With the lack of snow locally, this hasn’t been a ski and snowboard season to remember in central Pennsylvania. However, many members of the Tyrone Ski/Snowboad Club still got their powder fix on a President’s Day weekend trip to Whiteface Mountain near Lake Placid, New York.

Unlike Blue Knob, Whiteface Mountain is having an exceptional year for snowfall.  The ski club enjoyed good snow and great weather for the trip.

“The conditions were excellent. The best I’ve ever snowboarded on,” said senior AJ Grassi.

This area was home to the 1932 & 1980 Winter Olympics and is best remembered for the “Miracle on Ice” when the USA Hockey team upset the heavily favored USSR team in 1980. The mountain was also part of a post World War II U.S. Army mountain division.

Whiteface Mountain has an elevation of 4,865 feet and is the fifth highest mountain in the state of New York. The mountain has eighty eight trails and three hundred and fourteen acres of skiing area. The longest trail is over two miles,so there was plenty to do.

“The best part of the trip was the fact that were so many different trails to ski,” said Ski Club junior Taylor Stevens.

The students also got to visit the Olympic Village that was once home to the athletes. At the village there are shops to visit and Olympic Memorabilia to see. Including the Olympic Hockey rink and the Speed Skating Oval. At these shops students could purchase things from Olympic team gear to a Stetson Hat.

“I would do it again next year,” said senior Cassie Friday.

For the past several years the trip has been to Smuggler’s Notch in Vermont. But Lake Placid was chosen to be different from previous trips and to let the students ski on something that Olympians once did.

Ski Club adviser Dan Plummer liked this trip better than the Smugglers Notch trip.  “Conditions were perfect and the mountain was better,” said Plummer.

The thirty one students got to ski two and a half days and even with a eight hour bus ride it left everyone wanting more. The students paid $375 and the only complaint they had was having to go home.