Short Turns

FIS Games, improved TV access affirmed by 2028. 

The 2024 calendar is highlighted by neither Winter Olympic Games nor FIS World Championships, but it will celebrate the centennial of the first-ever Winter Olympics at Chamonix, France, where FIS was founded on February 2, 1924.

For most of that century, FIS was a sleeping beauty in matters of marketing, good at coordinating within the sport but weak on communicating through nonskiing media. The election in 2021 of new president Johan Eliasch shook FIS up. The Swedish-born Eliasch is a successful British businessman who ran on a platform of modernization and outreach. From 1995 to 2021, Eliasch was CEO of Head Group, the sporting goods company. He remains Head’s chairman.

The May 25 FIS Congress, held online, followed a meeting of the FIS Council (a form of board of directors), which confirmed plans to launch a new major event, the FIS Games, possibly in 2028. It will include all the FIS disciplines. More than 80 competitions in 10 different categories, including para-snowsports, will take place over two weeks, possibly in the same region. Most disciplines would display all their specialties--for instance, eleven in Alpine skiing, as is the case during FIS World Championships. A few potential host cities in Europe and North America have already shown interest, and the FIS Council plans to announce a choice in June 2024, during the next on-site FIS Congress, in Iceland.

FIS plans to take over all TV rights. This is a break from the past 36 years, during which national ski associations (NSAs) and organizing committees negotiated directly with broadcasting companies. This is a controversial point, because organizing committees and NSAs have depended on broadcast revenue, along with corporate branding sponsorships, to pay their bills. Eliasch considers that funding model inefficient and outdated. By centralizing broadcast rights, FIS management expects to cut out a lot of middlemen and maximize pass-through funding to NSAs and prize money for athletes. FIS also expects to find improved broadcasting solutions in countries with inadequate TV coverage, notably in the United States, where ski racing fans have found it increasingly frustrating to follow World Cup tours in a fractured pay-per-view market. FIS management is moving swiftly to take over broadcast rights from NSAs when all such contracts expire after the 2026 season.

FIS also confirmed an Alpine World Cup calendar including nearly 90 competitions for women and men. It includes a total of six events in North America—in November/December 2023 at Lake Louise and Beaver Creek (speed events for men); at Killington and Mount Tremblant (four technical events for women); and in February/March 2024 at Palisades Tahoe and Aspen (total of four tech races for men).

The Alpine World Cup season will also introduce a new team-combined event, at Kitzbühel, a day before the Hahnenkamm downhill. Each two-man team will consist of a downhill specialist and a slalom expert, with a maximum of four teams per nation. Top-finishing duos will receive World Cup points valid for the specialties and the overall standings.

The World Cup Finals at Saalbach will be scheduled over two weekends, instead of five consecutive days in the same week. This should help draw larger audiences and bring in more sponsorship money to cover the costs of a very expensive event.

Saalbach is also the site of the next FIS Alpine World Championships, in February 2025. Crans-Montana is lined up for 2027, and the site for 2029 will be announced this coming spring. Candidates are Val Gardena, Italy; Narvik, Norway; and Soldeu/El Tarter, Andorra.

Snowsports have been strongly impacted by climate change. The retreat of glaciers in the Alps often obliges teams to travel to South America or New Zealand for proper summer on-snow-training. Lack of fresh snow also forced organizers to cancel many races at the start of the past season. Meanwhile, the Tahoe region was buried by snow this past winter. FIS operates more than 6,000 competitions each year, creating a huge carbon footprint as racers, coaches and officials travel to events.

FIS has taken some flak from environmental organizations, notably Protect Our Winters (POW) and Greenpeace. Accordingly, in May, FIS hired a new sustainability director, Susanna Sieff, an environmental sociologist with more than 20 years experience in the field. Most recently she was head of sustainability at Fondazione Milano-Cortina 2026, the organizing committee for the next Winter Olympics and Paralympics.

At the same time, steps have been taken to reduce the travel burden for FIS and NSA officials attending international meetings. FIS Congresses organized in uneven years are now conducted as video conferences. Starting in 2024, each NSA can send a maximum of three delegates to on-site congresses (Reykjavik in 2024 and Belgrade in 2026), which will last only three days in future.

USSA currently has no elected representatives on the FIS Council. Delegates are elected by the FIS Congress, not by their NSAs, and American Dexter Paine, then council vice-president, was ousted in May 2022 in an election distorted by the walkout of a large number of delegates opposed to the voting procedure, which didn’t include possible negative votes from the delegates.

In Iceland, USSA may have a chance to propose a new member to the congress. The board of USSA surely is already reflecting about a candidate for this prestigious position.

American Hannah Kearney has been a voting member of the council since 2018, representing athletes rather than her NSA. She was a former freestyle champion with 46 World Cup wins and a gold medalist in moguls at the 2010 Olympics in Vancouver.

World Cup correspondent Patrick Lang wrote about Mikaela Shiffrin’s career in the May-June 2023 issue. 

Snapshots in Time

1970 Fall and Die
Once again, Sylvain Saudan is alive and well. He has just skied down the almost vertical face of Chamonix’s Aiguille de Bionnassay, and by the time you read this article Saudan probably will have added the fearful west face of Switzerland’s Eiger to his collection of first descents. He will have skied down or he will be dead, because if Saudan falls once he is a dead man—and he knows it. — Harvey Edwards, “Daredevil of the Alps: He Skis the Steepest” (SKI Magazine, Spring 1970)

1982 Knee Highs
Last year’s “knee-high” boots have made a lasting mark on the industry as this year’s models reflect a move towards a compromise mid-calf height that will probably be with us for quite a while. For those of you who still want the super highs, Dolomite, Tecnica, Raichle and Trappeur will happily accommodate you. The advantages, of course, are increased leverage of boot over ski and more comfort because stress loads and pressure points can be distributed over a larger contact area — “Equipment Expose” (Powder Magazine, Fall 1982)

1990 In Praise of the (Lifesaving) Skid Turn
I was disappointed with the analysis of the “Why Most People Ski Badly” because it repeats the long-standing concept that there’s a “right” way to ski. Stenmark’s technique may only be practical for top athletes. Yet one of the best aspects of skiing is that it can be enjoyed by a wide spectrum of abilities and equipment types. Do you really want to recommend “death to the pivot-skid turn”? Had I tried to ski The Grand Teton without it, I would be dead today. — William Briggs, Jackson, Wyoming, Letters, “Skiing Better in the ’90s” (Snow Country, June-July 1990)

