1960s

If you drove the family to a New England ski area in the 1950s and ’60s, lunch might be hot dogs. This ad from the Eastern section of SKI Magazine (January 1961) pitched Tobin First Prize frankfurters. The firm was founded by Fred Tobin in Rochester, New York in 1921, and by 1957 he’d built additional plants in Albany, then two locations in Iowa, then Buffalo. Tobin weathered a post-war meat rationing crisis to become the largest maker of hot dogs in the Northeast. After Fred Tobin’s retirement in 1969, the company suffered chaotic management and declared bankruptcy in 1981.

Coming Up in Future Issues

Suitable for Framing Everett Potter reports on the annual Swann Galleries vintage ski-poster auction.

Going Deep As droughts and weather events grow weirder, we look into the history of the world’s biggest storm cycles.

Yellowstone on Skis In 1886, U.S. Cavalry troopers protecting the park swapped horses for skis in winter.

Spider’s Web The lasting legacy of Spider Sabich may surprise you.

PLUS

Listen Up! Remember singing “Super Skier” around the ski lodge fireplace? From yodeling odes to “90 Pounds of Rucksack” to modern ski-video soundtracks, music has always been part of ski culture. Listen to the classics through ISHA’s multi-media reconstruction of ski-music history.

US Ski Team training at Aspen, 1967. Karen Budge is front center, Gordi Eaton far right.

Team Players: Gordi and Karen Eaton made skiing a living and a life. 

As senior supervisors of “Team Chaos,” Gordi and Karen Eaton juggle many roles. Helping shuttle and care for three active grandchildren, ages eight to eleven, all learning remotely while pursuing the available sports and activities in Hood River, Oregon, including ski racing, is logistically daunting.

Dealing with team dynamics, however, is familiar territory for the couple, both two-time Olympians and Hall of Famers. Now retired from careers that ranged from athletics to coaching to sales reps to restaurants, it’s best to catch them when the grandkids are on vacation and the powder isn’t too deep.

In The Beginning

Gordi Eaton calls himself “a beneficiary of rope tows in small towns.” His tow was Eustis Ski Hill in Littleton, New Hampshire, where he and his friends walked to the hill in their Levis and spent 25 cents for a hot chocolate and a day ticket. Inspired by skiers like Brooks Dodge, Bill Beck and Tom Corcoran, Eaton took his ambitions to bigger mountains, like Cannon where his father worked, and then to Middlebury College in 1958, skiing for Bobo Sheehan. Over the next seven years Eaton would juggle racing for Middlebury on the NCAA circuit and for the United States in Europe, before there was a U.S. Ski Team or a World Cup.

To prepare for the 1960 Olympics, Eaton took a year off school and went to CU Boulder to train with Bob Beattie. “I loved the guy,” says Eaton of Beattie. “He was so passionate about skiing. Everything was focused on ski racing, on us—raising money, training, films. This football kind of approach was new to us, and we all bought in because we were so eager for that kind of feedback.”

The following year, Eaton won the 1961 NCAA DH title racing against Olympic teammates Chuck Ferries (DU) and Buddy Werner (CU). “It was delightful,” Eaton, 81, recalls of skiing both circuits, and learning to manage the pressures of team and individual skiing. “As soon as the race was over, we had a great time together.” They’d come together again as teammates for FIS Worlds and Olympics “We gathered in New York, got a uniform and went to Europe. We competed and then came back and went to school the next year.”

Building Team USA

Eaton competed in the 1962 World Championships, made the 1964 Olympic Team (but did not compete due to injury) then graduated from Middlebury in 1965. Beattie immediately recruited him to coach the U.S. Ski Team on the newly formed World Cup circuit. Because the national team had little money, Beattie made Eaton a coach at CU. With athletes like Billy Kidd, Jimmie Heuga, Spider Sabich, Moose Barrows and Jere Elliot, CU was the national team. “Typical Bob,” says Eaton. “He got CU to pay my national team salary under the auspices of coaching the NCAA team.”

The team trained at CU in the fall, competed in Europe in the winter, then gathered for summer camps at Mt. Bachelor, where Beattie had started bringing the top young athletes from across the country. He hired his older athletes as player/coaches, thus creating the first ecosystem for U.S. Ski Team development.

Karen Budge was 13 years old at her first U.S. Ski Team development camp, in 1963, when Gordi was still competing. “We got to be intimidated by everyone!” she remembers. “I probably met her at that camp,” says Gordi “…but he didn’t remember me,” Karen, now 75, finishes the thought. Eaton shifted seamlessly from athlete to coach, leading his former teammates at the 1966 World Championships in Portillo and the 1968 Grenoble Olympics. Robert Redford shadowed this team to research “Downhill Racer.”

