A weekend at Lutsen Mountains.

This winter seemed to be the winter of snowboarding for me. After my trip to Colorado and finally getting down how to turn and complete a run without falling down resulting in a body covered in bruises, I have become obsessed with snowboarding. Granted, there are always those days or those runs that just simply do not work out in your favor and make you question your decision to try this crazy sport in the first place, it’s those runs where you have surprised yourself with better transitions, tighter turns, greater speed, and of course the days with solid sun that make each and every bruise worthwhile.

Our weekend at Lutsen was two of those perfect kind of days.

We had beautiful weather the whole weekend, the temperatures were in the 50s and 60s, which is unheard of for northern Minnesota (fairly close to Canada) in the beginning of March. The sun was big and bright all weekend, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky and the winds were calm. It was perfect.



Beautiful early morning on the mountain, overlooking Lake Superior



It has become a bit of a tradition with a group of my friends to go to Buck Hill for a “Sunday Shred” on Sunday nights. Yes, it’s a little wacky to go skiing or snowboarding on a Sunday night and not even get home until 11:00 pm, and then expect to be able to fall asleep right after your “shredding high” and still be able to get up for work the next morning, but let me tell you, each and every one of those Sunday nights was worth it. So after a few of these Sunday Buck Hill trips, we decided we wanted something bigger, longer, and better. That’s really not much to ask, considering Buck Hill is a teeny-tiny ski hill literally on the side of I-35 just 30 minutes south of us, but still, we wanted more.

So after some deliberation, we decided on Lutsen Mountains up north. This was such a wonderful decision. We stayed at the AmericInn in Tofte, Minn., just seven miles south of Lutsen. And it was a great location…just came with a lot of rednecks, small town folk, a few dirty people, and a lot of snowmobilers. But we didn’t care, we just wanted to shred!

After a brutally slow week at work in anticipation for the weekend, Friday finally rolled around and we were all ready for the day to be over. We met at my house, figured out how to pack up the SUV with all of our luggage, skis, poles and snowboards, and started our 4.5 hour drive north.

If you're this old and still skiing...you would stretch too!

We were so happy to be outside and to enjoy the powdery, fluffy, NATURAL snow on Saturday. None of that fake snow we’ve been stuck with all season! Luckily, Lutsen got about 20 inches of snow the week before our trip, so we were able to enjoy that winter storm…for about 5 hours. After lunch on our first day, it became so hot outside, the snow became slushy and kind of gross. Some of the runs even were missing snow on parts of them, littered with dirt, mud, and visible rocks, sticks and boulders. But who cares, that’s why I have white snowpants isn’t it?!



Me and Paige...ready to shred!



Our first day out.



Picture requested from the frat bros - of course they had to enjoy a little whiskey on the slopes!



Derek...D-man...It's a great day for a great ski!

I can happily say, I was able to do quite a few black diamond runs during our trip! Even though I turned into a “heel hero” on the steep parts of the run and took my sweet time, I challenged myself to one solid ‘S’ turn on the steepest part of the black and succeeded! Sure, it’s not the same as a black diamond in Colorado, but maybe I’ll challenge myself to that during my CO trip next year! …Safely of course.



Taking the gondola to explore the other side of the mountain.



After a long day of shredding, there’s nothing like a hotel party…and we certainly relived our “youthful” years with some tunes, hotel deck of cards, classic college drinking games, and of course some embarrassing stories. It was so much fun to hang out and enjoy some quality time with some of my closest friends.

Beautiful day!

We only got to enjoy half a day on the slopes on Sunday, the temperature was so warm, the snow was literally turning into soup. It made for some more difficult runs, definitely slower with all of that heavy slush, but we were able to enjoy the day without our coats and cold weather gear.



Sad to drive home



Before we knew it, it was time to drive back home L I wish our trip would have lasted a couple days longer, but we all had jobs to go to…except Ryan...who flew the Florida the next morning for a week long spring break trip. Ahhh…to be jobless.