2010 The Power of Average
Skiing asked a great question in the December issue: Do
average skiers care about the Freeride World Tour? Well, this average skier doesn’t. You know what would have been great? To see average skiers doing average things in your photo annual. And “How to Jump” in the same issue? Not many average skiers even think about that. A good day for me is when my skis remain on the snow. — Bob Griffin, Westfield, Massachusetts, Letters, “Average Skiers Unite” (Skiing Magazine, February-March 2010)

2021 Winning’s Price
Skiing almost broke me. And I’m far from the only athlete with a story like this. Elite competitors are starting to speak up about a reality that some coaches, doctors and sports associations have ignored or even covered up: World-class competitive sports can push children and young adults to the breaking point and sometimes beyond. It’s not just a few bad apples; it’s a culture focused upon winning at all costs. — Zoë Ruhl, “Our Culture of Winning at All Costs Is Broken. It Almost Broke Me.” (New York Times, August 6, 2021)

2023 Still Grieving
Beloved as he was, the Old Man was a pile of rocks—until May 3, 2003, when the slabs collapsed, victims of the same forces that had sculpted the human likeness in the first place. So why, 20 years later, is the stone face still mourned in New Hampshire like a fallen president? “I think it was a timeless and reassuring symbol, and people thought it was never going to fall,” said Brian Fowler, who helps run the Old Man of the Mountain Legacy Fund, created after the collapse. — Jenna Russell, “Why the Fuss Over a Rock Formation That Fell? Don’t Tell New Hampshire That.” (New York Times, May 5, 2023)

The 2022-23 season buried historic snowfall records.

From the Sierra Nevada range of California to the Wasatch Mountains of Utah, the winter of 2022–23 brought massive snowfall. It turns out, to no one’s surprise, that it really is possible to have too much of a good thing. (photo top courtesy Palisades Tahoe)

Palisades Tahoe closed for days on end while crews shoveled out lifts buried under 50 feet of snow. Passholders were not happy. The resort generated no revenue. No real estate was sold when properties were inaccessible.

At Alta and Snowbird, the “Interlodge” experience confines skiers to their hotels until avalanche danger passes and the mountain reopens. It can be great for guests when they finally are released and get to be the first ones to the untracked bounty. But this year Alta topped its snowiest winter ever, by more than eight feet (2.4 m) in early April, and Interlodge lasted from Monday, April 3, to Friday, April 7, with a brief respite on Thursday. Families lost a week of holiday, and the resort a week of on-mountain sales. In hopes of recouping, Alta extended its season to April 23 and closed with a total of 75 feet (22.8 m) of snow. Snowbird announced a closing date of June 15.

Most of the Sierra Nevada resorts stretched their closing from mid-April into at least early May; Kirkwood closed May 1, reporting 59 feet (18 m). Palisades Tahoe had similar numbers but plans skiing for July 4. Mammoth, with a record 60 feet (18.2 m) at the base lodge and 74 feet (22.4 m) at the summit, doesn’t specify a closing date but promises to go past the end of July. 

The University of California, Berkeley’s Central Sierra Snow Lab, on Donner Pass near Lake Tahoe, has tracked snowfall numbers since 1878. On March 1 the lab reported 531 inches (44.25 ft/13.5 m), with 141.9 inches (11.8 ft/3.6 m) in a single week. By April 29 they had 738 inches (61.5 ft/18.7 m), 205 percent of the 20-year median and eclipsing the 50-year record of 572.4 inches (47.7 ft/14.5 m).

A post on Facebook by Sierra-at-Tahoe staff outlined some of the problems. “Lift shacks and ski patrol stations are completely buried. Chairs in West Bowl have been covered.” Fire officials announced that “unrelenting winter storms have damaged dozens of homes and businesses in the Greater South Lake Tahoe area.” They responded to roof collapses and an “alarming” increase in gas leaks and carbon monoxide emergencies.

The blame fell on “atmospheric rivers,” storms defined as a corridor of super-saturated air greater than 2,000 km long (1,240 miles), less than 1,000 km wide (620 miles) and capable of carrying as much water as the Mississippi River. Locals call this a Pineapple Express, and such storms typically provide 50 percent of California’s annual moisture. In 1996–97 a New Year’s class 5 storm over the Central California coast lasted more than 100 hours and caused more than $100 billion in damage. This winter, California received 12 atmospheric rivers.

On April 20, state agencies reported that California’s reservoirs were at 105 percent capacity and estimated that the snowpack held more than 30 million acre-feet of future meltwater—twice the springtime average. With more heavy wet storms always possible at higher elevations, the prospect loomed for disastrous runoff scenarios. 

Colorado’s Oldest Ski Lift to Call it Quits Next Season

From Aspen’s slopes to Sunlight Mountain, the veteran double chair has tales to tell.

First hauling pioneering skiers on Aspen Mountain in 1954, Colorado’s oldest ski lift migrated to neighboring Sunlight Mountain in 1973. The double chair will come down in April 2024, after 70 years of service.

Terry Ross, Sunlight’s assistant general manager, noted that older does not necessarily mean obsolete. “It’s a very safe machine, I just think it’s time that it gets retired,” he told the Denver Post. “A lot of that is public perception. They get on this old stuff, some people don’t like it. They don’t feel as secure on it. And no matter how good you maintain a machine, it’s not going to run forever. I’d rather replace it before it retires itself.”

The double chair ran on Aspen Mountain from 1954 until 1969, when it was replaced and later sold to Sunlight. The lift was named Segundo because it was Sunlight’s second lift. The resort, located outside of Glenwood Springs, Colorado, opened in 1966 with one lift, known as Primo.

According to a history of Sunlight Mountain by Paul Hauk, Segundo formerly served as Aspen’s Lift 3. “I’m sure there were some famous people who rode that lift,” said Tom Jankovsky, Sunlight’s general manager from 1985 to 2018.

Segundo, a fixed-grip double, is a vestige of ski history, engineered by pioneering Colorado lift designer Robert Heron. Safety is not a concern with Segundo. Colorado ski lifts are regulated by the state’s Passenger Tramway Safety Board. Like all lifts, Segundo is inspected and sanctioned by the tramway board twice a year.

