The Total Experience at Total Mountain Experience

Monday, Wednesday and Friday we arrived to the mountain at 9:00 am. We skied/snowboarded from 9:00 am to 11:30 am. At 12:00 noon we came in for lunch and then from 1-3 we worked with the Wachusett work members. The jobs were all different. We did a different job every day. Some jobs consisted of working in the park where you fixed jumps and racked the snow, working in the cafeteria serving food, working in tech fixing snowboards and skis, working in the store, working at rentals, standing at the lifts checking tickets, and ride in the snow cat and groomed the mountain. It was a great experience for us because we got to experience working by doing many different jobs and learning about how a mountain is run. On Tuesday and Thursday we stayed at the mountain until 8:00 pm and went night skiing. We arrived to the mountain at 12:30 and then worked from 1-3 the same as Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Total Mountain experience was a great winterim because we got to experience two things: Working and Skiing/Snowboarding. Many of the students skied/snowboarded before and some have not. The ones who skied/snowboarded before improved by landing difficult tricks off the jumps and some who never skied/snowboarded before improved by going down the black diamonds. Many people worked before but never experienced working at a mountain so this was a great experience for us.

Student Post From Yellowstone

Submitted by Meredith on Saturday: We started off the day by delivering our handmade batch of brownies to our courageous leader MacNeil. Then we drove our lovely white bus to the Roosevelt Lodge. There we started our two and half mile hike up to Tower Falls. We hiked the snow-covered road and made sure not to step in the cross-country skiers trail. On our way up we encountered three bison, the most dangerous animal in Yellowstone. After being escorted past the bison by our extraordinarily daring and wise guide MacNeil, we came across fresh wolf tracks. The tracks continued up the path towards the waterfall. Then we arrived at the viewing terrace to see the waterfall. The waterfall had an aqua blue shield of ice with flowing water visible underneath. After gazing upon that we quickly made our journey back to the bus. Next we met with Janine Waller at the Yellowstone Association Institute. We had a discussion with her about global climate change and its effects on the ecosystem. Then we took pictures with MacNeil in front of the Roosevelt Arch, before we parted ways. Our last day at Yellowstone concluded with dinner and packing for Big Sky!

Here is a slide show of the pictures the students took.

Student Post From Yellowstone

Submitted by Barrett on Thursday: The epic day began with our grinning, fearless leader MacNeill Lyons, as we took a ride on the magic school bus around the park, we spotted the carcass of a bison that has been dead for about two years. As the day progressed we met with wolf expert, Rick.

Today, we hiked up a mountain above the Lamar Valley and found dead animal carcasses of elk, which was recently pushed off a cliff by wolves. We also learned how to protect ourselves from a curious/angry bear. As we walked down the mountain, we watched from afar a pack of wolves picking apart a dead elk. Our amazing day ended making lasagna for dinner as a group, baking MacNeill a birthday cake, and looking forward to seeing him and Rick on our final day at yellowstone.