Budge, then 18, was also on the ’68 Olympic Team. She grew up in Jackson Hole, where “there was nothing to do but ski,” she says. By age 16 she was racking up Junior National titles and traveling with the U.S. Ski Team. Budge would go on to score two podiums and 30 top 10 results on the World Cup. Though she was on two Olympic teams (’68, ’72), a freak race-day on-hill accident prevented her from competing in 1968.

With Beattie setting the team’s tone, Chuck Ferries coached the women’s team, and Eaton the men’s team. US slalom racer and two time Olympian Rick Chaffee (’68,’72) enjoyed one of his best seasons with Eaton. “We worked hard but he made it fun,” recalls Chaffee. He also bolstered the shy Chaffee’s confidence: “He’d say ‘Stand up straight and carry yourself as the athlete you are.’ He was a gift to me.”

Off the hill, Beattie nicknamed Eaton “the Phantom” for his tendency to slip away unnoticed. ”When it was time to go, I just left,” says Eaton, whose coaching had a similar straightforward simplicity, heavy on action and light on talk. “There is lots of wasted time talking. We spend way too much time on technique.” He recalls watching the Americans and Austrians skiing an icy mogul field at a training camp. The Austrians danced down it while the Americans made perfect, controlled technical turns. Head Austrian coach Franz Hoppichler told him: “You have better technicians but I have better snow athletes than you.” Eaton encouraged his athletes to freeski, and to find fun while going fast.

In 1969, Beattie and Eaton were ousted from the national team in a regime change. Beattie would go on to organize and run the World Pro Tour. Eaton transitioned into working for K2, both in R&D testing and developing skis, and in building their race program.

In addition to assembling talent for the Pro Tour’s Team K2, led by Spider Sabich, he prepared skis for downhiller Mike Lafferty on the World Cup Tour. He also brought on new young skiers, including Phil and Steve Mahre. K2, which had started out building fiberglass cages for animals, was now hiring engineers and production staff and converting their Quonset hut on Vashon Island into a full-blown factory to keep up with growing market demand.

At the 1972 Olympics, Beattie was commentating for ABC, Eaton was preparing skis for Lafferty and Budge was competing in her second and final Olympics. Budge retired from ski racing after Sapporo. The couple married in October of that year, in Jackson Hole, and Team Eaton was launched.

The Work Of Making It Work

When it was time to start a family, the Eatons moved to Middlebury and together with Charlie Brush coached the Middlebury ski team from 1975-1978. The couple soon realized it was time to start figuring out how to make money at the sport, and it wasn’t through coaching.

In addition to ongoing ski testing and product development with K2, Gordi and Karen started repping Serac skiwear. “I knew a lot of people in the rep business,” explains Gordi. “The people were a lot like ski racers—they liked risks and fun times.”

In the mid-Eighties they took on Spyder as reps, just as the Boulder, Colorado, based company was expanding from mail order and needed to break into the New England market. “They were the perfect pair to get it done,” says Jeff Temple who ran Spyder with founder Dave Jacobs. Karen’s expertise in both racing and soft goods also helped Spyder develop its women’s lines. “They were a 1-2 punch. I saw several times where Gordi and Karen would actually write the order for the dealer. That is trust!”

In the midst of this run, in 1986, they also started a restaurant. “When you’re in the ski business you have to be doing a lot of things to make money,” Gordi explains. Partnering with Gordi’s childhood friend Bob Copenhaver and his wife Muffy, they opened Gordi’s Fish and Steak House in Lincoln, New Hampshire. The 5,000 square foot restaurant at the base of the scenic Kancamangus Highway is in the heart of the White Mountains summer and winter recreation region. The family spent each summer working long hours at the restaurant, then driving 40 miles home to their camp on Parker Lake. When Spyder sold, in 2004, Gordi and Karen thought they had retired from sales, but then took on Sun Ice for another few years.

The K2 Family

Throughout, K2 was a constant in their lives. Gordi’s ski testing required travel throughout the year, from late March in Europe, to Mt. Hood through the summer, to the southern hemisphere and back to the glaciers in the fall. “I skied 12 months a year for six or eight years in a row,” says Gordi, who admits this dream gig required ample support. “I had a very talented wife who kept everything together at home.”

Time spent as a sales rep brought the Eatons income and also keen industry insight. Jim Vandergrift, who had idolized Gordi as a competitor, went on to ski for Middlebury, then became K2’s lead engineer. He explains that Gordi’s perspective of the industry was invaluable. “Gordi’s biggest contribution was in the development side, feeding us info on what skis should do and what was happening in the retail environment so we could combine those variables,” Vandergrift says.