Ross marvels at how well Segundo has held up over the years and notes that the lift speaks to old-school manufacturing practices. “Back in the day, they really overbuilt some of this stuff,” Ross said. “If you look at the drive equipment and the drive terminals, the machinery is big. It’s overbuilt, over-engineered, and that’s one of the reasons it’s lasted as long as it has. You look at the lattice-work structures on the towers, that’s trademark Bob Heron, that’s how he built stuff. It’s big and massive. If you look at the loadings on those towers, there’s no tower that’s loaded more than 4,000 pounds, and those towers would easily hold 10 times that. He really was a pioneer in the lift industry.”

Heron began his career designing tramways for mining operations in 1937. During World War II he designed portable tramways that were tested by 10th Mountain Division soldiers at Camp Hale before being used in the assault of Riva Ridge in Italy. After the war he established the Heron Engineering Company and was involved in the design of more than 120 chairlifts, according to the Denver Post.

After a long and successful life, Segundo has earned its retirement, Ross said.

“The lift is the same age I am,” Ross told the Post. “It’s old enough to collect Social Security.”  —Greg Ditrinco

Snapshots in Time

1949 Arnold Lunn Takes a Stand The inclusion of a Russian on the FIS council is the immediate reason for Arnold Lunn’s resignation as the British representative to FIS. Lunn has been the leading English ski personality for well over 20 years. “No club committee would waste five minutes on a candidate who coupled his application for membership with a demand that he should be given a seat on the committee … This application was an insult to the FIS and should never have been submitted to the council,” Lunn wrote in his resignation report. — “Lunn Quits FIS Seat, Protests Ski Politics,” (SKI Magazine, November 1949)

1966 The Superior Strato Every once in a while you meet with an experience that really sets you up a notch or two. Like a ride on a roller coaster. A few fast corners in a Porsche. Even your first true, but crude, parallel christie. You get charged with excitement. The Mitchell-Rossignol Strato Slalom can do that to you. Skiing on them was a new, switching-on experience. — “Ski Test 6. The Rossignol Strato” (SKI Magazine, November 1966)

1978 Ignore the Extremists The ski publications have been devoting way too much time to the extremists. If they’re not covering the upside-down artists and freedog noodles, they’re doing a piece on the joys of organic euphoria on x-c skis. Little attention has been paid to the bulk of the participants; we the people. And horror of horrors, the entire family enjoys it. — Allen Titensor, Irvine California, Letters, “Alpine Advocate” (Powder MAGAZINE, November 1978)

1979 Myth Busters If you’re absolutely, positively, 100 percent convinced that all you want to do in life is ski with your feet welded together, you probably won’t want to read this. You’re a hardcore “paralleler.” I understand. I was one too. Just go right on pretending you have one leg instead of two. But if the suspicion lurks that you might be missing something, read on. Learning to be a two-legged skier can open up a whole new world. — Stu Campbell, “The Feet-Together Myth” (SKI Magazine, December 1979)

1990 Inevitable “Destruction” of Ski Towns Futurist August St. John, a professor of future studies at Long Island University, has developed a theory on the life and death of tourist towns, which he says go through five stages: Welcome, Development, Resentment, Confrontation and, finally, Destruction. By “destruction,” St. John doesn’t mean a physical catastrophe, but the ruin or disappearance, as growth overwhelms a resort area, of the things that were the original attractions: neighborliness and sense of community, a rural landscape, small-town atmosphere, friendliness, low traffic and low taxes. — Andrew Nemethy, “Resorts Go Up … And Down” (Snow Country, November 1990)

2023 Death Watch on Your Wrist As of September, these devices [Apple watches] have come equipped with technology meant to detect car crashes and alert 911 dispatchers. It is a more sensitive upgrade to software on Apple devices that can detect when a user falls and then dial for help. But the latest innovation appears to send the device into overdrive: It keeps mistaking skiers, and some other fitness enthusiasts, for car-wreck victims. Lately, emergency call centers in some ski regions have been inundated with inadvertent, automated calls, dozens or more a week. — Matt Ritchel, “My Watch Thinks I’m Dead” (New York Times, February 3, 2023)

This fourth-place diploma for an “international” race in 1948 held a special place in my uncle’s memory. Tommy Norgate had joined the Royal Air Force in 1939 and was posted to Norway immediately after the war as some sort of arbiter between the departing German Nazis and the Norwegians. He had been on skis only one season before this race.

The artist was Kaare Sørum, who had trained at the Statens kunst-og håndverksskole, the Norwegian School of Arts and Crafts in Oslo. He found work as a draftsman, lithographer and book illustrator, and became a well-known poster artist. Some of his work was printed by Thon, the same firm that produced the diploma. Sørum joined the Nasjonal Samling, the would-be Norwegian Nazi party, in November 1940. He worked with Harald Damsleth, and the two provided many posters extolling Norwegian Aryan men, women and children.

The war ended on 8 May 1945. Sørum was taken into custody three weeks later. His trial, five months later, resulted in an unanimous guilty verdict. He was sentenced to two years of hard labor—which was reduced by the five months he had already spent in prison. And, following the rulings of a post-war national law, he was deprived of some civil rights for 10 years. After the war, he turned to portraying more civil matters, illustrating a sea rescue service booklet, and also this diploma. The clothes are all Norwegian, the style all Arlberg—the forward lean, out of the gate and down to the next set, snow flying.

I wonder if my uncle had any inkling of all this as he treasured the special memory of those glorious winter excursions and particularly of his fourth-place success on the course in the Telemark hills of Norway. — E. John B. Allen

Note: My appreciation goes to Jon Lunde for newspaper clippings of Sørum and particularly to Halvor Kleppen, who sent me a number of hand-written and typed documents from the Norwegian state archives.

 

St-Germain scores first Canadian gold in 31 years.

Špindlerův Mlýn is a charming resort in the Czech republic that holds special memories for Mikaela Shiffrin. She made her World Cup debut here in March 2011, at age 15. She returned in 2019, winning the race that her father, Jeff, captured from behind his camera lens.

This season, Shiffrin came to Špindlerův Mlýn with 84 World Cup wins and the potential, over two slalom races, to match Ingemar Stenmark’s all-time record of 86 World Cup wins. Fresh off double GS wins in Kronplatz, Italy, where she surpassed Lindsey Vonn’s female record of 82 wins, this was Shiffrin's last stop on the World Cup tour before the World Championships in Courchevel, France.

