Ronan Finucane

Sky Trip

I had my only enjoyable trip to Snowshoe around a year ago. During it I was around thirteen years old and had been there before. I’ve only been to Snowshoe once or twice with my family, but we were used to how ski resorts were in Colorado and Utah. We were in a sense spoiled with giant mountains, fancy gondolas, and the sheer amount of snow. Snowshoe on the other hand is a quarter of the size compared to the ones we were us to, but this time was different for some reason. Maybe it was because I’m a better skier now or that I was with friends.

            The whole thing came out of the blue. I knew that we talked about the trip, but I never thought it would happen. I found out about it one day when I was added into a group chat with Drew, Jake, and Keller. At first I was really confused, then the next thing I knew I was packing for a day trip up to Snowshoe. The day before the trip I was really excited. I set my alarm for 5:00am and went to bed. Drew was going to pick me up at 5:45. While getting my stuff, I took a break to put on my ski jacket. It sounds weird, but the inside material is like laying on a cloud is just so soft and cozy. Then 5:45 hit the clock and Drew picked me up, and we were off. I don’t really remember the drive up. Drew was quiet most of the time on and I had some small talk with his dad, but that was about it. The sound that was really dominant was the car engine and the noise it made on the road. I would listen to the soft almost hollow sounding eco of it. There were only two things that I actually remember from the way up though: the first one was the amazing views of the mountains and the sky looking like it was melting or on fire. The second was when we were driving up to the parking lot. It started with Drew’s Dad saying “Guys look at the guy in the truck in front of us!” as he laughed “He’s drifting when he turns!”.

“Why would a guy be drifting in a truck on a Sunday morning?” I asked.

“Because TOKIO DRIFT BROOOOO!” yelled Drew. We all laughed at the fact that the guy was drifting in a pickup truck. Every time the man would drift it would make a screech almost like nails on a chalk board.

            We finally we met up with Jake and Keller. It was my first time walking on snow that winter and I forgot the oddly satisfying noise snow makes as you walked on it. It was kind of a mix of a crunch and squeak. Keller was really mad because we were late by around half an hour. While we got ready to sky/snowboard Jake said “I hope you guys realize after like two seconds sitting here Keller wanted to leave, but I made him stay.”

“Yea you guys took forever! Honostly I thought we would be able to go down the mountain before you guys would get here.” Keller mentioned over and over again. We went down an easy slope that transitioned into a harder one. We went to one of the black diamonds. It had little off trails with forest trails and jumps. The trees were all different shades of orange, red, and green. Keller wanted to get some of them on video, so we got to areas were we would jump. We tried once for the jumps every time we went down the slope. One time we were getting one and Drew was filming with his phone. Keller and I landed our jumps, but when Jake came down he fell. When he fell you could see his face look of shock and then a cloud of powder flushed up covering him. Keller started yelling at him saying “DUDE HOW DID YOU FALL OVER THERE! That was like the easiest jump.”

“I hit a bump and lost my balance, it isn’t my fault!” Jake argued back. We went to the bottom of the slope and then took a lift back up to the slope that Jake’s fail was on. Keller got a video of him doing a 180 off of a small jump at the very beginning of the slope. Then we stopped after that and talked with Drew’s dad and Jake’s dad about pictures. The picture background was of the tress covered in snow, and the slope in the back with all the sun reflecting off of the snow. We took the pictures and at this point I had to go to the bathroom, so I took one of the off trails and went to the bathroom. Little did I know that I missed the funniest thing that happened that trip. So while I was in the bathroom Keller and Jake tried getting another video of them jumping. When I meet up with them at the lift they wanted to show a video. ”Ronan while you were gone we got a video in that one jump before forest trail and look at what happened!” Drew said while dying of laughter. The video was of Keller landing a really good 180 then Jake coming in behind him really fast; Jake somehow falls over and then a bunch of powder snow flies in the air covering the camera.  After I say it Keller started saying “Honostly I convinced that Jake is just garbage at snowboarding. Jake you should just….”

“Hey Keller how bout you just stop talking. Ronan Drew if you were here yesterday I did so much better.” Jake said cutting Keller off.

“Jake you’re just mad because I’m better than you at snowboarding.” They jokingly argued for a little longer. We eventually started going down terrain parks seeing who could jump the highest and land it.

            It started getting dark and the main part of Snowshoe closed. There is a much smaller part of Snow shoe that stays open a couple hours longer than the main part does. We did pretty much the same thing along the trails as we did in the main part. Some terrain parks, tree trails, and random jumps. There was one part of a tree trail that for some reason bamboozled Jake. Before a jump at the very end of the trail a tree root stuck out of the ground and Jake’s snow board would get caught on it the first three times we went down. He eventually learned why and skied farther from it.

            The end of the trip slowly creeped up. First it got colder. We started getting numb fingers and toes. Then it got too dark to wear goggles. Even after that the only thing that made us leave was the fact the area was closing. We returned all our rental gear and headed back home.

            After a little time in the car Mr. Lucktong, Drew’s dad, said “Drew there’s nothing good on the radio. Pull up some jams on Spotify.”

            “Oh Drew I have this one song that’s been stuck in my head the whole day!” Keller said ecstatically. The rest of the trip we listened to a whole variety of songs. After every song ended a different person would chose a song, or at least most of the time. One time Keller kept choosing songs that he wanted and Jake got mad. Jake wasn’t having it and started yelling “Keller you’ve had the aux for like the 10 songs now, give it to someone else”

“Jake I’ve only played like 3 songs. Just let me play one more and I’ll give it to you.”

“Dude your music is garbo anyways so just give it to me now.”

“Jake we listen to the same stuff what are you talking about?”

“Bro calm down. I was kidding, just play the song and give me the aux.” About halfway back we stopped and got Bojangles. They were about to close and they said we could have as many biscuits as we want, so we took a dozen and went back on the road. After we got back to the car the aroma of the chicken enveloped the car. It smelled like the restaurant and I couldn’t wait to eat. I mentioned how it was my first time having Bojangles. Drew said that they are probably his favorite chicken place other than Chick-fil-a. Keller mentioned that since I got the same thing as him I should like it a lot. We ate the food and I talked about how it was really good. Everything was good. The chicken was really juice and had a nice seasoning on it. The biscuit was really soft and buttery, and Mac n cheese was cheesy and delicious. I rambled, “The chicken wasn’t as crunchy as I thought it would be, but putting it in the biscuit was probably my best diction. The Mac n cheese was the best though even though it was a small cup and the cheese was a little artificial.”

“Dude Mac n cheese is the bomb.com it’s so good.” Keller said. Then we all went in a circle telling jokes. Most of the jokes for Drew and I were Asian jokes, but we were all joking. When we got back to Roanoke and I was dropped off first.

            The biggest thing I learned from this trip was that no matter how different or weird something is it can still be fun. I went into Snow shoe with the impression from my preference trips and thought it wouldn’t be fun. I quickly learned how wrong I was. Bad experiences can change just by being with people you like or learning how to be better at them. They can also become good one just by going with friends. I also learned how much I rely on my friends for entertainment. If I went on that trip by myself I would’ve left after an hour at most. However, I didn’t go alone, I was surrounded by friends whom I love and I had the time of my life.