Vandergrift, who spent more than 40 years working with Eaton on product design, explains, “He’s got continuity of being involved from the very beginning to 2017.” Among the tight group of engineers and regular testers, including Tim Petrick, George Tormey and Hannes Rupft, “The Phantom” continued his reputation by always managing to make a few laps before the rest of the crew arrived. He had an uncommon ability to articulate how a ski performed and an unwavering allegiance to the consumer. This provided a critical, sober balance to the rock-star allure of building bigger, wider skis for big mountain skiers. “Every time I went for a ski test I’d always think, ‘Who are these for?’” says Eaton. “In my mind, I would be that person. I’m not making a ski for me.”

Occasionally, a ski would work for everybody. The K2 Four, the first of the factory’s deep-sidecut designs, was that ski. Eaton recalls first testing the Four: “It was the first I ever had been able to put a ski on edge at the top of the turn, continue to feel the edge through the middle of the turn, on to the completion of the turn.” It did this all without sliding, turn after turn, and at high speeds. “I was in my mid 50’s and I had spent the previous 45 years trying to make that kind of turn.” Based on tester feedback, K2 hastily put the Four in its upcoming line and Tormey, who Eaton calls “the best ski technician of his time,” convinced young unconventional K2 athlete Bode Miller to try the ski. Miller rode the Four to Junior National victory, then to the national team and forever changed race—and therefore consumer—ski design.

Staying In The Game

While business kept the Eatons in touch with consumers, Gordi stayed on the cutting edge of competition as well. “His knowledge of the ski world is encyclopedic,” says former U.S. Ski Team racer Mark Smith, who went on to coach Middlebury and the U.S. Ski Team. Smith has the highest regard for the couple. In long chats on skiing, and racing, “Gordi gave me great historical perspective,” says Smith. “He’s a real players’ coach, able to understand it from the athlete’s perspective. In a sport with gigantic egos he’s the polar opposite.”

Gordi’s talent for quietly cajoling people toward improvement is extraordinarily effective on the hill coaching, in debrief sessions, managing employees and accounts, and also in effecting meaningful change. “He’s a really humble guy but he’s not a pacifist,” Charlie Brush says. “Criticism is hard to give. He always found the way to give it in an encouraging way.”

Brush recalls how Gordi used this influence to help upgrade safety standards at race venues across the country to better accommodate the speeds and forces generated by modern equipment. When Brush’s daughter, Middlebury skier Kelly Brush, had a tragic ski accident in 2006 that left her paralyzed after hitting an unprotected lift tower, Gordi’s efforts gained urgency. He leveraged his relationships throughout the ski world to encourage compliance with new national standards. The Kelly Brush Foundation now provides grants to help purchase safety equipment and make venue improvements at clubs across the country.

When son Chris and his family left Middlebury and moved to Hood River, Gordi and Karen followed. Grandparent duty is especially busy now, but Gordi typically still manages to head to the slopes several times a week, on sunny days.

When asked what he skis on, Gordi answers in true ski tester language, with no mention of brand or model. “It’s 84 underfoot, and I also have something 70-73 underfoot. It took me 60 years to carve a turn, and I like to move my skis.” 

Gordi Eaton is a member of the Vermont Alpine Racing Association and Middlebury Athletics Halls of Fame. Karen is a member of Intermountain Skiing and Jackson Hole Ski Club Halls of Fame.

Amateur photographers: Paul Ryan feels your pain.

Blue sky, green trees, white snow, happy skier. Every ski photographer risks producing cliché images.

Paul Ryan understands. “In today’s world, we are saturated with photographs in the media and online. Sometimes when I go out to shoot, these images pop up and scream at me ‘Someone’s done that! I’ve seen that!’” he says.

Ryan, 83, offers this wisdom gleaned from six decades behind a lens: “Be open for something odd and new, not necessarily strange, but a different vision of the familiar. Perhaps a juxtaposition of disparate elements in the same frame. Wash from your mind all the classic images that linger from the past. Images by others you’ve seen and loved, even images that you see right away—the obvious.”

To that end, when shooting, he strives for “an empty mind, or at least a clean vision,” a reference to the 1970 book Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, which he found inspiring early in his career.

Photo top of page: Ryan started his career as the staff photographer at California’s Sugar Bowl resort. The Silver Belt, the final big race of the season, was held in the late spring. Part of the post-race festivities was a softball game on skis between the racers. “The European racers, unfamiliar with baseball, found the game amusing,” Ryan says. Buddy Werner, a natural athlete and a born competitor, took the softball game—and winning it—seriously. Those are American Olympians Tom Corcoran and Linda Meyers watching the action.