(photo top: Mikaela Shiffrin celebrates her 83rd World Cup win, a giant slalom at Kronplatz, Italy. Alain Grosclaude photo/Agence Zoom/Getty Images)

On Saturday, January 28, Shiffrin captured victory 85. On Sunday, fans sensed the inevitable, history-making event, and after winning the first run Shiffrin seemed poised to deliver. But then, as if to underscore the difficulty of the pursuit, German’s Lena Duerr claimed her first World Cup SL win. The .06 separating Duerr and Shiffrin meant that fans would have to wait until March for what is no longer if, but when Shiffrin will surpass Stenmark to become, by the numbers, the greatest skier of all time.

In the meantime, she had an eventful two weeks at the Alpine World Championships, winning three medals (one gold and two silvers) and parting ways with her long-time coach, Mike Day. With her gold in the giant slalom, Shiffrin equaled the modern-day World Championships record of seven victories, sharing it with Anja Pärson, Marielle Goitschel, Marcel Hirscher and Toni Sailer. 

Rewriting the Script

Since her last visit to the storybook venue of Špindlerův Mlýn, Shiffrin’s life has been anything but a fairy tale. Jeff Shiffrin died tragically in February 2020. After time off to mourn her father, Shiffrin returned to racing just in time for the World Cup season to be canceled due to the pandemic.

Despite the emotional upheaval, she maintained her winning form and rode into the 2022 Beijing Olympics beneath the weighty expectations of being a medal favorite or contender in all events. There, she publicly flamed out, leaving Beijing without any medals and leaving the world with an enduring image of her in defeat, curled into a ball at the side of the course.

Anyone who bet against Shiffrin in the long term, however, would fare poorly in Vegas.

So far this season, Shiffrin has claimed 11 victories across three disciplines—slalom, GS and super-G. With nine more World Cup races on her schedule this season, the all-time record is just one that Shiffrin is resetting.

She has already tied up the season-long slalom World Cup globe, making her the first woman to win seven slalom titles. Only Vonn, with eight downhill globes, has more discipline titles.

Shiffrin holds the all-time record for slalom victories (52), and in giant slalom her 19 wins are, in women’s skiing, second only to Swiss great Vreni Schneider’s 20. With already double her wins from last year, Shiffrin has the potential to match or exceed her own record, set in 2019, of 17 wins across four disciplines.

86 and Beyond

In some ways Shiffrin and Stenmark’s accomplishments are freakishly similar. Over her 241 World Cup starts, Shiffrin’s podium percentage is 56 percent. Over his 271 starts, Stenmark’s percentage was 57 percent. Shiffrin’s 83rd win came on her 237th start, while Stenmark’s 83rd win came on his 238th start.

In other ways, they are very different. Shiffrin’s victories have come across all six Alpine disciplines—slalom, GS,
super-G, downhill, combined and parallel. Stenmark, who did not compete in downhill (except in one combined) and super-G (an event that predated most all of his career), collected all his victories in slalom and GS.

Shiffrin is reaching this record-breaking point in her career at the peak of her stride. It took Stenmark three seasons to get his final three wins. Vonn, as she told commentator Steve Porino, “literally bled for that record,” patching her broken body together to get back in the gate during her final years competing.

Vonn’s last victory was at age 33 and Stenmark’s at age 32. Shiffrin is 27, and to this point her body has sustained no major injuries. Stenmark and Vonn have both gone on record predicting Shiffrin will eclipse their records and go on to a hundred or more victories.

The way Shiffrin has gotten to this point is, ironically, by focusing on the process rather than the numbers. “I don’t feel a lot of pressure to get his record,” says Shiffrin. “Now I am so close. I am trying to take a moment to enjoy it. I’m not worried about it. I can enjoy the competition for what it is and do my best.”

At the February break for the World Championships, Shiffrin led the overall World Cup standings with 1,697 points to Petra Vlhova’s 966. When World Cup racing resumes in March, Shiffrin will have nine more races to set the record, including two in Stenmark’s home country of Sweden.

83 Wins—and 83 Roses

Skiing History contributor Patrick Lang sent along some thoughts about Shiffrin’s record season, based on his conversations with
Mikaela and Eileen Shiffrin on January 24 and 25 at St. Vigilio-Kronplatz, Italy, where Shiffrin scored her 83rd and 84th World Cup victories, exceeding Lindsey Vonn’s victory record of 82. Lang
arranged a gift of 83 roses for Shiffrin after Tuesday’s GS win. She told reporters she needed time to figure out what to say.

Lang reports: Shiffrin is very clearly happy and relaxed, focused on her skiing rather than on numbers and records. On January 24, after winning the first of back-to-back giant slaloms, she was more interested in the details of her day. “The snow surface was perfect and I can just focus on the skiing,” she said. “That’s way more fun. Between the meeting, and inspections, and runs, I was able to get in four naps. It’s important to get rest now, with three more races over the next four days.”

She now feels that she has the support not only of her mother, Eileen, but of boyfriend Alexander Aamodt Kilde. At the World Championships break, Kilde had won five World Cup speed events, including the Lauberhorn and Hahnenkamm downhills. “Watching Alex is so inspirational,” Shiffrin said. “We talk every day, about skiing, and his energy is a big part of my success.”

 After 63 Years, A Canadian Gold in Slalom

 

 

On February 18, lightning struck 28-year-old Quebecoise Laurence St-Germain. An NCAA star for the University of Vermont, and Canadian national slalom champion, in eight years on the World Cup circuit, St-Germain had never podiumed, and she finished eighth in the 2021 World Cup slalom standings. But in the second run of the World Championship slalom, she beat Shiffrin by an astonishing 1.18 second, to win the gold medal by a two-run total of .57. It was Canada’s first gold medal in slalom since Anne Heggtveit took the Olympic win at Squaw Valley in 1960, and the first in any Alpine event since Kerrin Lee-Gartner won the downhill in 1992.

 

Warren Miller: Annual Film Not Dead

With apologies to Twain, the recent reports of the death of the annual Warren Miller ski film have been grossly exaggerated.

After acquiring the Warren Miller franchise in 2020, Outside Inc., ran into the brick wall of Covid-19. With theater-audience events canceled, the 2020 film was only available in a pay-per-view streaming format. And Outside reduced the number of tour stops in 2021. The brand took a hit, and the financial damage was considerable.

