Short Turns: The Final Splash
For nearly 100 years, skiers have closed the season into the farewell drink.
Photo top: Prescient in grasping pond-skimming's end-of-season appeal, Mt. Baker, Washington, started holding its Slush Cup in the early 1950s. Coverage in Warren Miller films helped make the spring ritual a popular closing act to the ski season.
As the story goes, in spring 1928, Cliff White and Cyril Paris, Banff Ski Club pioneers and experienced Alpinists, chanced upon a large snow-melt pond far below them in Banff, Alberta’s backcountry. They challenged each other to see who could skim farthest across the meltwater on skis. There’s no record of who won, but, violà—a soggy end-of-ski-season ritual was born.
Taking advantage of this colorful origin story, Banff Sunshine resort will celebrate its “96-ish” Slush Cup in late May, on the final day of the season. The resort touts it as the oldest pond-skimming event in North America. Flexing its own bragging rights, Sugarbush, Vermont, claims to be the oldest official event in the U.S., though the resort can’t pin down an exact starting date. It also claims to offer participants America’s longest stretch of open water at 120 feet.
Perhaps the most influential of the original pond-skimming celebrations in the U.S. may be the Mt. Baker Slush Cup, started in the early 1950s in Washington State. An early adopter of this spring ritual, Mt. Baker, however, credits its pond-skimming fame to movie maestro Warren Miller, who said he was invited to the resort in 1954 to film the new event. “The combination of high-altitude, hot July sun, high blood-alcohol content and wobbly legs offered some fantastic, never-before-seen crashes for my next year’s feature-length ski film audiences,” Miller recalled in a 2015 Tahoe Guide newspaper column. Pond-skimming antics became a staple of Miller’s oeuvre, and the filmmaker claims his 1950s Mt. Baker coverage ignited a movement.
Vail, Colorado, winks as it touts its event as the World Championships of Pond Skimming. Whitefish Mountain
Resort in Montana awards $1,500 in cash across a multitude of categories. In California, Palisade Tahoe’s Cushing Crossing, now in its 33rd year and one of the more iconic skims in the U.S., features a proper pond and has become so popular that it now limits the event to 50 participants.
Big Sky, Montana, annually held one of the more innovative pond skims in the country prior to Covid. Every year, the creative man-made ponds changed format, with sometimes two of them side by side or end to end, and with kickers and rails, drawing hundreds of rowdy fans and participants. After a few years off, pond skimming returned to Big Sky this spring to close the ski season.
Colorado’s Arapahoe Basin, always in tune to counter-programming, offers its unofficial and weather-dependent pond skimming across “Lake Reveal,” typically in June. Melting snow and local topography unite to create a natural pond alongside Dercum's Gulch trail, under the gaze of riders on the Lenawee lift. No official spectators. No entry fees. No prizes. The pond is available at any time, to anyone who is up to the challenge.
The unique and notorious Ski Splash at Snowmass, Colorado, began in 1970 and persisted until 1984 before the plug was pulled over insurance issues. The event had a kicker on the ski slope above the then-El Dorado Hotel’s outdoor swimming pool, and instead of skimming across it, the often scantily clad participants did their aerials and landed in the pool. Hopefully. But not always. Hence the cancellation.
Skiing’s spring bacchanalia vibe is global, of course. Pond skimming translates to water sliding in Europe, with the attendant components, however, consistently similar. Participants costume up or strip down and strive to take skis, snowboards, ski-bikes, cardboard airplanes, patrol toboggans or, occasionally, a full-body Styrofoam Eiffel Tower costume or a wraparound Titanic ship across a frequently purpose-built pond at the end of a slope. Expect to see sharks and pirates and beach-themed attire. Moses often parts the sea, and Jesus "walks" it, at a brisk pace. Think a soap-box derby on snow. The event typically includes live music, rivers of beverages, sponsor banners, loaner life jackets, paramedics and hundreds—often thousands—of revelers.
In Europe, Switzerland’s Engelberg Titlis resort was once famous for its mineral water, so it takes water sliding seriously. The resort holds multiple rounds to determine the winner, with the pond’s approach-slope shortened after each round, gradually reducing water-planing speed.
In the annual Défi Foly contest at La Clusaz, France, skiers don’t zip across a man-made slush hole; they take on an actual lake, where the ice is usually only partially broken up by the second half of April, when the event is staged. Helmets and life jackets are mandatory, and participants start on a steep hill above the lake, tuck all the way onto the water and try to glide across 525 feet. The half-dozen rescue boats stay busy all day. In 2011, Frenchman Philippe Troubat, a Freeride World Tour competitor, cleared 509 feet, which he claims as an unofficial world record. For pond-skimming purists, however, his achievement might require an asterisk in the record books:
He rode a monoski.
Middle-schooler's 10th Mountain Division Project Wins National History Award.
For his entire life, Aesop Birkemeier heard stories about his late great-grandfather, who served in the U.S. Army's 10th Mountain Division. An indefatigable history fan even at an early age, the 13-year-old seventh grader from Nashville, Indiana, won a National History Day award for his project spotlighting the legendary ski troops of World War II.
