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Just Got Back from Kellogg Ski Trip 2011

It costs a fair amount of time and money to go on Kellogg’s annual Ski Trip.  But for nearly 800 Kellogg student every single year, it’s worth it. You get to have a blast with your fellow classmates right after final exams.  You get to hit the slopes on some of the coolest mountains in the United States. And you get to enjoy a number of fun activities every night with some of your best friends in business school. That’s what we did on Kellogg’s 2011 Ski Trip this past week.

As a bit of background information about the Kellogg Ski Trip: The Kellogg Ski Trip is the nation’s largest university group ski and snowboard trip across all business schools. Each year, 750 to 800 Kellogg students and significant others travel to a different ski resort, where we take over the town and create our own personal Kellogg ski community. And it’s one of the best events in all of Kellogg.

To determine who gets to go, you sign up sometime midway through the first quarter, in Mid October. The lodging signups were handled by an online website and are first come first serve. That means you have to know you want to go and sign up early before the trip sells out, which happens every year.  This year’s trip finished up in 20 minutes. And last year’s trip had so many people logging on during the first minute that the system got overloaded.

This year’s trip was in Telluride, CO. Another nice location after being in Aspen last year and in Vail the year before that. And what an incredible experience we had! Along with about 775 of my closest friends from the class of 2012 and 2013, we enjoyed a week long vacation on some of the best slopes in Colorado.

We traveled together from Evanston to Durango (or Grand Junction) and then drove to Telluride.  We formed groups between 5 and 10 and stayed in condos on the mountain with amazing views.  We hit the slopes nearly every day (I went out every single day). And in the evenings we commemorated the day of Skiing with Après Ski and then with nighttime festivities after that.  The trip as an absolute blast, which is why I went on the big ski trip both years at Kellogg.

But don’t worry, if skiing isn’t exactly your thing, there are still lots of activities for you to take part in. There are nightly theme events including the legendary 80’s party. We have daily après ski events, which were my personal favorite part of the trip. And there were daytime activities such as spa treatments, snowshoeing, food pairings, snow shoeing, and more for those people that didn’t want to spend the week skiing. And in addition to all of that, you can also just explore the city, hang out with friends at the base of the mountain, relax in your condo, or do whatever you want to do during the day. And you definitely won’t be alone.

And no matter which sets of activities people took part in, we all ended with a great comedy show and a night of dinner (and drinks for some) downtown Telluride on the last night. We rode two sets of Gondolas to get there and got to see what it’d be like to actually be a local. In fact, my group even rode down with two locals.

But unfortunately, all good things must come to an end. And just two days ago everyone headed out out. Some traveled back to Evanston on the group ticket and others took flights straight home, rather than stopping back in Chicago. But no matter which route you took, most people agree that this was definitely worthwhile. Not only because they got a chance to have as much fun as ever before but also because they got to do it with some of their best friends at Kellogg and with some of they new friends they met on the slopes.  I look forward to more times like this over the next few months in business school.