NEAL & JUSTIN STOKES
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Saskatoon’s ASS Club is an esteemed snowboarding group that organizes an annual trip to the B.C. mountains. What’s up in the air though, is what gets accomplished more: snowboarding or recreational drinking?
Well what can we say? ASS Club? Four days snowboarding and five nights partying in Kelowna? We’re in.

We expected a group of highly educated university students and we were not disappointed. Approximately 90 potential doctors, engineers and most importantly the future educators of our children were all present. What could go wrong?

By the way, ASS is a crude acronym that stands for Alpine Ski and Snowboard Club.

Before we get too far into the life building experiences, full and proper respect needs to be given to the ASS Club executives. They know who they are and they rule our world — honestly, without them the two of us would have been near stranded.

It’s hard enough to motivate ourselves for our daily Shakespeare and soil sciences classes but to convince someone that snowboarding at 7:30 a.m. without any sleep is a great idea — their logic is dominating.

At 10 p.m. on Dec. 27, the ASS group met at Maguires Pub to get the trip underway (great meeting venue). The details of what occurred over the next 12 hours on the bus are irrelevant. The important thing is the attitude these rad characters were bringing with them, which made sleep or rest near impossible.

We want to thank the ASS executive for introducing us to “combat juice.” Without it, we’re not sure how we could have got warmed up for 9 a.m. Combat juice was a high energy mixture: six 26 oz. bottles of rum, 24 cans of Red Bull, a dozen beers and some orange juice — we think. Throw it all in a Culligan jug and you’re set.

Most importantly, the potent combat juice sustained our comfort zone in the overly cramped bus. We’d like to commend the executive’s policy on puking — “don’t worry guys, we got the money.” Dolla’ dolla’ bill y’all. We jest — but anyone who puked had to cough up a hundred bucks.

Eventually our diligent driver delivered us to Kelowna at the renowned Same Sun Hostel. With zero casualties and weary but expectant smiles, we were free to do as we liked for the night until hitting the slopes the next day. One of us decided to call it an early responsible evening while one of us ended up catching some Zs in a licenced dancing area.

The real and sole purpose of our 14-hour bus ride met us with wide smiles early Dec. 29 — delicious and tasty runs awaited us on Big White. In case you, the innocent reader, were worried, we actually did go on the trip for reasons other than to party.

Unless you stuck to the public ski runs, there were some unreal powder lines tucked in the trees. The terrain park’s setup was pretty accessible but lacked the kind of stuff that would have put some of us in casts and crutches.

Then came the drinking Olympics. It’s just a game where a few people dress up to represent various countries in their ability to consume alcohol. That was fun — Canada won and we fucking knew it all along. It was a hard night, best experienced rather than explained. Flip cup off.

Silverstar, another popular mountain near Big White and Kelowna, was draped in fog, snowing and pretty busy when it came time to challenge the formidable hill. We were given a bit more freedom to explore but the limitations became evident.

On New Year’s Eve we wanted to take advantage of the last year of what we’ll call the decade without a proper name. So we kicked 2009 out like your 30-year-old brother who still lives with your parents.

However, New Year’s Day was by far the most challenging day. About five hours after leaving Silverstar in the late afternoon, the pain settled in while being confined again to the small setting of a Greyhound bus.

In fact, the new mobile surroundings closed in like a thesis deadline. The echoing of puking from someone who ate some spoiled sandwiches didn’t help the situation either — remnants of a past decade.

Sleep came to those who dreamt of it and before we knew it, we were back in the parking lot of Maguires.

This is the post script and these are the thanks we need to give. ASS executives — thanks once again, it was duly appreciated. Thanks to the bus drivers for allowing the antics and still delivering us alive. The Same Sun Hostel — really, you guys have some kind of sick deep love for the ASS Club. And last but not least, much thanks to the mountains, even though they’re inanimate objects.

And the rest of the crew, we hope to see you next year. If you’re interested in becoming involved with ASS look for booths set up in the Arts Tunnel throughout the winter for fun events like this.

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photo: Logan Zapshalla / Flickr