Nisei Ski Club

In January, seven NSC adventurers set off for Crested Butte, joining nearly 150 skiers from every corner of the country for the Far West Ski Association’s annual ski week.

Crested Butte itself feels like it was plucked straight from a storybook — a tiny, gingerbread‑trimmed town tucked outside Gunnison, Colorado, where every storefront looks dusted with powdered sugar and the mountains rise like hand‑painted backdrops. Colorado never skimps on scenery, but Crested Butte has a charm all its own.

The cold was the kind that makes your breath sparkle — minus four degrees — yet somehow it didn’t bite the way you’d expect. A few of us kept warm the old‑fashioned way: skiing fast enough that the wind couldn’t catch us. With the low snowpack closing the double blacks runs, we carved long, easy arcs down the blues, cruising nearly 20,000 vertical feet a day.

At the welcome reception, the NSC crew gathered — Dan Lew, Kathy Fang, Carol Henri, Elaine Graves, Judy Bracken, and Sandy Kiyomura — with Jim Stewart somewhere just out of frame. Along the way we picked up a new friend, Sandra Mirones from LA, who slipped seamlessly into our group and spent the week skiing with us. There’s a great shot of her and Dan under a towering Christmas tree, glowing like ornaments themselves.