Ryan grew up in Boston and, after taking a BS in engineering, moved to Stowe to pursue what he imagined could be a career in ski racing. An Eastern snow drought in 1960-61 led him to Aspen, and for a few years he spent winters racing and summers in San Francisco, going to film school. He eventually found himself at Sugar Bowl Resort in California for the final race of the season, where general manager Ed Siegel candidly told him that his future wasn’t in ski racing, and hired him as resort photographer.

It was a good fit. John Fry eventually hired Ryan as the staff photographer at SKI magazine for several years. He traveled the world shooting for SKI and other periodicals.

But his professional pursuits expanded beyond skiing. He chronicled the 1960s counterculture in San Francisco. He studied under the greats of the time, including Minor White and Ansel Adams. His photography has been honored in numerous shows, with recent exhibits including “The Sea Ranch, Architecture, Environment, and Idealism” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Ryan has easily pivoted between photography and cinematography. His cinema credits include Robert Redford’s “A River Runs Through It” and “The Horse Whisperer.” His documentary work includes “Gimme Shelter,” “Salvador Dali,” and recently a film on George Soros.

He has always found his way back to the mountains. Here are some of his favorite images from a different era. “When on the side of the mountain, I had to pre-visualize the end result, not seeing the film until days later,” Ryan says from his home in Santa Monica, California.

Ryan said that White, one of his early mentors, introduced him to the idea that a compelling photograph is more than a static image—it has an afterlife, of sorts.

“White spoke of ‘Equivalents,’ which is a photographic concept that the photograph mirrors something in ourselves—something that remains in mind after the literal image has faded,” Ryan explains.

To reach that end, Ryan says, the strongest images touch upon a commonality, something universal across the human experience. These images draw the viewer into the frame and into a broader narrative. “The most powerful photos evoke something beyond what was literally in front of the lens. This may come from the implication of what happened just before or of what might happen a moment after,” he says. “What remains is not only the image of the time and place, but a visual residue connected to a broader spectrum of our own experience.”

Of course, in order to achieve White’s concept of “Equivalents,” the photographer does have to first nail the shot. These days, with everyone shooting an endless stream of digital photos at the press of a button, that’s an achievement that’s often underappreciated.

Not by Ryan. “To achieve a high level of visual acuity is demanding,” he notes, “particularly while simultaneously navigating deep powder, an icy mogul field, high speeds or the intensity of race day—all with an array of cameras in check.” 

This is the second installment of a two-part photo essay series from Paul Ryan. (See part 1 in the September/October issue.) View this photo essay as a mini-master class in photography, as Ryan explains his approach to his craft and the intriguing backstories to each image. Find more of Ryan’s work at paulryanphotography.com.

Ryan first got to know Billy Kidd during the 1960 season at Stowe. “He was always friendly and curious about photography and actually filmed some of the Megève downhill for me when I was making the Lange film, Ski Racer. This photo was taken at Kidd’s home in Stowe circa 1967. The wall was lined with trophies and his bibs from the 1964 Innsbruck Olympics, where Kidd and Jimmie Heuga became the first American men to win alpine medals. “Ever since 1966, Billy was plagued with recurring ankle injuries,” Ryan recalls. “It was interesting to see a young admirer realizing that even a hero is vulnerable.” Ryan was fascinated throughout his career with catching athletes away from the competition, believing that these moments can tell a story as revealing as the athletic action itself.

One of the many challenges of nailing a great image is “photographing people up close in difficult situations,” Ryan says. Fortunately, Ryan had spent a lot of time with the Canadian team and earned its trust, such as after a nasty downhill tumble by racer Andrée Crepeau, who recalls the crash. “It was on the flats at the bottom of the downhill in Stowe, where I learned that catching an edge is not always reversible. And down I went, face first—real quick.” The resulting image captures both the physical toll of the crash and the indominable spirit of the Canadian’s women’s team. “In photographing emotional situations, it’s always better to be physically close to the people rather than standing farther back with a telephoto lens,” Ryan says.

Great photography is at the intersection of art and science, according to Ryan. Getting the technical aspects right, such as the light, focus and framing, is key. But some of it is just heading into the field and hoping for the best. “Shooting ski action at slower than normal shutter speeds, here 1/8 second, is photographing without the luxury of certainty,” Ryan says. “After a while you get better at anticipating the results, but it’s still guesswork.” Here, at Stowe, the “obscuration of the subject promotes an awareness of the overall graphics in the frame.” Ryan also liked the flame-like gate banner flickering above the racer’s head.

Contrasts help bring a viewer into the frame, seeking out details of the surprising image. “In this case it was the ominous dark tree in the white landscape that attracted me,” Ryan says. “I waited for a bit, assuming a skier would come into the frame. He did and that completed the image.”

