Senior Sierra Ficca hesitantly straps herself into a board as she gets ready to snowboard for the first time. However, her first trip down the mountain did not go quite as smooth as she thought it was going to be.

Ficca and 49 other students spent the weekend of Jan. 4-6 skiing and snowboarding at Seven Springs Ski Resort.

Ficca’s favorite part about the ski trip was learning how to snowboard. “It was so fun getting to try something new and end[ing] up loving it,” Ficca said.

Ficca’s first trip down the slope was not quite what she thought it was going to be. When she rented her snowboard, they gave her the wrong size and the snow board was “literally as tall as I was.”

“After struggling down the slopes once, I exchanged it for a smaller board and I had a better and easier ride down the slopes,” Ficca said.

Guidance Counselor Larry Hensley was one of the faculty moderators on the trip. “The trip as a whole was phenomenal. There was great behavior from the students and the skiing and snowboarding conditions were also great,” Hensley said.

Sophomore Matilda Butler had a good time on the trip, but was nervous at first. “I was nervous because I had always gone on ski trips with my family,” Butler said.

Almost all of the students came back without a scratch. “We had only one injury. One student, [freshman Mason Lipford], broke his collarbone,” Hensley said.

The group headed home on Sunday, Jan. 6. The Ravens game was on the radio and “the whole group got into listening to the game Sunday on the radio in the bus coming back home, cheering and yelling together,” Hensley said.

“I got to bond with some people at John Carroll who I may not have normally hung out with,” Ficca said.

Shannon Olsen is a Lifestyles Editor for the Patriot and jcpatriot.com.