When winter comes around in Chicago, it can sometimes be difficult to find something to do. The range of options can get smaller and smaller as the cold keeps people inside. One student keeps himself busy by hitting the slopes.
 “Snowboarding is fun because a bunch of my friends do it, too,” Austin Wagner (12) said.           
 
Wagner and his friends enjoy going to the slopes and snowboarding in the winter to fight the cold. They usually plan a few trips and go down to Bittersweet.
            “Bittersweet is my favorite place to go. It’s close, and it’s not a far drive. We go on two trips each winter. We go in January and February, stay in a hotel and go to town hang to just hang out,” Wagner said.
            When it comes to snowboarding, however, the slopes are not just top to bottom. There are a lot of different stops along the way.
            “We go on all different types of hills. It doesn’t matter what type of difficulty. The Terrain Park is probably the hardest because of the jumps and boxes,” Wagner said.
            Wagner has been snowboarding for a numerous years and has learned new maneuvers.
            “I like doing ‘butters.’ I like going on the flat snow and you just spin around a lot of times. That’s pretty fun because you get really dizzy and you can’t see anything. I go with people that are experienced,” Wagner said.