Slicing down the slopes with the wind rushing by your face as trees pass in a blur of color. Sounds like a good time right? Winter sports and activities are a prevalent part of life for many UW-Platteville students. Whether it’s skiing, snowboarding or snowmobiling, UW-P students enjoy winter sports and outdoors as a part of their everyday life.

The area around UW-P is bursting with opportunities for students to take advantage of. Within 40 minutes of campus, UW-P students can experience downhill skiing and snowboarding at both Chestnut Mountain Resort and Sundown Mountain.

Senior mechanical engineering major Dan Lauth, an avid snowboarder, said that he enjoys snowboarding because “it allows him to get out and be active and have a good time.”

Sundown Mountain’s season pass costs a UW-P student $275 while a single day lift ticket costs a student $37 with a $26 ski rental charge. At Chestnut Mountain the rates are $43 for a lift ticket and $28 for ski or snowboard rental with a season pass costing $425.

Another winter activity that students on campus enjoy is snowmobiling. On campus the Society of Automotive Engineers sponsor the UW-P Clean Snowmobile Team. The team which was formed in 2001 tries to work to make a cleaner, better running snowmobile for an annual competition held in Houghton, Mich. at the Keweenaw Research Center of Michigan Tech University.

The group modifies the snowmobile so that it has better emissions, is more cost effective and improves the noise and emission devices of production snowmobiles. They are judged based on a variety of categories and the group traditionally has fared well, including a ninth place finish in the 2007 competition.

Team captain Luke Korzeniewski said the club has 25 members this year and membership dues are $20 a year with $10 going to the international SAE membership fee and $10 going to local dues.

“As far as riding goes we try and get out on the weekends as much as possible,” Korzeniewski said. “There are a handful of us that have sleds down here. Right now the trails could use some more snow and have gone down quite a bit since we had the warm up in mid-January and just recently this warm up didn’t help. Other than that they are in good shape and we as snowmobilers are always going to want more snow.”

Of course some students enjoy old fashioned sledding as a means of being outside in the snow. There are several hills in the Platteville area including Miners Field on Hickory Street or the hill in the quad near Boebel Hall and the Pioneer Student Center.

“Snowboarding is a great excuse to spend time outside with your buddies and to enjoy the winter weather that we have here in Wisconsin,” Lauth said. “I have a season pass to Sundown and I go as much as I can.”

“I am a big fan of snow sports, and I would encourage anyone who is interested to get out there and try sports like skiing and snowboarding,” senior communication technologies major Gavin O’Neill said.