Slush and Sleet:
The Real Powder of Illinois
By Klint Cone, Toby Zuercher, Colin Ritchason, 
Ben Pennell, and Zach Barton

There is skiing available in 6 different locations in Illinois. One of the ones we researched and found the most about was Chestnut Mountain. They each are spread out across Illinois, and we have included the locations of each at the bottom of the page.

Chestnut Mountain is one of several ski resorts in Illinois. It lies near the Mississippi River, has four mountains for skiing and snowboarding on, and has 17 trails and 8 lifts. In Illinois, there are 6 locations in which you can ski and snowboard, including:

- Chestnut Mountain
- Four Lakes Village
- Plumtree
- Raging Buffalo Snowboard Park
- Snowstar Ski Area
- Villa Olivia Ski area

Below is a chart listing the different areas of each ski and snowboard resort: 

X
Lifts
Runs
Location
Lodge
Lift Prices
Snowboarding
Rental equip.
Chestnut
8
17
2 hrs N of Chicago
yes
$27.00
yes
yes
Four Lakes
---
---
5 miles N Hwy 55
yes
---
yes
yes
Plumtree
---
---
---
yes
---
yes
yes
Raging Buffalo
---
---
---
yes
---
yes
yes
Snowstar
6
13
10 miles W of Rock Is.
yes
$19.00
yes
yes
Villa Olivia
1 - many tows
12
A few miles W of O'Hare Airport
yes
$18.50
yes
yes

Chestnut Mountain features a 475' vertical drop and has a free ski corral on weekends and holidays. We have interviewed students at Edison Junior High School in Pekin, Illinois, that have been to Chestnut Mountain and other resorts and here are a few things they said:

“I think that Chestnut needs a lot of improvements. Chestnut had tons of rocks sticking out of the snow. The chairlifts looked unsafe and the lodge was really dirty.  My friend took skiing lessons and he didn’t learn  a thing from it.”


 “I want to say that skiing is a very fun sport.  I thought Sundown was a better skiing place than Chestnut or Snowstar because it had an even number of difficulties and a lot of ski-lifts”
“I thought that Chestnut Mountain was a great place to ski, but you should bring a friend, because it gets boring with no one to talk to except your parents.” 

"I went to Snowstar before and it was very fun. Some of the runs were kind of hard, and it even had a trick run for snowboarders and skiers. I prefer it over Chestnut Mountain."

Looking good! Now flail your arms and scream at the top of your lungs.

Snow Place
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