The theme for the week was “Denim and Diamonds”. Although most of the diamonds were fake, the denim was real! Thanks to everyone for the great participation and creativity with Denim and Diamond-wear! From challenging skiing, to easy cruising, to fun parties made Beaver Creek a typical great Chicago Week. The weather could have not been better with temperatures around thirty. Not too hot, not too cold…JUST RIGHT . . . and, BLUE skies for 5 days with a blizzard in the middle of the week!

16 clubs with 192 participants joined the fun in Beaver Creek for Chicago Week this year! ~ 60 participants enjoyed the Borders lodge, where the Elkhorn lift was right out their back door! All other participants enjoyed the luxury of The Charter, where we hosted the Sunday Welcome Reception as well as the informal Meet n Greet.

Although both resorts included complimentary shuttle service to the base, many of our skiers were adventurous and learned how to get back and forth either on the ski-ways or simply walking through the village.

Sunday started our great skiing week - many joined up for a fast-moving tour of the mountain. What a view! The day ended with a welcome party at the Terrace Room in The Charter. While Vicki and Sue donned their lovely diamond(ish) tiaras, the CMSC Vicki and RayBoard members were presented with truly stunning and somewhat authentic (not), but equally stunning beaver hats. We also had a raffle for our participants who also enjoyed making a selection from among various prizes.

Monday was a jam packed activity day. First was the Epic Mix race - a long race course that took a number of us by surprise. We thought we were wrapping up, only to find out that there were 10 more gates to go! Yikes! We had a great turn-out at the race with over 80 racers! While every racer won a medal, we had a variety of other categories such as "fastest” male & female by age category, and closest to match their own time! The race was followed by lunch at Powder 8. Each participant was given a voucher for $30 for lunch. The voucher could only be used one time, so the entire $30 purchase needed to be made by each person on Monday at lunch. While we asked our skiers how close they got to the $30 lunch purchase, we learned that the closest was a member of Skunk Hollow with a $29.97 purchase! Club photos were taken by the Beaver Creek photographers after lunch.

The last activity for Monday was the pub crawl - it began at 7:30 with a great turnout! 102 participants joined the raffles and fun at Coyote Café, our first bar; another raffle at the CBar, yet another raffle at Metropolitan, and ~80 CMSC-ers made it to the Dusty Boot, the last bar – way to hang in there!

Tuesday was our Vail Day. It started snowing on Monday night and kept on snowing through Tuesday! We had 4 busses planned for our Vail Day, but we only used 3. Many of our skiers chose to stay in Beaver Creek because they had 3 more inches of snow than Vail! The fresh powder was awesome for those who braved the snowy conditions that day.

While Wednesday was a "day off" for many, others travelled back over to Vail or stayed in Beaver Creek to ski the powder on one of our beautiful bluebird days.

Thursday was another great day of skiing followed by the dinner Banquet at the Gerald R Ford Hall that could not be beat! Lots of creativity with Denim and Diamonds wear and our sparkling decor made it a fabulous Farewell Banquetsetting. Mouth watering steak dinners were enjoyed by everyone. Dancing took place late into the night with a great band! We had quite a bit of activity Thursday night with participants looking for lift tickets so that they could enjoy a 6th day of skiing on Friday!

Friday continued with great weather for skiing with an Après Ski at the Dusty Boot. Skiers finished their days tired, yet rebounded for parties in the evening to survive another great Chicago Week.

Until next year, everyone, where we will gather together in Steamboat Springs!

Vicki Schutz, Trip Leader