In an Instagram post in January, longtime (and now former) film director Chris Patterson noted that “due to financial challenges at Outside, the executives have chosen to assemble the future movies entirely with ‘existing footage’—no need for a camera crew, plane tickets, lift tickets and for that matter, no need for athletes or snow.”

Caught off-guard by the social post, Outside scrambled to set the public record straight. “We are not ending the film and we are not just trotting out archival footage moving forward,” Micah Abrams, Outside’s vice president of digital content development, told Skiing History in an interview. “We are absolutely continuing to tour the world with the film.”

What caused the confusion after the social post is a 75th-anniversary two-film bookend plan—not public at the time—that starts with a look back at the Miller legacy in 2023–24, followed by a look forward at the future of the sport in the 2024–25 season.

According to Abrams, the 2023–24 film will be “a love letter that looks back at what got us here,” with archival footage and a new narration that celebrates Miller’s legacy, his more than 70 films and his embrace of exotic locales and the skiing lifestyle. The following season will be the big blowout. The 75th film will showcase “new faces, new athletes, new locations” as part of the “evolution of the film tour,” Abrams says. “The 75th will focus on what skiing and boarding will be for the next generation.”

With the release of Deep and Light in 1950, Miller took the ski-film genre to a wider audience. A born promoter, Miller tirelessly built his brand on his insights into the then-fringe sport, finding a pitch-perfect blend of outdoor wholesomeness and athletic sex appeal.

Miller’s timing also was serendipitous. His films' popularity tracked with the explosion of skiing in the 1960s and 1970s. The Warren Miller movie soon came to be seen as the unofficial start of the ski season for many skiers. Miller, who died in 2018, sold the company to his son, Kurt Miller, in 1988. The brand went through several changes in ownership before arriving in Outside’s portfolio.

Abrams emphasizes that the two-film strategy isn’t about looking to the past, but rather a bridge to the future. “People don’t buy a ticket to a Warren film like they buy a ticket to the latest Marvel movie,” he says. “It’s a tradition that we’re bringing to the next generation.”  — Greg Ditrinco

SHORT TURNS

1924 “Absolute Supremacy” ­—In Jumping or Judging?

In the inaugural Winter Olympics, in Chamonix, France, Norway topped the list of medals overall, showing “absolute supremacy in the ski events,” The Times reported. American Anders Haugen (born in Telemark) jumped farther but scored lower than three Norwegians. The judges said the form and style of the Norwegians were superior, and American officials decided not to appeal. In 1974, Norwegian historian Jacob Vaage found an error in the scoring calculations, and Haugen was promoted to the bronze medal. — “Norway Wins Title in Olympic Games” (New York Times, February 5, 1924)

1957 Baby Boom
The size and ages of skiers have changed. Family skiing is becoming so popular that many centers advertise baby-sitting service or well-equipped nurseries, and rapidly expanding junior programs are turning out daredevil kid racers who can out-ski most adults. Family skiing is encouraged by the fact that some slopes not too distant from large cities are overcoming unreliable winter weather by manufacturing their own snow. — “New Sights on the Slopes”
(Life magazine, February 1957)

1970 Saturday Night Fever
If you haven’t tried night skiing, don’t knock it. For one thing, it’s more of a social thing. In the daytime, couples may go to a ski area together, lunch together, and leave together, but rarely will they ski together. At night, usually because the slopes with the biggest challenges and longest runs aren’t open, the man is contented to ski at a different pace. Besides, at night, he is more apt to regard his girl—even if she’s his wife—as his date. And there are more frequent stops at the bar—to ward off the cold, of course. — “Night Skiing,” Al Greenberg (Skiing Magazine, Spring 1970)

1982 Such a Deal
The price of lift tickets is up again this season. It costs you $20 to ski at Squaw Valley or Vail this year, $21 at Stowe, $22 at Aspen. But before you throw the boards and boots into the back closet, think about this: Where else can you get seven hours of mountain beauty, acres of snow groomed for you, an intense social atmosphere, trained first-aid experts looking after you and unlimited rides up a mountain so you can come flying down? Compare [the cost of skiing] to a night on the town in New York, Los Angeles or London. — Chaco Mohler, “Such a Deal,” Letters (Powder Magazine, January 1982)

1998 One Board or Two?
Snowboarding’s cool image has been co-opted by every kid-targeted, mass-market product, from the Ninja Turtles to the Muppets. So it’s no surprise that even 3-year-olds are begging to ride. But while parents often start their kids on skis as early as age 3, experts say it may be best to wait before letting them try snowboarding. “Children under 7 are very ‘gross body,’” says James Patterson, children's ski-school supervisor at Killington in Vermont. “It's hard for them to coordinate independent movements, which are crucial to snowboarding." — Moira McCarthy “The Right Age to Ride” (Snow Country, December 1998)

2010 Hard-Headed
A reader in November’s letters said she was “appalled” that SKI Magazine testers were shown skiing without helmets. Is wearing a helmet safer? Sure, but wearing a helmet in your car every day would keep you safer, too. People have been skiing without helmets for a long time; I wear a helmet when I race, but I appreciate having the right to make my own decisions. — Dallas Anderson, St. Paul, Minnesota, Letters (SKI Magazine, January 2010)

 

In 2019, long-distance runner and ski mountaineer Kilian Jornet—with the goal of just testing “how his body will perform”—completed 51 laps on Tusten ski area in Molde, Norway, in 24 hours. He climbed 78,274 feet, crushing previous 24-hour records by a ridiculous margin. To be clear, Molde is at sea level. Jornet climbed 1,535 feet, 51 times, on roughly a one-mile piste. That works out to skinning up at about 2.25 mph for 25 minutes and resting a couple of minutes during a 36-mph schuss. Fifty-one times.

Photo above: Kilian Jornet has been rewriting the record books for ski mountaineering and high-altitude running for more than a decade, sometimes merely as a result of his training regimen. Right: An early ski-endurance competition, the 24 Hours of Aspen attracted elite athletes, television audiences and sponsorship dollars in the 1980s-1990s. YouTube photo

That’s nothing for the Catalan Jornet, who grew up in Chamonix. For more than 15 years he’s been methodically assaulting the records for high-altitude marathons and ski mountaineering. In his recent five-year “Summits of My Life” project, he set the fastest known times (or FKT) for the ascent and ski descent of major mountains including Kilimanjaro, Denali, Aconcagua, the Matterhorn and Mont Blanc, at times shaving hours off previous records. Some of his records have since been broken by Ecuadorian mountain guide Karl Egloff.

