Rachel Gray, our Executive Director, loves to ski. Read part three of this skiing series below.

In our Rapid Roots community onboarding program, I teach a session on how to find friends as an adult. One of the tenets of the lecture is identifying your hobbies, finding groups related to that hobby, and attending group events regularly. Being vulnerable and doing the emotional labor of making the plans is also important. This fall, I’ve been taking my own advice and trying to cultivate “ski buddies.” 

Caption: My very first ski buddy. I have very early memories of going around the yard at Christmas time in her skis and going “weeeeee” down the slightest decline. Even then, I wanted to be a downhill skier.  

When my mom skied in high school (link to #1), she skied down the hill with her sister, but called “single” for the chair lift. This was purely to meet boys. When I went skiing solo last January (link to #2), it was an interesting experience on the ski lift. The run I was going down had a 4-seater chair lift at the bottom, so I was usually riding up with 2 or 3 strangers. The teenage girls giggled and gossiped. The teenage boys sat there awkwardly in silence. The people my age or older made polite conversation or gave encouragement for my beginner status. One guy even told me he was considering relocation to northern Michigan from Chicago. He got an earful and walked away with connections to our partners at Michigan Creative Coast and Choose the North.  

But I knew if I was going to make skiing a hobby I looked forward to, I would need some friends to go with. My plan: bring up the topic of skiing any chance I got. The more people that know I have skis, the more chance I have of finding a fellow skier! And you can bet that the 2 acquaintances that I already knew skied got this selfie with the caption “look what I bought!” Asking these acquaintances where they like to ski has also garnered me an invite to tag along to Cannonsburg and Caberfae, both within day-trip distance of Grand Rapids.  

This is also the time of the year when In the fall, a lot of ski hills run pre-sales and discounts for their lift passes. I took time to do research about each of the ski areas in West Michigan, how far the drive was, how much weekday versus weekend passes were, punch card options, and season pass options. Since I want to try multiple hills, and because the potential ski buddies I’ve met go to different hills, I’ve decided not to invest in a pass this year. I don’t want to lock myself into one hill.  

My husband and I also like to travel, so this year’s winter travel plans involve going north, instead of south. In fact, I specifically got married in February so I’d always have an excuse to go somewhere warm on our wedding anniversary. Not this year. This year, we’re booked at Boyne Highlands in northern Michigan for our anniversary. Although he doesn’t ski or snowboard, many of the ski resorts have multiple activities, such as snow tubing, water parks, fat tire biking, or snowshoeing.  

I’m also working on plans for the second annual cousins weekend up north in January. But this year, I’ll have 2 sets of skis in the car, not just 1.