In 1970, Ryan made a documentary film on Austrian ski champion Karl Schranz. He filmed for several weeks on the World Cup circuit. “But I was curious to film Karl’s off-season life in his hometown of St. Anton,” Ryan says. He traveled to St. Anton in the summer, after the race season, and talked to locals who knew Schranz since his boyhood. “Karl brought us to meet his mother, who lived in the same small house she had for the last fifty years,” Ryan recalls. “As a widow, she had raised five children.” With photos and medals decorating this modest shrine to her son, Ryan likes the image because it tells as much about Schranz and his upbringing as it does about his mother.

Mammoth was one of the first destinations on Ryan’s unofficial resort itinerary when he headed West as a young racer in the 1960s. “I spent a lot of time there, both skiing and photographing the Mammoth racing program.” The racing operation was a top-notch group, whose roster frequently included members of Mammoth founder Dave McCoy’s family. At the end of a training day, racer Kandi McCoy chats with Dennis Agee, a junior coach at the time, who went on to become the Alpine Director of the U.S. Ski Team. “I liked her shy reaction to a coach’s compliment,” Ryan says.

In 1968, John Fry “had the idea to send me to do a photo story on skiing in the flatlands of the Midwest” for SKI. Ryan ended up at Boyne Mountain, Michigan, with its modest vertical of 500 feet. “For Othmar Schneider, a past Olympic champion and previously at Stowe where I knew him, it must have been confining,” Ryan says. “This image had a feeling of him reaching for something greater—or at least higher.”

John Fry and Mort Lund assigned Ryan to do a photo essay for SKI specifically on the experience of the downhill discipline. “This is the only event where there is a day or more to prepare, inspecting the course and taking a practice run,” Ryan says. “But there is never the sense of totally understanding what it will be like on race day.” At the end of the day prior to the race, there’s one last inspection down the course. Ryan strived to capture the intense preparation and anticipation in this early evening shot of a solitary racer looking down the course. Ryan: “I often find it rewarding to hang around for that extra hour at the end of the day, after the main action has ended. The light is dramatic and interesting things sometimes happen.”

All photographers have favorite assignments. This was one of Ryan’s. “One of my first and most gratifying assignments at SKI was a photo essay on Nancy Greene on the 1967 race circuit. I followed her travels for three weeks, on and off the course,” Ryan says. As well as being a superb racing talent, Ryan learned that Greene was a good friend and dedicated mentor to her teammates. Greene also didn’t let any aspect of her gear go uninspected. “Like many racers of the era, she personally paid exacting attention to the details of her skis,” Ryan says.

For Ryan’s 1969 photo essay, “The Steepness of Stowe” for SKI, he began experimenting with colored gel filters on the lens. “I liked the creative effect and usually made a few photographs this way on most other assignments,” Ryan notes, such as here as part of a story on Roger Staub at Vail (see right). With the analog film of the time, there was no way to know how the gels were working until the film was processed days later.

Digital photography now provides instant feedback (see above). “In contrast, a couple of years ago at the World Cup finals at Aspen I was fascinated with the maze of blue lines left by the multiple course markings. Shooting digitally, I could see the image right away and later, in Photoshop, I was able to exaggerate my impression of the intensity of the blue dye,” Ryan says. “Photography now has evolved to allow for, and even expect, imagery beyond simple representation of reality.”

Beat writers are often accused of writing stories for the audience of other beat writers, bringing nuances into play that can only be picked up on by other pros. The same goes for photographers. Ryan was attracted to the action in this shot for a SKI assignment. The racer is in sharp focus at the 1968 Grenoble Winter Games, with other elements blurred. However, “I liked the patrol sled waiting in the background behind the fencing,” Ryan says. “It quietly portrayed a sense of risk and danger.”

Ryan competed in the Roch Cup slalom in 1962, which became a hinge point in his career. “This was the last of my efforts at ski racing,” Ryan says. “I was decent, but when I was up against world-class racers, I realized I should spend more time at photography.” And for that decision in 1962, skiing’s visual legacy is, indeed, a bit richer.

For six decades, West Mountain in upstate New York has been bringing skiers—and racers—into the sport. 

By Paul Post

Spencer and Sara Montgomery moved east to West Mountain, where they’re pursuing the adventure of a lifetime in his hometown of Queensbury, New York. They’ve given the Southern Adirondacks
resort a $17 million makeover since purchasing it in 2013, including three new chairlifts, 40,000 feet of snowmaking pipeline, 200 new snow guns, four groomers and a 500-foot lift for the tubing park. 

It’s quite a change for a couple who met on the Chicago trading floor and spent 10 years in Colorado, skiing at some of the world’s most famous resorts. 

