Day 2 by Jake Hughes

I’ll be honest, I’m not a morning person but even for me this morning was a bit of a shock to the system - when I woke at 6:45, it was a frigid -6 degrees outside, however, the weather was certainly cooperative in one way…it was, quite literally, as clear as day outside and the sun was shining over the beautiful White Mountains of New Hampshire. I knew it would be a beautiful day for skiing, and it certainly didn’t disappoint.

Breakfast was accompanied by its usual formalities, an informative speech from the one and only Mr Amin with the occasional knee-slapper from Mr Smith, as expected. The pancakes and bacon provided were brilliantly filling and prepared us well for the full day of skiing ahead.

So we braved the cold, geared up, and headed to Cannon Mountain for our second day of skiing. The instructor of my group, Susan, lovingly told us we were all asleep after experiencing two falls going at a grand total of 0mph (0kmph) so she took us to Cannon observation deck, a treacherous climb up ice-ridden stairs but a view very much worth it with breathtaking 360° views across the Franconia Range. 

The rest of the morning was occupied chiefly by skiing, with the odd topple here and there. But as Susan says “it’s all part of the learning experience” which is music to one’s ears with aches on every part of your body. Lunch came and we sat down with a view over the resort, proud of our accomplishments thus far. I sat down with my pizza and cookie, reached into my coat pocket for my phone and…nothing. As I harboured my internal terror, I quickly got to work trying to locate my phone, which conveniently had been delivered (in one piece without a single scratch) to the lift by a wonderful skier to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. One thing was missing though, my AirPods. Now you may wonder, why did you bring your AirPods? To which I would respond with silence and a brief “because”. But the fact that I had brought them wasn’t the point, they had to be found. I pinpointed their location and we skied towards the area, after what seemed like an eternity, Mr Amin called off the search as I began to run through the conversation with my parents, thankfully via messages. Just as I got myself into my skis, a call of “I found them!” was heard downslope, Finn had found them! I was, of course, delighted, and tucked them safely into a zipped pocket. Safe to say I won’t bring them tomorrow. 

After that Susan took us down an old toboggan route with a 10-minute hike to return to a peak ready for skiing which saw some, rather interesting, ways of carrying skis. Susan continued with a polite “this is quite narrow, but you’ll be fine”. Long story short, it wasn’t fine. We were then sent down a black diamond run in the Mittersill ski area. An intimidating-looking but adrenaline-inducing course to ski, so much so that we demanded it be done 3 times over. We returned to Cannon for our last run, a treacherous black diamond that had the group toppling all over the run, certainly an interesting end to a wonderful day of skiing.

We returned for our dinner, Pizza, everybody’s favourite American cuisine. After dinner, we celebrated Mr Amin’s devotion to making this trip happen by gifting him a new pair of ski goggles with contributions from everybody present. All was organised by the wonderful staff present on this trip, with Mrs Hewitt having the job of chief donation collector.

Next was time for bowling, with some rather interesting strategies seen in all lanes with an illegal win from Olivia in lane 3. Oliver edged his way to a victory in lane 4 with Cameron and me barely missing out. Unfortunately, the same could not be said for Daniel and Oscar. Oliver’s victory is certainly one that we in room 6 will be forgetting about any time soon. In the background of our bowling, we could see the wheel of fortune spinning and tickets spurring, with an impressive load won by Harrison and Colin. Some may call it luck, some dedication but it’s impressive nonetheless. Even the carrying of the tickets seems to be a mean feat in itself. The boys were able to purchase at least one moam thanks to that nice collection of tickets. The bus drive home was unexpectedly eventful, with singalongs to Adele, albeit just me singing, and an attempted start of Sweet Caroline by Dante which seemed to annoy those who felt tired by the day of skiing. 

And that wraps up day 2 of the trip, it’s certainly been an eventful one for me as I’m sure it has for others. See you soon!