As the dirty snow banks in Williamstown continued to melt last weekend, the MidWest contingent of the team slogged through 6 inches of fresh new powder for a truly Minnesotan spring break adventure.
Thursday morning, Maddy Wendt ’11 made the trek up North from the suburbs to Grand Rapids, MN, home of Mark Johnson ’11 and family. Over the next three days, the pair proceeded to fulfill several North Woods stereotypes: maple sugaring, beer brewing, elongating vowels, pronouncing the word bag bayg, and skiing across frozen lakes and over trails covered with the tracks of deer and wolves.
Mark starts the ascent at Sugar Hills in Grand Rapids, Maddy and Mark's biathlon coach Vladimir in the background
Not actually the Johnsons' sugarbush, but not too far off.
Saturday morning, Mark and Maddy headed back down to the Wendt homestead in Marine on St. Croix, where they managed to get in a great workout double poling with skate equipment on an ungroomed, crusty, and very uneven state park trail. The evening concluded with what was possibly the best homemade pesto pizza ever. Sunday included a walk to downtown Marine, the weekend’s second batch of Chocolate Cream Cheese Cupcakes (ask Mark for the ridiculously delicious recipe), and a trip to the airport because Mark had to return to his thesis back at Williams.