West Mountain has been a family-oriented resort since the founding Brandt clan opened it on Christmas Day 1962. By installing lights for night skiing, they quickly attracted local curiosity seekers and developed a strong customer base throughout the region. The
Adirondack Northway (Interstate 87) opened in the early 1960s, providing a direct link from the Albany area, about an hour away. While small in size, with a 1,000-foot vertical drop, the center has made a big contribution to the sport.

“It’s a feeder mountain,” Spencer said. “I’m willing to bet that West Mountain has taught more people how to ski and is one of the top training mountains in the United States. We have 1,600 kids in after-school programs. That’s our history and our future.”

The site’s steep trails have hosted competitive racing since 1966, when Tom Jacobs and Isadore “Izzy” Ture founded the program (see “Remembering,” page 33). With on-mountain upgrades complete, the Montgomerys are now turning their attention to developing a full-time ski racing academy. One of their first moves was to hire Steve Lathrop, a former five-year World Cup competitor on the U.S. “A” Ski Team, who previously worked at Stratton Mountain School in southern Vermont. Lathrop is starting his third year as West Mountain’s alpine race director. 

A New Hampshire native, Lathrop learned how to ski on a rope tow built by his father, who served with the 10th Mountain Division during World War II. At one point, Lathrop was ranked 16th in the world in slalom. If not for injury, he would have gone to the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, so he knows what a good racing program needs and believes West Mountain has all the key elements.

In January 2020—prior to the COVID-19 shutdown—West Mountain hosted a four-day FIS event including two huge U-16 and U-19 races, with 225 racers each day from all over the East. A full slate of high school, masters and New York State Racing Association competition is on tap for the 2020–2021 season.

This fall, West Mountain also opened a brand-new ski racing academy that allows student-athletes to train 

full time. Those from outside the area, a half-dozen from western New York and New York City, take classes remotely through Queensbury High School or their own home school. Next year, plans call for having a full-fledged lodging component as well.

“The academy is for older kids who are able to live on their own and handle their studies and ski training,” Sara Montgomery says. “A lot of kids at that U-19 level drop out of ski racing because it becomes unaffordable for their families, with all of the travel and the high cost of equipment. This gives them the opportunity to continue racing at a competitive level at a more affordable rate.”

With good coaching and top-notch facilities, it might just be a matter of time before a West Mountain racer achieves international success. “I really believe this mountain has everything needed to develop world-class ski racers,” Lathrop says. 

(photo: Architects Charlotte Perriand, Pierre Facheux and Jean Prouve at Les Arcs, fifty years ago.)

When Les Arcs closed down last spring, senior managers reflected on the very purpose of ski resorts.  “The current crisis . . . made us take more time to rethink our new projects,” said press officer Cecile Romualdo. “What actual purpose does a ski resort serve? What is its use for society?”

Managers revisited the rationale for building the four modern high-alpine villages. The first of these, Arc 1600, opened in 1968. According to Romualdo, “We re-read the documents left by those who created the resort from nothing, . . . building a resort on virgin land. We discovered that they asked themselves all the same questions.”

The original architectural team, led by Charlotte Perriand, was inspired by Le Corbusier’s city-planning philosophy, emphasizing human-scale but concentrated development in order to leave open space for recreation within walking distance. In the resort context, Romualdo said, “A holiday in the mountains should be an opportunity to leave behind one’s social habits and mingle with other circles. The mountain environment, outdoor activities and holiday atmosphere offer the context to facilitate this.”

Today the complex is served by 171 lifts and until the Covid19 shut-down hosted 2.3 million skier visits each winter. Going forward, social distancing dictates that the crowds not be forced indoors. Based on the original philosophy, Les Arcs now hopes to bring people together in the wide-open space of the mountains. --Patrick Thorne

From Olympic racing to elite coaching, this once-and-future family has had a powerful impact on the sport.

By Peter Oliver

The Caldwells are America’s first family of cross-country skiers. As elite athletes, coaches, ski technicians, organizational founders, retailers and advisors, the family and the sport have formed a multi-generational bond that goes back 70 years. In U.S. skiing, only the Cochrans come close. 

On a breezy June day in Peru, Vermont, three generations of Caldwells—grandfather John, son Sverre, granddaughter Sophie and her husband, Simi Hamilton—gathered on the porch of Sverre’s home, with its sweeping view south to Stratton Mountain. They pieced together a family history that begins with John’s journey from the Putney School to Dartmouth College to the 1952 Olympics, stretches through Sverre’s seminal coaching gig at Stratton Mountain School, and strides into the present with Sophie and Simi’s leadership on the U.S. World Cup team. 