The nonprofit competition was established in 1974 and currently engages more than a half million students every year in conducting original research on historical topics. Students present their research as a documentary, exhibit, paper, performance or website. Nearly 3,000 students from across the country, grades six to 12, presented 1,600 history projects, judged by 540 historians and education professionals in the 2024 competition. It’s history’s equivalent of a science fair.
Aesop’s theme for the competition was “Turning Points in History: The Legacy of the 10th Mountain Division.” He chronicled the 10th's success during the war and the role played by his grandmother’s father, Onas Glenn Inman (1917–1996) of Doans, Indiana. His display included an Eisenhower jacket, a field manual, Inman’s checkerboard and archival images. The centerpiece of his project was a historical play of sorts that he wrote and performed, based on stories he heard about his great-grandfather.
According to the Columbus, Indiana, Republic, Aesop competed against 100 students before winning first place in the junior division. He received a National Humanities Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a $1,000 cash prize. In addition to winning top honors, Aesop was also chosen as one of nine students to perform his entry during a showcase at the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
Inman, who died before Aesop was born, served in the 10th Mountain’s126th Mountain Engineering Battalion, Company B, in the division’s two campaigns: Kiska Island, Alaska, and Italy’s Apennine mountains, according to the Denver Public Library 10th Mountain Division archives (see Skiing History, January-February 2024).
“I’m never going to forget the moment I was in the stands and they called my name. It was the best feeling I ever had,” says Aesop, who doesn’t yet ski. He wants to learn in Colorado, where he can also visit the Denver Public Library archives, the Colorado Snowsports Museum’s 10th exhibit and the nearby Camp Hale–Continental Divide National Monument.
The Birkemeier family has a record of competing in numerous past National History Day events. Says Aesop’s mother, Torrie Birkemeier, “Aesop’s dad and I both believe that in order to look where we’re going, we have to understand where we’ve come from.” — Jeff Blumenfeld
Snapshots in Time
1936 Europe Is Decades Ahead of America
America discovered skiing last winter in dead earnest and is getting set for the greatest skiing winter in its history. But Europe is 20 years ahead of the U.S. in making skiing luxurious and taking pictures of it. Skiing began because the nomadic Lapps and Mongols had to get across vast, open wastes of snow. Not until 1800 did a few Norwegians near Telemark discover it was also fun. It took another 30 years more for the rest of Europe, notably those nations with a piece of the Alps, to catch on. First and best advice for beginners is to fall down when they think they are going too fast. — “Skiing Is Fun and Makes Beautiful Pictures” (Life, December 7, 1936)
1959 The Only Unfortunate Part of Teaching Skiing
You may remind these people (Ski Illustrated) that they printed a long article about my ski style in 1938—quite 10 years before Emile Allais. The only unfortunate part of teaching a new and different technique in skiing is the controversy between the different schools and the disadvantage to the pupils of getting completely mixed up while changing from one school or resort to another. — Hans Georg, “Ski Style” (Letters, SKI Magazine, November 1949)
1978 Skiing the French Way
Ironically, with all the thought that has been lent to the French technique, it rarely has been associated with that which is most aesthetic and elusive in skiing—powder. Normally such concepts as avalement, rebound and jet turns are connected with mogul skiing, where energy is at a premium and efficiency foremost. In powder, motions must be more subtle and unhurried in order to maintain fluidity, balance, and control. The powder seeker knows that exaggerated movements are unnecessary and a hindrance, throwing off the rhythm that is so crucial. — Gordie Skoog, “The French Way” (Powder, November 1978)
1984 Forget the Hot Tub. Check out Those Ski Stunts
Since the other characters have names like Squirrel, Fergy and Kamikaze, Harkin is Hot Dog’s apparent hero. But its real heroes are the stunt skiers, since some of the sports footage is quite lively. Mike Marvin, who wrote the screenplay and who directed the second unit, obviously knows his ski feats. He knows less about character, though, and the nonskiing part of the script concerns itself mostly with cooking up pretexts for the ski bunnies in the cast (Tracy N. Smith and Shannon Tweed are the two female leads) to doff their clothing. A hot tub, a waterbed and a heartshaped bathtub figure prominently in the film’s dramatic development, and so does the nowadays obligatory wet T-shirt event. — Janet Maslin, “Review: ‘Hot Dog,’ Skiers Competing and Playing” (New York Times, January 14, 1984)
2025 Jumping into a Scandal
GENEVA — Sign stealing in baseball. Match fixing in soccer. Doping allegations in swimming. Now ski jumping has its own scandal. Cheating by Norway team officials manipulating jumpers’ ski suits has shaken a national reputation for fair play and high-minded principles at their home Nordic world championships, where the host team dominated the medal table. Two Olympic gold medalists, Marius Lindvik and Johann André Forfang, had denied involvement since the allegations emerged over the weekend but were suspended Wednesday and put under formal suspicion in an investigation overseen by the International Ski and Snowboard Federation. — “Norwegian Ski Jumpers Suspended During Suit Tampering Inquiry” (Associated Press, March 12, 2025)