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Purdue University Ski Snowboard Club, better known as PUSSC (yeah, best club name on campus) had a trip planned to Keystone the first week on the new year. The trip was set to pretty sweet with some access to great resorts and parties.
So we're loading up on to 4 Cavallo motor coaches at Purdue and I got there a bit early and put my luggage and skis on the 1st bus, get in the cabin and think to myself 'ah, this looks full I'll just get on the 4th bus, there has to be good seats left on that one.' So I take my stuff off the bus and load it on to the 4th bus, get a good seat next to pretty chill guy and the trip is off to a great start. It may help to mention the drive from Purdue to Keystone is about 22 hours.
Fast forward to about 8:00 am the next morning. Most everyone is asleep by this point, including myself, and all of a sudden we wake to a huge boom in the back of the bus. I quickly come to the realization that we've shredded a tire and the bus starts to pull over on the side of I 70. We all start to walk off the bus and don't bother to grab anything because its just a shredded tire, right? That's when someone in the back exclaims there's a fire. The emergency exits on the bus wouldn't open, so we all had to go out the front door. I walk out of the bus and we're literally in bufu Kansas. I can see 10 miles in every direction and don't even see a building, barn or anything. The driver attempts to put the fire out with the on board extinguisher but it just wasn't enough. It's 25 minutes before the fire department even shows up and by then the bus is basically gone. All of my stuff was underneath. I had a set of BRAND NEW ON3P Presters serial number 001 (Yup, i'm the same dude who posted that story of acquiring those, if you read that) with brand new Look Pivots on them. Everything I have is gone, a pair of Dragon APX, some Full Tilt Drop Kicks, and my camera just to name a few, also socks, underwear, any clothes I packed are all burned too. The only thing I have is the clothes on my back, my phone, and my jacket.
We chilled out at the Brewser, Kansas high school for about 6 hours until another Cavallo bus could come. The other buses kept on their way. In the meantime, any luggage that looked like luggage was brought on a trailer for us to go through. My boot bag and suitcase were ashes and didn't come back, but my ski bag came back for review. We were told by the tour company that they would ensure we would still go skiing, though.
Skip to arrival in Keystone, 36 hours after departure from Purdue with little sleep. The owner of Echo tours talks to us, gets us the outerwear that we need to rent for free and buys us basic toiletries. The next day I go to Keystone Sports to rent some skis and explain my situation and they hook my up with some brand new Volk Mantras, a helmet, and some boots free of charge! The Mantras were some solid skis, but they sucked on hard packed snow if anyone was looking at some.
So all in all, a ski trip trip from hell was salvaged, but nonetheless all my stuff is gone. I have a set Armada Pipe Cleaners back home but the edges on those are shot and I don't have boots are anything else to use them. I'm the only one in my family that skis, so I'm pretty much self-funded. I have no idea if/ how much money I'll get from insurance.
Huge thank yous and shoutouts to Echo Tours, GetOutfitted.com, Keystone Sports, and Rockstar Energy for making this trip possible. The ski industry is full of some great people. Now I need to find a way to replace over $4,000 of my stuff..