Climbing and skiing massive verticals has become a passion with today’s endurance athletes, who are repeatedly blowing by many of the world's best times. Which begs the question, when did vertical-feet-skied become a thing?

Before smart watches and phone apps made vertical-feet scorekeeping easy, it was possible to estimate your numbers from the number of runs completed. Heliski operators charged by the vertical foot, and kept accurate count. You could keep track of your bragging rights whether for 24 hours, a week, a season or a lifetime. Heliski operations certified guest accomplishments with pins and special million-foot prizes, like Mike Wiegele’s silver belt buckles and limited-edition powder suits at Canadian Mountain Holidays.

One of the first vertical-foot-based competitions was the late 24 Hours of Aspen. After 13 events in 16 years, declining television ratings scuttled the show in 2003. But it left behind a slew of records. Chris Kent of Canada did 83 laps for 271,161 feet for the men’s mark in 1991. That’s 216 miles of skiing at an average 66 mph. Kate McBride and Anda Rojs set the women’s vertical record of 261,360 feet in 1997.

Once the genie was out of the bottle, lift- and rotor-assisted records started to topple. In 1994, Canadian speed skier and Chamonix resident Mark Jones logged 212,000 vertical feet in just 12 hours at Les Grands Montets. Next, Dr. Mark Bennett racked up 294,380 feet in 14 hours in the Yukon in 1997 for a new “daylight” world record. Fourteen months later, former U.S. Ski Team racer Rusty Squires chartered a specialized high-altitude helicopter and recorded 331,160 vertical feet in 10 hours and 15 minutes at Big Sky, Montana.

In the meantime, the guides at Wiegele’s were determined to set a record based on the normal constraints of commercial heli-skiing, with a full group of skiers and a single machine. In 1998, Swiss extreme skier Dominique Perret, Chris Kent and Austrian guide Robert Reindl, with Edi Podivinsky and Luke Sauder of the Canadian Alpine Team, logged 353,600 vertical feet in 14½ hours.

By this point recognition was growing that assisted vertical-foot records were as much about money as skill and endurance. As ski mountaineering boomed (it’ll be a full medal event at the 2026 Milan Cortina Olympics) interest focused on self-powered athletes. In 2009, Austrian Eckhard Dorschlag set a 24-hour world record of 60,350 feet. Ultra-marathoner Mike Foote broke that in 2018 with 68,697 feet. A few months later Norwegian Lars Erik Eriksen took it to 68,697 feet. Then Jornet obliterated that.

Born in 1987, Jornet has captured more Skyrunner World Series and Skimo (ski mountaineering) World Championship medals than we have room to list. He still holds the mark for the Innominata ski traverse on Mont Blanc linking Chamonix and Courmayeur (8 hours 42 minutes), as well as the fastest ascent/descent of Mont Blanc from Chamonix (4:57) and of the Matterhorn from Breuil-Cervinia (2:52).

As for why all the fuss over vertical speed records advancing every season, Nick Heil, writing in Outside, quoted Foote: “How many push-ups can I do in a minute? How long can I hold my breath? How far can I ski in a day? In the end, it’s all arbitrary and contrived, but it gets people to ask, what am I capable of?” 

 

Snapshots in Time

1958 Be Careful What You Wish For
A penetrating statistical study of the ski industry in Colorado and New Mexico has been published by the University of Colorado. Pointing out that a great many more tourists visit Colorado and New Mexico in June, July and August than in the other months of the year, the authors ask if it is not possible to develop the winter tourist industry so that tourist facilities can be used all year. — “Skiers Under Scrutiny in Colorado and New Mexico” (SKI Magazine, October 1958)

1970 The Continuing Death of the Ski Bum
Once upon a time, the ski bum was the ultimate ski insider. As neither an entrenched member of the ski-area management nor a local profiteer, he enjoyed a free-swinging life with lots of time to ski and unlimited access to the inner circles of the ski establishment. It is, therefore, ironic that as the need for ski workers grows, the reputation of the ski bum diminishes. Ski bums, industry management will tell you, are bad news; the title is now synonymous with “hippie.” Many employers won’t consider hiring ski bums, even for temporary jobs. As a result, there are fewer of the old-time ski-bum types than ever before. — Janet Nelson, “But They’re Employed” (SKI Magazine, January 1970)

1978 Risk v. Reward
I have been skiing o.b. for many years. Skiing out of bounds is extremely dangerous. Inevitably some crazy powder addicts (myself included) will continue to leave the “safe” confines of patrolled areas. After reading Lou Dawson’s account and subtle hints (“... how far can you crawl with a spinal fracture?”), I realized certain steps must be taken to ensure the safety or at least the survival of o.b. skiers. Education is what is needed on this topic. — Steven Harrison, Central Valley, New York, “Whistling in the Dark" (Letters, Powder Magazine, Spring 1978)

1981 Crowds and Crashes
The rapidly increasing skiing population has led to an alarming increase in inconsiderate and out-of-control skiers who are a serious menace. Last season, an out-of-control skier crashed into me. He never so much as asked if I needed help. I’ll have a scar I’ll carry for the rest of my life. For too long ski areas have allowed Bonzai Bombers to endanger others on the slope without adequate punishment. It’s time something was done to protect the rest of us from these slope-side criminals. —Thomas F. Warda, Rochester, N.Y., "Slope menaces" (Letters, Skiing Magazine, October 1981)

2007 Bode Rules
Call them the Bode Rules. This year every athlete on the U.S. Ski Team is required to stay in official team housing. Every racer on the team is also prohibited from having a celebratory drink with the coaches after a big win, because it’s a slippery slope from that to, say, being photographed carousing with Miss March 2002 draped on your arm during the Olympics. U.S. Ski Team chief Bill Marolt implemented the stricter guidelines after the strongest American squad in decades limped away from the 2006 Torino Games with only two medals—neither of them won by the phenomenally gifted Bode Miller. —Nathaniel Vinton, “Ski Fast but Party Slow”(SKI Magazine, February 2007)

2021 A Woman’s Place Is On Patrol
“When there are women on a team like this, it lends an important voice and perspective to the job. I can say that having women on patrol keeps everyone connected. Men muscle their way through the job and women do it with finesse,” said Addy McCord, 64, one of the longest-standing professional patrollers in the industry. — Shauna Farnell, “A Surge of Women in Ski Patrols, Once Nearly All Men” (New York Times, February 11, 2021)

In 1985, the 7th Heaven T-bar expanded Blackcomb's vertical to a statute mile, and tripled the skiable acreage.

