What To Know About Fort Collins Ski/Snowboard Groups
By: Clara Scholtz
Are you carpooling or riding alone to the mountain trails? Whether you choose to go alone, or just don’t know who to go with, learn what Fort Collins resident, Aleksander Kronk has done to better improve community involvement within the winter sport in Northern Colorado.
Let me start off first by telling you why I wanted to write about the topic of skiing and snowboarding in Fort Collins in the first place. I grew up in a small suburb in Cincinnati, OH. I started skiing when I was three and snowboarding when I was eight. Who knows of mountains in Ohio? Exactly. I got to ski on some hills with artificial snow makers 45 minutes away at a small place in Indiana called Perfect North Slopes.
My school district had and still has a family ski club and everything. When I was in elementary school on Friday nights we would all meet up at Perfect North Slopes and shred/ride until our little bodies ran out of energy. It was one of the best memories I have from growing up. Now, they have a K-12 Ski/Snowboard Club that is run through the Mariemont PTO (Parent Teacher Organization) Chair. That is why my passion for snowboarding made such an important impact on where I decided to go to college. I finally had the ability to go to a place where I could ride on real snow and real mountains, in the same state, in my backyard.
Some of my closest friends, Colorado natives, have never been skiing, or just don’t do the sport in general. I was shockingly surprised at how hard it was to find ski groups in Fort Collins school districts. Maybe it’s not online and set up by parents within the schools, but either way I managed to come across a skiing and snowboarding group on a website called Meetup Fort Collins. That’s when I contacted Aleksander Kronk, the group organizer, because I was very interested in hearing what he had to say about the Fort Collins shredding interest within the Fort Collins community. Kronk and I met at a coffee shop and talked a little about his skiing/snowboarding group.
Me: So how long have you been living in Fort Collins?
Aleksander: So, I actually attended CSU. I started in 2012 and I graduated in 2017. So, I’ve actually been here, it will be 6 years.
Clara: Where did you come from?
Aleksander: I came from San Diego. Yeah, it was a pretty cool change getting the Rocky Mountains instead of the beach.
Clara: Yeah, what did you major in?
Aleksander: I double majored in biomedical sciences and decided I wanted to also do computers, so I did computer science as well.
Clara: Do you ski or snowboard?
Aleksander: I ski.
Clara: So, did you ski before coming out here?
Aleksander: Yes, I started when I was little. My parents took me. We have a little local Resort in Big Bear near San Diego. So, we would go there and I learned to ski a little bit while I was in Sweden. My mom’s actually Swedish, so that’s kind of what got that whole skiing culture in is my mom’s side. And so, I had been skiing there on and off, and I always really wanted to really ski. I think I got one opportunity; I was able to go to Mammoth once. That was really cool. But then yeah, coming out here totally changed it.
Both Aleksander and I shared the commonality of not having a vehicle freshman year at CSU. We both agree that it makes getting to the mountains difficult if you don’t know of anyone that does have a car. Thankfully I met some great friends that I able to shred with on the weekends, but that isn’t the case for everyone, even after joining clubs.
Clara: So, I was just curious as to how you heard about this Meetup Fort Collins, and then why did you start it?
Aleksander: So yeah, coming out here at CSU, and starting off with no vehicle, I actually did have a pass. I had an Epic Pass, and I got more use out of it in California than I did here because I had no way of getting up [to the mountains]. We have a club, or we had a club, I think CSU still has it and it’s better now than I think it used to be. It was extremely mismanaged and it was all about — you would Facebook message and then just kinda see what stuck but most of them were just doing like Jackson Hole trips or… And that made it very difficult ’cause that’s not what you’re looking for. You’re looking for “How do I just get to the mountains?” So not until I got a vehicle could I actually actively ski a lot like two or three years or so. And then even after the fact, I was kind of surprised by the fact that I didn’t know many people that did go out. And I find that bizarre, because at least where I’m from you would travel 8 hours to go skiing and here two-and-a-half is almost too much somehow. It’s kind of a bizarre thing. I got the idea because I think I was a little bit frustrated by the fact that we are so close and yet there is nothing already here that exists in place and the only thing we do have is through CSU. And so that was my hope was to help cultivate that here in Fort Collins and get people to actually come together instead of relying on people in Denver. But I thought it would be kind of cool to actually have something local here instead of trying to interact with a bunch of people, you know, an hour away.
