The Lighter Side of Ski Movies

Hall of Famer Sverre Engen influenced many aspects of the sport. Perhaps none as enduring as lightening the load for ski movie production. 

By Mike Korologos

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, when ski movie-making was in its infancy, major outdoor filmmakers used “Hollywood methods” of production. Ski-movie shoots were built on the foundation of cumbersome 35-mm cameras affixed atop bulky tripods, with these setups hand-carried from ski lifts to scenic locations by camera crews that did not ski. Often these daylong efforts resulted in 10 to 15 seconds of usable footage.

Pioneering filmmaker Sverre Engen helped turned that laborious process on its head, forever changing how action sports films were made, according to his son, Scott Engen. “Dad may not have been the first to make ski movies, but he sure helped revolutionize the way they were produced,” Scott says.

Sverre honed his film-making skills in the early 1930s and early 1940s while hiking, hunting and working for the Utah Fish and Game Department as he produced and shot informational and educational movies as part of his job.

He also produced, while assigned to the 10th Mountain Division at Camp Hale, Colorado, morale-boosting broadcasts for the Free Norwegian expatriate members in the U.S. and Canada. “In those jobs, Dad came to fully appreciate the virtues of moving fast and traveling light when it came to carrying equipment in the mountains in the winter,” Scott says.

Unlike most ski-movie filmmakers at the time, Sverre was an accomplished skier, which greatly helped him with his movie projects. Traveling light and being nimble with his on-snow production methods provided cost- and time-saving efficiencies, which allowed him to travel into the wilderness to film spectacular scenic footage. Those scenic shots became the signature look of the dozen or so 90-minute ski movies he would later produce.

Born in Norway in 1911, Sverre learned to ski at 2 and moved to the United States at 18, soon settling in Utah. He was among the last of a colorful generation of Norwegian immigrants who were deeply involved in many aspects of the sport. Sverre gained fame as a jumping champion, resort operator, ski instructor, pioneer in the study of avalanche control and maker of ski movies. He served as Alta’s ski school director and as the cofounder and first manager of the new Rustler Lodge at Alta. The U.S. Forest Service named him as Alta’s first snow ranger in 1947 and he coached the University of Utah Ski Team to its first national collegiate championship that same year. He also found time to help build ski jumps at Ecker Hill, Becker Hill and Landes Hill, all in Utah.

Engen was inspired to make his own movies while appearing in several of Fox Movietone’s Ski Aces vignettes. These short films, shown on movie screens across the country as lead-ins to the day’s feature film, starred Sverre and his brothers Alf and Corey skiing down gorgeous powdery mountainsides or in zany ski scenes.

Sverre’s penchant for traveling light found him embracing the latest equipment that came on the civilian market at the end of World War II. This included the classic Bell and Howell 70-D series 16 mm camera. Sverre would have seen this camera used by John Jay when filming for the 10th Mountain Division. Driven by a hand-wound, clockwork spring motor, it didn’t require batteries, which annoyingly would fail in the wet or cold of the mountains or merely peter out during a shoot.

The camera’s downside, explains Scott, was the time and total darkness required to change rolls of film in the mountains. It had to be done only by feel and often by cold and numb fingers. He said his dad stashed a heavy, black canvas lightproof film-changing bag with arm sleeves in his rucksack. In a pinch, he would use his ski parka, folding over the neck and waist hems to improvise a film-changing bag, using the sleeves for access.

“Never wanting to miss a great action scene, Dad sometimes carried three fully loaded D-70 cameras,” Scott said. “Later he used a compact Bell and Howell 16 mm camera that used 50-foot long film magazines that could be instantly installed in the camera. The magazines were about the size of a small paperback book and designed for the gun cameras used in WWII fighter planes.” Sverre now had his “ideal film-making package,” Scott said. “He could ski anywhere with several small, lightweight, spring-driven cameras, each featuring instant magazine loading.”

