Bay Area Lesbians Hit the Slopes

With Winter quickly approaching, one highlight of the season for many is the opening of resorts and parks throughout the country that offer up months of skiing and snowboarding for all who visit. For those cold weather athletes in the San Francisco Bay area, SAGA North is the gay and lesbian ski, snowboard, and recreation club working to provide its members with the most opportunities to take part in the fun. They organize outdoor activities for skiers and snowboarders and strive to promote friendship and participation among those with similar interests.

SAGA North – where SAGA apparently stands for nothing other than the word “saga” – welcomes gay and lesbian skiers and riders from the San Francisco Bay Area to become members and participate in the activities. During the winter, SAGA North organizes ski and snowboard trips and during the summer it has several outdoors activities and social functions.

Prior to each trip, interested individuals can check with the trip leaders on each trip to see who is going on a particular trip. Straight people are welcome but children are not. The trip leader sends out a list of the other people going on each trip - with their email, phone number, and city - and other members may send an email to the other people in order to arrange for transportation.

On all of their trips, there is a wide and diverse range of skiers/snowboarders from beginners to the more advanced. Almost all resorts offer lessons, which they recommend for those just starting out.

The locations of the trips planned are decided on by the members who volunteer to lead trips. It is up to each member to help out. Members of the club are added to the member’s-only email list, which is used to communicate with other members on things such as ski trips, the latest news or even items members want to buy/sell. Members also receive the club’s newsletter and are able to attend special events during the year.

In addition, SAGA North relies upon the active participation of all of their members to make the club work. They have an elected board to head various committees, which is in turn responsible for Winter Trips, Summer Activities, Social Activities, Newsletter, Web, etc. They have trip leaders who help organize all of their summer and winter trips.

The membership fee for SAGA North is $35. The term of membership is from October to September, but non-members get the summer free if they sign up after April 1. The membership fee helps pay for the newsletter, advertising for new members (e.g. the Pride booth, BAR ads), room rentals for free social events, and operational overheads (e.g. web hosting, fax service, storage, accounting).

For more information visit http://www.saganorth.com.

Featured photo by Alex Indigo. Tabber photo by Lali Masriera.

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