The family legacy has humble roots in late-1940s Vermont. Although a gifted downhill skier, John was a cross-country neophyte as a high-school athlete at Putney. In his first nordic race, he borrowed his sister’s clunky alpine skis (because they were smaller and lighter than his) and “basically ran around the course on skis,” he recalls. He finished in the top 15. Yet by the time John reached Dartmouth, his skills—and equipment—had improved sufficiently to enable him to compete as a four-event skier, in cross-country, jumping, slalom and downhill. He was named to the 1952 Olympic nordic combined team...

Looking back nearly 60 years, this Sohler Ski ad, featuring thick-rimmed white sunglasses, hoody ski parka and a glamorous wind-blown milieu, could be selling today’s hip outdoor fashion, as well as “the ski for those who want the best.” The ad, from the December 1961 issue of SKI magazine, touts the German ski manufacturer’s “Spyder-Downhill” as the “fastest metal ski in the world.” No exaggeration, there. Sohler was the ski supplier for Luigi DiMarco’s speed-skiing world record set in Cervinia, Italy, in August 1960, at more than 101 mph. With his record run, DiMarco became the first human to officially break 100 mph on skis. (DiMarco was back in 1964 to raise the record to 108 mph.) The current record? In 2016, Italian speed skier Ivan Origone blazed down a course at Vars resort, in the French Alps, at more than 158 mph—in a fashionably bright red speed suit.

COMING UP IN FUTURE ISSUES

Decisive Moments (Part 2)
Paul Ryan searched through his archives to find the most captivating images from his career as a globe-trotting
ski photographer.

We Need More Cowbell!
A brief history of the clanging bells that cheer on alpine racers.

Where Are They Now?
Pernilla Wiberg, Sweden’s all-time record-holding female alpine ski racer, is still giving back to the sport.

Quantum Leap
Alpine skiing took a big step forward between 1930 and 1932 with the introduction of steel edges and locked-down heels, paving the way for its introduction to the 1936 Winter Olympics.

PLUS:

Are Bota Bags Primed for a Comeback?

Classic Lodges & Historic resorts

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After a career covering skiing, photographer Paul Ryan has seen it all.

Above: Ryan looks for contrasts when shooting. The dark shadows help visually pop the red-suited racer, next to the red gate, in this image from the 1968 Grenoble Olympic Games. Also, “I liked the sense of launching into the unseen downside of the jump.” Right: Jean-Claude Killy flashes his inimitable style on course in Stowe, Vermont in 1966. The following year, Killy earned the first World Cup overall title, winning 12 of 17 races. Next up: winning the triple crown of alpine skiing, with a sweep of all three Olympic golds at that time (downhill, giant slalom and slalom) at the 1968 Grenoble Winter Games. On skis or off, Killy was as photogenic as they come, says Ryan, who worked extensively with the champ over the years.

"I always was kind of a frustrated ski racer,” admits Paul Ryan, who dabbled in competitive racing in the 1960s. Raised in Newton, Massachusetts, Ryan played hockey for Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in upstate New York, and after graduation headed north to Stowe, Vermont, to work and follow his racing dreams. In Stowe, racer Marvin Moriarty, of the Moriarty ski hat family, gave Ryan his first camera.

As young ski racers of that generation were likely to do, “a bunch of us decided to abandon career expectations and head out West, eventually landing in Aspen,” he recalls. Ryan and buddies made the racing rounds, competing at various Western resorts, including Mammoth Mountain, where “Dave McCoy let us sleep in the unfinished lodge.”

In the early 1960s, a career beckoned, so Ryan went to graduate film school in San Francisco, but continued to race. He found himself at Sugar Bowl Resort in California for the final race of the season, where he received the career advice of a lifetime. “You are not getting anywhere racing,” Ed Siegel, Sugar Bowl’s general manager told him. “But you’re a pretty good photographer. Come work for us.”

He did. “It was my first job getting paid to take pictures,” Ryan says with a laugh. Skiing remained a passion, but he found the time to pursue his craft in San Francisco, and made a name for himself chronicling the 1960s counterculture there. But he had found a home in skiing, and John Fry hired him as the staff photographer at SKI magazine for several years. He traveled the world shooting for SKI and other periodicals.

Ryan’s personal lens was always wider than just the sport of skiing. He studied under the greats of the time, including Minor White and Ansel Adams. His photography has been honored in international shows, with recent exhibits including “The Sea Ranch, Architecture, Environment, and Idealism” at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

Ryan has always moved fluidly between still photography and cinematography. His cinema credits include Robert Redford’s A River Runs Through It and The Horse Whisperer. His documentary work includes Gimme Shelter, Salvador Dali, and recently a film on George Soros.

Ryan has always found his way back to the mountains. This photo essay illuminates an era in skiing’s history and also the progress of photography, which has changed as much as the sport that Ryan covers. 

