Micaela Klassen
Antelope Staff

Over winter break, the UNK Outdoor Adventure Club went to Snowy Range Mountain in Centennial, Wyoming.
 
The adventure was timeless for wildlife biology senior Michael Buck who captured memories of the winter break adventure on video and still camera.

 “One of my favorite things was to take pictures and videos of everyone and have them take some of me. Photos and videos are the few things that don’t change when everything else does so, I think capturing the moment is fairly important,” Buck said.

Jacob McCann had never done any of those activities before coming to UNK, but during his undergraduate years, he grabbed the opportunity through the Outdoor Adventure Club. He is now head of the Outdoor Adventure trips and in charge of the climbing wall inside the Rec. He will lead the spring trip.

In the past, the Outdoor Adventure crew has done its best to expose students to outdoor elements in states such as Arkansas, Colorado and Wyoming. They have offered many activities, including camping, hiking, skiing, climbing and white water rafting. For this winter trip, they decided that the Snowy Range is adaptable to all levels of levels of skiers.

Typically, the Outdoor crew will rent a vehicle from Enterprise or UNL. However, this group only consisted of four students, so they made the six-hour car ride to Snowy Range together and didn’t rent a van or car.

The first day for the group was about getting to know the mountain and hotel and relaxing during their free time.

The ski group consisted of four people: director of the climbing wall and Outdoor Adventure Club, Jacob McCann; business administration senior, Jaime McCann; graduate assistant of Campus Recreation, Jake Barrett; and wildlife biology senior, Michael Buck.
Buck and Barrett went on harder runs and the McCanns stuck to the easier runs.

Jacob said, “Jaime, my sister, started out skiing and was terrible at it. She just kept falling all the time. On the second day she switched to snowboarding and actually had a better time; so, that was cool.”

Jaime said, “I was absolutely horrible at skiing, so on day two I decided to try out snowboarding. Jacob (McCann) helped teach me how to board, and I was pleasantly surprised at how much better I was at it than skiing. I was thankful that he took the time to help me; otherwise, I probably would have spent the whole day at the lodge.”

On the second day, the crew ran into a little bit of weather. There was excessive wind and the mountain only had one lift open; however, the group of four found another part of the mountain that they were able to ski and snowboard.

The days were for exploring the mountain and the evenings were for relaxing. The group would hang out in their rooms until dinner. Dinner was a group decision, and the evening was filled with movies and the card game pitch.

Buck said, “I had a very good time, Jake M. did a great job planning out what needed to be planned out and then allowing us to make group decisions on some of the less more important things.”