For the past three years students in the Honor Program have made the trek to Denali National Park during its winter celebration. Winterfest offers opportunities for all ages and physical abilities -- although the activities vary by year and condition, they normally include snow-shoeing, sled dog rides, ice and snow carving, and a chili feed. Honor Students have enjoyed a blizzard, -50F, sun, broken vehicles, icy roads, spilt coffee, and many other adventures. Each year, students stay at the Denali Education Center's Sheldon Center, Friday and Saturday night, and spend all day Saturday in the Park.

During the 2008 Honors trip to the Denali Winter Festival, most of the group had decided to climb a mountain, or go on a guided snowshoe hike. However, a few--Molly Dischner, Gavin Baker, and Celia Miller--stayed behind to explore the festival. In their words:

"What we found to occupy us was a snow sculpting contest, open to children and adults. Most entrants were attempting Alaskan realism--moose, a dog team, even a toilet and giant couch. None of us is particularly artistically gifted, though, so we decided to do something totally abstract and different.

"Several ideas were thrown around--a mobius strip! Random squiggles! We decided on a set of pyramids (the top half of our rectangular block) with semi-spheres carved beneath. Attacking snow with chisels, knives, and what we believe were wallpapering tools, turns out to be a lot of fun, but also more difficult than it seems. One of the six pyramids ended up a bit too narrow, so it was lopped off into a Mayan-style stepped pyramid. Molly eventually stepped back from carving and acted as official photojournalist of the event. The spheres were possibly the coolest part of the whole thing--we carved the sculpture to be peppered with tunnels so that two people, lying down, could put their hands through and have them touch. We titled the piece Low Realism and won the Most Creative award--and a whole bag of swag from Denali National Park."