One midwinter day during the 1984–85 season, Blackcomb’s avalanche forecaster and ski patroller Peter “Zhiggy” Xhignesse, came to my office with an idea. He had been looking at the south side high on Blackcomb Mountain and thought there was some very nice, open, skiable terrain there. To me, “south side” meant direct sun, while “high” and “open” meant very high winds. But I agreed to go with him the next day to take a look. The area was about a mile from the top of the Jersey Cream chair, then the highest top station on the mountain. That meant a long traverse to get skiers out there. But Zhiggy extolled the open chutes and glades, plus access to the Horstman Glacier. Together, they would double our total skiable terrain and add significant backcountry skiing. The marketing kicker was that this would give Blackcomb a full mile of vertical drop, the greatest in North America. 

I agreed to try to make this bold idea happen. At the time, the shareholders wanted to sell Blackcomb and were uninterested in making any further investment on the mountain. So I was faced with the challenge of acquiring and installing a lift without spending much money. That eliminated any chairlift options. Our small sister resort, Fortress Mountain, just west of Calgary, had a T-bar that had seen very little use over recent years. It could be put to much better use at Blackcomb.

No ski area wants its skiers to know that a lift is being taken away. Also, there could have been a bunch of red tape—and, hence, delays—around moving an asset from Alberta to British Columbia. So everything had to happen quietly and quickly. The whole lift was dismantled over one night and a day under the leadership of Blackcomb’s VP of Operations, Rich Morten, and loaded on a flatbed truck. Within two days it was unloaded, ready to be reconstructed on Blackcomb.

The board’s approval was still needed to complete the installation. The support was just not there. It was a hard no on spending the small amount of extra money to install the T-bar and cut a few trails. I countered by re-emphasizing the full mile of vertical skiing—yes 5,280 feet! “By promoting a vertical mile of skiing, we can sell enough additional season passes to recoup the cost,” I promised. After much hesitation, the board eventually gave the green light.

We had an exceptionally cold and snowy fall, delaying construction, but we got the T-bar open for Christmas—just eight months after Peter broached the idea.

We needed a name for the new lift and all the new terrain. The T-bar was the seventh lift on Blackcomb, but we had moved on from just numbering our lifts. About 20 years previously I had been skiing at Steven’s Pass outside of Seattle in a heavy, wet snowstorm. I was riding up a steep double chairlift, all bundled up under my hood, trying to stay warm and dry. At the top, a liftie with a big, black beard came out of the shack and in a very deep voice rumbled “Welcommme to 7th Heavennn.” I never forgot that voice.

So the new terrain, and T-bar, were named 7th Heaven. The increase in season-pass sales that season more than paid for the new lift. Skiers loved being able to get to the very top of Blackcomb, with its vast high-alpine terrain and views for miles of peaks and glaciers, then ski a full mile vertically to the base. The exposure was a key factor in attracting our new owners, Intrawest, the following summer. Along with massive lift and facilities upgrades, the T-bar was replaced with a detachable quad in 1987, and the 7th Heaven Express remains a signature lift at the resort. 

Hugh Smythe, previously CEO of Blackcomb and president of the Intrawest Resort Operations Group, retired in 2009.

Veteran whaler John Bertoncini, known as Johnny the Painter, brought the rigors of the Arctic and the whaling industry to life in his art work. Here, ice-bound crews exit their whaling ships in the Beaufort Sea in the Arctic Ocean.

Swedish-American artist John Bertoncini was born in Stockholm in 1872, to a Swedish mother who had married an immigrant Italian theater-scenery painter. We do not know when he emigrated to the United States, but it appears his first Arctic voyage was in 1892. He signed on for whaling and trading voyages for another 38 years, eventually going aboard as captain and mate, occasionally. His many paintings—he was known as Johnny the Painter—provide a major view of Arctic life and now may be viewed in a number of museums, most prominently in the New Bedford Whaling Museum in Massachusetts.

This oil-on-canvas painting documents ice-bound whalers at play on Herschel Island (Inuit: Qikiqtaruk) in the Beaufort Sea, some three miles off the Arctic coast of the Yukon. Favored by the whaling fleets, various supply and trading companies, and local Inuits, the island often harbored 1,000 people. Most whalers preferred to sleep in their boats rather than in the ramshackle huts on the ice. The painting shows seven whaling ships, the community storehouse, freshwater ice on stages and two piles of coal. And the men? There they are playing football, baseball and (top right) skiing.

There cannot be many ship’s logs that report “Great excitements. Coasting and Skeing.” The date was Sunday, February 18, 1894, when Captain Hartson H. Bodfish of the barkentine Newport, of West Tisbury, Massachusetts, recorded the day’s events. The sports described include fun-of-the-fair three-legged races and sack races—nothing too serious and all meant to counteract the winter boredom which could so easily lead to alcoholism and bad, often bloody, behavior.

A few captains brought their wives and, occasionally, daughters on voyages, and the ladies leavened the social life with homely teas. Sometimes they joined the men skiing. As at home, women’s fashion was a hot topic, and the ladies’ trousers were “cut with legs quite loose and very full aft” as one captain wrote admiringly. Bertoncini was witness to the tough life of the seamen, their successes, failures and their freedoms, seen here in the sporting activities. 

 

From a poor man’s wind tunnel to insane world records. 

If riding your skis while they’re attached to the roof of a fast car seems like a stupid stunt that could kill you, you’re right. You may be surprised to learn that it’s an actual sport. Kind of.

Canadian downhiller "Jungle Jim" Hunter is credited with the first cartop speed run in the early 1970s. While training for the 1972 Olympics, he built a rack on the roof of his dad’s old pickup, strapped his skis to it and climbed on board, riding on all kinds of roads and reaching a top speed of 62 mph. At Sapporo, he won the FIS bronze in combined.

(Photo above: In 1985, Sean Cridland recruited land-speed racer Rick Vesco as chauffeur and headed to Bonneville Salt Flats. The result: a 162mph world record, which still stands. Wade McCoy photo/Cridland collection.)