Clara: So, has there been a good outreach of that? Have you gotten a good amount of people?
Aleksander: So, so far it hasn’t been that successful. I’ve gotten one successful meetup so far.
Clara: How many people were there?
Aleksander: One… *laughing but that’s good enough for me right now. I started in the fall last year. I tried doing a few things in December, that probably wasn’t the best idea because there’s the holidays coming up, and so it was a little bit difficult. Then I finally got one going here in February that worked out. And I’ve got a bunch that are planned out for March and further down the line. And I think some things that I might need to change are kind of getting people to know one another first before planning out these carpools and I’m going to try experimenting that way and trying to get people more engaged ’cause there’s definitely an interest. The whole meetup is filled to my 50 maximum.
Clara: You made this because you felt like there wasn’t anything like this [skiing group] around Fort Collins?
Aleksander: Right.
Before this interview, I looked up Fort Collins ski groups. Aleksander’s meetup group was of the first links to pop up. The summary of the group describes exactly what I was trying to find out if Fort Collins had or not. A group of people meeting in Fort Collins to carpool up and shred together instead of alone. I couldn’t find too much on Fort Collins schooling having ski groups, transportation or family deals. Even my elementary school in Ohio has a school ski club. So, as I explained to Aleksander that I wanted to find more community involvement and groups around Fort Collins, especially in the school districts because we have such a great location. I said how…
Clara: It’s just sad to me, I wish there were more.
Aleksander: Yeah, and that’s what I’m hoping: that I can get this to grow and actually start something. Because I do — I share the same feelings. I think it’s sad.
Clara: Yeah.
Aleksander: I mean I always look at the University of Southern California for this example because it’s absolutely ridiculous they have a ski team and snowboarding team and they go to Mammoth. That’s over 5 hours away and I just cannot believe that we don’t even have remotely close to that here, considering we’ve got the perfect, you know, amazing mountains, resorts that are 2 hours away, and then we’ve also got amazing backcountry right in our back door so I’m not really sure. I don’t really understand why we’re lacking, so I’m hoping that this will help.
Earlier Aleksander mentioned maybe meeting up around town with the group before actually meeting for a trip to the mountains. I brought that up again to because I thought it was a really good idea. Building a foundation or relationship with the group before carpooling with strangers, might up the attendance.
Aleksander: That’s something I was starting to think maybe it would be good to do like either pizza or since this town is so known for it, maybe a brewery sit down and talk about some of their favorite spots. Or maybe it’s already starting to come to the point where the next season might be within talks, like where do most people want to ski next year and what would be the best pass to focus on? And maybe, I don’t know, if enough people actually want to contribute and want to try and get this thing to work, start looking at how we could potentially get pass discounts and do that sort of thing.
Clara: Yeah, that’s super cool.
Clara: Well, is there anything else that you want to say?
Aleksander: It’s a pretty new group and so far, I’m kind of learning along the way, kind of figuring out how I can better get people to get involved. I’m really hoping to actually make this into a club at some point and not just have a meetup. It would be really cool to make it a club. I know we’ve got all sorts of adventure clubs. We’ve got a mountain biking club that gets involved in park trails and stuff like that. I think it would be so damn cool if we could get to the point where maybe we even help with ski patrol and stuff. I don’t know if that’s a possibility, but I would really hope that we could get there. I think that would be really something special. So yeah, hopefully it grows.
After talking with Aleksander, I truly do believe this group can reach all its potential. There is a lot of outdoors interest in Fort Collins, I think people either don’t look, or don’t know what is out there. This town is definitely involved in the summer activities. If winter sports just aren’t your thing, that is okay. But if they are, maybe check out how you can get involved through the community. Or, if you do have a group you hit up the mountains with, maybe starting a Facebook page or Meetup group like Aleksander did, growing your group and you may be surprised what more community involvement you may see.
