Crested Butte Ski Trip

DSC goes to Crested Butte, CO

Undaunted, 29 of the finest Dallas Ski Club skiers said to hell with the weather, we are going skiing! Well, with a 6:40 AM flight departure from DFW airport on the morning of the 8th, many of us, with dreary eyes, made it to the departing gate on time in order to board the flight. Yes, dear reader, you can tell what is coming next - some missed the flight! It is not prudent of this writer to mention names of those 7 who had to take a later flight to Denver at this time, but they MAY appear later in this article. Anyway, 22 of us made our connection in Denver and landed at the Gunnison Airport at 10:30 a.m. Did I say it was cold in Dallas? We just thought it was as the pilot, before the door of the plane was opened said over the PA system, "folks, you will probably find this out in a few minutes when you get off the plane (in Gunnison you have to walk outside from the plane to get into the terminal) but I thought I should tell you the ACTUAL temperature at this moment is a MINUS 35 degrees!" Did that have an effect on us? No, as one of our seasoned members by name of Martin Maris left Dallas without wearing socks - said he didn't like wearing them. Well, the skin around his ankles was a brilliant shade of purple by the time he "strolled" off the plane and got into the terminal!

The missing 7 arrived in Denver a couple of hours later only to find out that all remaining flights to Gunnison that day were booked. One of them decided that since he was very big frequent flyer with United that he would "throw his weight" around a bit and got on the phone to United and demanded that they put into service a larger plane to accommodate getting them to Gunnison that day! So, sometime around 7 p.m. the missing arrived at our condos in Crested Butte - no, not by air! They each paid a rather hefty sum of money for a private van to transport them to Crested Butte. It is assumed that United did not consider Samy Botton's request for a larger plane.

First morning broke with nothing but blue skies and great groomed snow. Same for the second morning. Same for the third morning. We had picture perfect weather all three ski days. Steve Abrey's son Ryan and his fiancé, Ericca Jordan, took snow board lessons the first two days but then decided to switch to regular skies the last day - smart youngsters! The rest of us had a blast on the mountain. Except one - Sybil Collins suffered from altitude sickness and had to be administered oxygen for a couple of days. She recovered and made it home safely. We had a delightful lunch on the mountain one day - the restaurant set aside a separate area for us with white linen tablecloths! We dined like royalty! We all got together two evenings for dinner in our trip leader's condo. Mary Lou Alford, Kim Hampton, Marianne Cannon were great in helping to get the food prepared for the group. The final evening's dinner was enhanced with several telling something similar to jokes - Cheryl Acres' jokes cannot be repeated in this publication, needless to say. Guy Huntley took a lot of photos, Tom Keever, Tommy Johns, Art Whitlock, Bil Compton all seemed to be having fun! It appears they all skied together most of the time. John Carroll was heard screaming at his private instructor going up a lift that was taking him further up the mountain than he wanted to do. He got over it, but he refused to pay his instructor, George Kelly.

Others on this wonderful trip were Sam Lisook, Bob Spangler, Louise Hytken, Raelene Darling, John Collins, Charles McNatt, Jim Roche, Nicholas Fekete, David Horenecker, Larry Bax.

Oh, forgot to tell you - we only paid a total of $50 for a three-day lift ticket!

Respectfully submitted,