Two years ago, I went on my first “TAP-NY’s Annual Ski/Snowboard Extravaganza”, and despite being rescued by ski patrol on both days of my skiing attempt, I had an amazing time: pizza’ing and tumbling my way down the mountain, soaking in the hot tub to rest my sore muscles from said pizza’ing and tumbling, learning tons of new slang from Cards Against Humanity, drinking too much beer thanks to too many games of beer pong and flip cup, eating too much bacon and eggs cooked in bacon grease for breakfast, passing out on the bus ride home. Every year since, I keep coming back.

This year, TAP-NY and TAP-Boston joined forces to bring the fun to even more fellow snow bunnies and X-gamers. Here is a quick interview with this year’s FUN-tastic planners, Jessica Chen (TAP-NY Health & Wellness Chair) and Diana Chiang (TAP-Boston Social/Cultural Co-Chair).

Q: I told you a little about my first TAP Annual Ski/Snowboard Extravaganza experience, how was your trip this year?

Jess: An absolute blast! To go from attending the trip as a member last year to heading up the entire extravaganza this time around was quite a drastic change, but I still really enjoyed my weekend. The trip went surprisingly smooth overall. I got to meet and hang out with a lot of NY and Boston members, and also got a decent number of snowboarding runs in (I was sore as heck on Monday though). It made me happy when people approached me after the trip to tell me what a great time they had or how they met new friends to not only ski/board with, but to hang out with in the city. To me, that’s what makes all the time and effort that we put in to the event worthwhile.

Diana: Amazing!! It was so fun to bond with Boston (road trip!) and I got to meet some really cool people from both Boston and New York. Personal mountain highlight was snowboarding through a mini forest (there may have been a few baby tree casualties).

Q: What is one really cool thing that happened on this trip that people should be #FOMO-ing about?

J: TAP-NY social events typically have way more guys than girls (just being real here), so I was expecting the hot tub hangout to be all dudes, but we actually had a 1:1 guy to girl ratio (10 guys and 10 girls, yes, I actually counted), which was super cool in my mind. Other equally memorable highlights include: ski trip dance party with throwback music from the late 90s/early 2000s (112’s Peaches and Cream, anyone?), witnessing everyone devour 20 boxes of pizzas and a massive amount of garlic knots on Saturday night (boy, we’re a hungry group), and watching Linsanity on the bus-ride up to Killington (shoutout to Alex Shih for bringing the DVD).

D: Too many to list! But I’m thinking the photobooth is definitely near the top of my list (thanks Andy Chang!).

Q: Was it difficult to plan such an extravaganza across chapters? What was the hardest part?

J: No, it wasn’t tough at all, especially with a great sister chapter like TAP-Boston collaborating with us. They really helped us out a lot especially when it came to transporting supplies up to the mountain since most of the NY attendees went up to Killington by bus. Diana and the entire Boston crew made the whole planning process super easy for us, and we owe much of the trip’s success to them.

D: I wish I could take more credit, but Jess did pretty much all of the work. I did the planning and organizing for Boston folks, but would have been a mess if not for Jess’ patience and support.

Q: What was your favorite part of doing this trip with a sister TAP?

J: Peace of mind. It was reassuring to know that you had another chapter that had your back and willing to help you out whenever needed.

D: Power in numbers! It was especially helpful to work with TAP NY because they planned a ski trip for their members in the past, and this was TAP Boston’s first. Plus, it’s always great to see an event gain traction and have solid attendance which cross-collaboration definitely promotes.

Q: Do you think TAP-NY/TAP-Boston should make this an annual tradition and attempt this TAP-2-TAP endeavor again?

J: Totally

D: YES!

Q: So, give us a sneak peek – what mountain would you want to hit up together next year? What is something we can look forward to?

J: I would love to check out Okemo. I’ve never been, but have heard it’s good. We actually tried to do Okemo this year but the prices were quite steep. Hopefully with earlier planning, we’ll be able to get better rates. However, you also can’t go wrong with a resort like Killington….

D: I guess it’s hard to top the “Beast of the East” huh? Future wish list includes a Colorado or Utah trip, but in the meantime I’ll keep my sights on Vermont (no spoilers yet)! #procrastination