run and get going.”

Skiing and snowboarding is an opportunity for most students to enjoy their weekend. There are those who are addicted to this wintertime sport, but most just enjoy going up and flying down runs at high speeds.

There are those that like to take the wild side and go to the mountains on school days and those who risk physical injury, but in the end it is most often seen as an opportunity to spend time doing an alternate activity outside of Fresno.

For more information about skiing or snowboarding near Fresno, contact Sierra Summit through their web site at www.sierrasummit.com/ or contact guest services at (559) 233-2500, extension 5100.