“Photography has evolved enormously since the years when I was very involved in photographing the ski world,” Ryan, now 83, says from his home in Santa Monica, California. “Cameras and iPhones have become very mobile and everyone can take photos of anything.”

With the new mobile technology, “images are abundant and personal moments are revealed every day,” he notes. Ever the artist, Ryan sees these advancements not as a threat to his craft, but as new tools to use. “Photoshop makes possible the transformation of photographs into our own impressionistic images, and expressions of our thoughts superimposed onto the events in front of the lens,” he says. “It’s a visually exciting time.”

These images here are from a different time, “when on the side of the mountain, I had to pre-visualize the end result, often not seeing the processed film until days later,” Ryan says.

Though the technology has changed, what constitutes a powerful image has not. Ryan says there are two main components to a successful photo: What he calls “the graphics” or the visual structure of the image, and “the human element,” or the emotions that are shown in the photograph.

Great photography combines both to reveal “Cartier-Bresson’s ‘decisive moment’ in time,” Ryan says. The art is in recognizing that instant. “A compelling photograph is not what happened a second before or a second after. It’s a single moment,” Ryan says. “A photographer’s goal is to capture that decisive moment.” 

This is Part 1 of a 2 part photo essay series from Paul Ryan, with the second installment in the November/December issue. View this photo essay as a mini-master class in photography, as Ryan explains his approach to his craft and the intriguing backstories to each image.

 This ad for the Pontiac GTO was published in the January 31, 1969 issue of LIFE magazine. It was the official car of the U.S. Ski Team, which had been formally organized just a few years earlier, in 1965. The same month this ad ran, the footage for the iconic ski movie Downhill Racer was shot. Karl Schranz and Gertrude Gabl won the overall 1968–1969 World Cup titles, and American racer Marilyn Cochran won the women’s GS globe.

Coming up in future issues

CARTOON CLASSICS
From the Road Runner and Bugs Bunny to Wile E. Coyote, skiing was often used as a prop for mayhem in TV’s classic animated cartoon series of the 1960s and 1970s.

CROSS-COUNTRY CALDWELLS
Over 70 years, America’s first family of nordic skiers have formed an inseparable bond with the sport

WE NEED MORE COWBELL!
A short history of the clanging bells that cheer on alpine racers

NEVER-SEEN SKI SCENES
Ski photographer and cinematographer Paul Ryan searched through his archives for surprising, captivating images of Olympic stars and celebrities from the 1960s

1969: Modern ski techniques place much importance on pole planting for both long parallel turns and short swing. However, many advanced skiers have limited success in assimilating the latest refinements into their own skiing because their ski poles are too long. Long poles tend to set a skier’s weight back on his heels and interfere with setting up a good rhythm for short swing.

The old rule of thumb—that poles should reach up to the armpit—is obsolete, in the opinion of many instructors who now advocate shorter poles, particularly for advanced skiers. To check for proper pole length, place the tip of your pole in the snow as if you were about to make a turn. If your poles are short enough, the wrist-to-elbow section of your arm will be parallel to the ground. Checking proper length in a ski shop or in your home, place the pole grips on the floor, grasping the shafts just below their baskets. Again, your lower arm should run parallel to the floor.
—Stefan Nagel (Certified, U.S. Eastern Amateur Ski Association)

2020: In September 1969, when this tip appeared in SKI, the method it described might have been new to some, but was already current practice. Since then, good skiers have gradually migrated to shorter poles. A person who skied with 52-inch poles in the 1960s was probably using 50-inch poles in the 1990s, and might be skiing with 46-inch poles today. Competitive mogul skiers are likely to use poles even shorter than that.

But even though poles have gotten shorter, the method described in this tip still works. The key is to place the tip of your pole in the snow as if you were about to make a turn. In the illustration above, the skier is in a tall stance. For various reasons, the stance of good skiers at the moment they plant their poles has typically gotten shorter over the years, especially when making short turns. Keeping your forearm level to the snow dictates a shorter pole.

In the 1960s, skiers typically up-unweighted to start their turns. Today, they’re more likely to avoid actively unweighting, and in high-performance turns will flex through the transition between turns to absorb forces that would otherwise launch them off the snow. Competitive mogul skiers are at the extreme end of this spectrum, always deeply flexed at the moment they plant their poles. —Ron LeMaster 

In the 1960s, skiers generally stood taller when they planted their poles than they do today — as demonstrated in the photomontage (right) by Michael Rogan, current coach of the PSIA National Alpine Team. So while pole length has gotten shorter, the rule of thumb described in this timeless tip still applies. Photomontage by Ron LeMaster.