Cartop world-record holder Sean Cridland notes, “What Jim was doing was different from what we did later. He liked bouncy dirt roads for downhill training. We were going for speed records.”

When Steve McKinney and Tom Simons went to their first Flying Kilometer speed skiing trials in Cervinia, Italy, in 1974, they knew it would be useful to experience some wind-tunnel time. But wind tunnels are scarce and spendy. So they found a straight stretch of the Italian Autostrada and, along with Finnish speed legend Kalevi Häkkinen, took turns roof-riding “just to feel what it was like going 100 mph.” It may have helped, because McKinney set a new world record of 117 mph (188 kph) on snow later that year.

Häkkinen, considered the father of speed skiing, continued to train on cartops for several years and set a highway speed record in 1978 of 118 mph (190 kph), aboard a rally-equipped Saab as a promotion for his sponsors. Swedish downhiller Benny Lindberg also did an ad, on a Saab 900 Turbo driven by Ingemar Stenmark. A few years later Lasse Nyhlen officially upped Häkkinen’s mark to 122 mph on an Alfa Romeo sedan.

 

 

In 1985, British brothers Graham and Stuart Wilkie convinced an English car-racing team to put them aboard a Jaguar for some gear testing. They reached 125 mph. Two years later Graham set a new world record on snow, at 132.1 mph (212 kph).

Around that time, American Sean Cridland, while competing against the Wilkie brothers on snow, decided to try the vehicular version and take it up a notch. The cartop skiers achieving the fastest speeds rode production cars at racetracks and airports, both of which limited their top-end numbers. So Cridland went to the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah. There, land-speed racer Rick Vesco agreed to work with Cridland, and developed a special chassis for his 335 mph "Little Giant 444” car. Kirsten Culver, who held the women’s speed skiing record in 1983 through ’84, had been training on an airport runway near Reno and joined Cridland in Utah. “We really don’t get to train between races because there aren’t any real speed training facilities,” she explained to me at the time. “You end up just sort of training during the race.”

 

 

Their first day on the salt flats, in Fall 1985, proved enlightening, “These cars are geared so high they have to get pushed for about half a mile before they’re going fast enough to drop into gear,” says Cridland. Any Bonneville car is timed for a full mile, then coasts a long way to scrub speed and roll to a stop—with the skier still in a tuck for most of it.

Cridland torched his legs on a practice run, so for his official run, “my legs started cramping and I was screaming into my helmet,” he says. He clocked at 148 mph, and Culver went 152. The next morning, September 29, Cridland went back out and turned in a 162-mph run. The Wilkie brothers were some of the first people he informed. His record (for men) and Culver’s (for women) still stand, 37 years later. And Culver’s record also beats all men other than Cridland.

The use of cartops for speed-skiing training has continued sporadically. In 2000, Brazilian Christian Blanco was photographed doing it at São Paulo Interlagos racetrack while training for the 24 Hours of Megève ski race. And in 2018, speed skier Jan Farrell posted video with the caption, “I raced on top of a BMW M2 in the Jarama circuit in Madrid.” He reached 111.85 mph (180 kph) while doing “aerodynamic training.” He observed, “It was really fun!” 

Snapshots in Time

1982 Consider the Correct Comps
The price of lift tickets is up again this season. It costs you $20 [ed: $61 in today's dollars] to ski at Squaw Valley or Vail this year, $21 at Stowe, $22 at Aspen. But before you throw the boards and boots into the back closet, think about this: Where else can you get seven hours of mountain beauty, acres of snow groomed for you, an intense social atmosphere, trained first-aid experts looking after you and unlimited rides up a mountain so you can come flying down? Compare [the cost of skiing] to a night on the town in New York, Los Angeles or London. — Chaco Mohler, “Such a Deal” (Powder Magazine, January 1982)

1990 Alien Life Forms on the Mountain
A 40ish skier in California looked down at some boarders from his lift seat and grumbled, “The ski area built ’em a halfpipe. Why can’t they stay over there?” A ski patrol director at a big Rockies resort confided that some of his staffers considered boarders “an alien life form.” And then there was the lift attendant who muttered, “Here comes another knuckle-dragger” as I scooted up to the loading area. What gives me bad dreams is the possibility, however remote, that ski areas might reexamine their snowboard decision and ban the sport again. I believe that, ultimately, what’s good for snowboarding is good for skiing. — Dana White, “Border Crossing” (Skiing Magazine, October 1990)

1996 The Revolution is Here
The Shaped Ski Revolution is here and it will make skiing more fun. It’s a revolution that will free thousands of skiers from the drudgery of the skidded turn, and thousands more will ski longer, stronger and faster. — Jackson Hogen, “Revolution” (Snow Country, October 1996)

 

 

2007 40-Year-Old Hot Dog
It was 25 years ago this winter that a Hollywood crew settled at Squaw Valley, Calif., for 52 days to produce the seminal sex and ski flick. Hot Dog opened in January 1983, finishing No. 2 at the box office. The ’70s ski world plays out on the big screen: mogul hotdogging, riotous downhilling, wet T-shirt contests, gondola nookie, dope smoking, cavorting girls, beer drinking and hot tubbing. Lots of hot tubbing. Shannon Tweed, Playboy Playmate of the Year at the time, in her screen debut, had three minutes (soaking wet) that launched the hot tub industry—and thousands of lifelong skiers. — “A 25-Year-Old Hot Dog?” (SKI Magazine, February 2007)

2014 Skiing v. iPad
“Skis and snowboards are not like an iPad, not intuitive at all. With this new generation, their need is for constant stimulation. They go up to the mountain, and it’s complicated, so they drop out. Skiing doesn't just happen. Instruction is really important.” — Emily Brennan, Q&A with Joe Hession of Snow Operating, “How to Make Skiing Fun for Beginners” (New York Times, December 9, 2014)

2022 The Ultimate Liftie
Peter Landsman started documenting chairlifts when he was 10. Last month, the now 32-year-old lift supervisor at Jackson Hole flew to Saddleback, Maine, to ride its new T-bar. Landsman now has ridden and photographed 2,381 lifts at about 480 resorts in the U.S. That is every chairlift, gondola, tram, platter and T-bar in the country. “Twenty-two years. I can’t believe I’m finished,” he said. — Jason Blevins, “America’s chairlift savant finishes 22-year quest.” (Colorado Sun, March 3, 2022)