In Boston blizzard, some find joy in the snow

Amid a generational blizzard, most people in the region hunkered down inside to escape the cold and wind. But a few Bostonians saw an opportunity for fun.

At the bottom of one of the steepest hills on Boston Common, a group of friends from Wentworth Institute of Technology got to work creating a jump over a bench.

"Hopefully it's going to work," 21-year-old Jason LeBlond said, as he paused shoveling a mound of snow.

"We'll go over the bench one way or another," Jeff Neale said. "We'll get over the bench. It just depends if we can get enough speed to gap the path — or face plant."

They were some of the only people out on the Common as the city, and surrounding region, ground to a halt. Hundreds of thousands are without power as the storm rivals the legendary Blizzard of '78. Snow and wind was particularly bad in southeastern Massachusetts. Gov. Maura Healey put a non-essential travel ban in place for Bristol, Plymouth and Barnstable counties.

But over in Coolidge Corner in Brookline, friends  Olivia Langlois and Mari Garza found a way to enjoy the snow and stay off the roads. They’d cross-country-skied more than four miles around the city by early afternoon, with more to go.

"After the last snowstorm we were like, we need to be skiing around because it's so hard to walk and everything, so now we have our skis on," Langlois said.

The day wasn’t so fun for everyone though. Brookline resident Winston Chin said he’d been shoveling since 4 a.m. with just a few breaks. And he was far from done.

"I'm not going to be done until about three this morning," he said, and that's without tackling the snow on the cars. "I'm not going to approach that 'til this is all over, around eight or nine tonight and I'll just play by ear."

Downtown, Daniel Frye stayed warm drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes.

"When I woke up this morning more than half of the businesses that are usually open were closed," he said. "There were not too many travelers at the train station and there weren't too many people traveling about in the community today. So, you know, it's really put a stop on things out here."

Not for the Wentworth snowboarders and skiers, though. After packing snow onto the makeshift ramp, three skiers and snowboarders crushed the jump.

"Total success. Total," one of the students, Oliver Castle, said. "We made it over and we didn't fall."

Then, they started doing tricks; a backflip was the goal. But their official plan? Go for it until something bad happens.

"Until someone falls and hurts themselves and we can't do it anymore," Castle said with a laugh.