He also was a natural promoter, helping to build brand awareness decades before that was a concept. The three Engen brothers barnstormed the country in the 1930s and 1940s, staging ski-jumping shows before tens of thousands of spectators. He touted that fame in his promotional posters and media interviews. And Sverre also had an influential friend: Lowell Thomas, the famous radio commentator, who skied with him several times a year at Alta.

In his book, Skiing a Way of Life, Saga of the Engen Brothers, Sverre describes golden advice from Thomas. “He suggested I talk more about the action. He said, ‘you know, Sverre, a good commentary is almost as important as the film itself . . . speak louder so people can hear and understand you.’ I worried about my Norwegian accent, but he assured me that it was okay and might add a little flavor.” Often when Sverre appeared on stage for his screenings, especially in New York or Los Angeles, Thomas either would introduce him personally or via recorded messages.

In addition to being a main character in Ski Aces (1944) and Margie of the Wasatch, Sverre’s feature length movies included Champs at Play, Dancing Skis (1956), The Snow Ranger, Skiing, Their Way of Life (1957), Skiing America, Ski Fever (1958), Ski Time USA (1959), Skiing Unlimited and Ski Spectacular (1962). He also produced numerous Fox Movietone episodes and short ski promotional vignettes.

Alta purchased most of Sverre’s original reels in the 1990s, says Alta general manager Michael Maughan. The film rolls have been digitized and stored for posterity.

Mike Korologos’ ski articles have appeared in newspapers and periodicals worldwide for more than 60 years. He was skiing editor for The Salt Lake Tribune for 25 years and a correspondent for SKIING Magazine for 30 years. He served as press chief for the organizing committees for the 2002 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Salt Lake City, his hometown.

photo courtesy Scott Engen

Arnold Lunn and Sandra Heath

With the passing of John Fry earlier this year, Sandra Heath was motivated to reach out to Skiing History to convey how John always appreciated, and supported, the telling of a good tale. Heath, who modeled for Bogner in the 1950s and 1960s, writes: “John Fry encouraged me to tell this story. In the winter of 1961, when I was being filmed in the Alps, the Fox-Movietone crew and I had the good fortune of visiting the Bellevue Hotel in Mürren, Switzerland. I was introduced to Sir Arnold Lunn, who asked me to join him watching the dangerous climbing activity on the Eiger. He was enchanting: a poet, philosopher and inspirational genius to the ski world. Some 30 years later, in England, I had a drink at the home of Elisabeth Hussey, with her sister Philippa. Elisabeth was Sir Arnold’s secretary and confidante. She sprang from her chair to retrieve something and said ‘This photo is such a mystery. Do you happen to know who this gal is?’ I was flabbergasted—it was me!”

ISHA VP Jeff Blumenfeld Wins Prestigious Exploration Award

Jeff Blumenfeld, ISHA vice president and a self-described “groupie for adventures and explorers,” was recently named the winner of the prestigious 2020 international Leif Erikson Exploration History Award.

Blumenfeld, the editor and publisher of the Boulder, Colorado-based Expedition News website, was recognized for his ongoing work to promote and preserve exploration history. Blumenfeld says that “receiving the award and recognition from the exploration community is quite rewarding. I am privileged to tell their stories.” But what keeps him on task is a bigger mission.

“Exploration is critically important,” he says. “It’s through exploration and field research that we’ll answer many of the questions, many of the mysteries of this planet and hopefully make the world a better place for our children.”

In addition to his work on his website, Blumenfeld is active in helping new explorers gain international exposure, peer recognition and, critically, funding for their research and expeditions.

“If I can foster their efforts, I’m totally rewarded by that,” he says.

The Leif Erikson Exploration awards, which include the History Award and the Young Explorer Award, were established by the Exploration Museum in 2015, and are presented for achievements in exploration and for media coverage and documentation of exploration history.

The museum, located in Húsavík, Iceland, 30 miles from the Arctic Circle, is dedicated to the history of human exploration, from early adventurers through space exploration. Blumenfeld received the award in August in a Zoom ceremony, as part of the annual Húsavík Explorers Festival.

Blumenfeld is an active member of the Explorers Club, and is president of the North American Snowsports Journalists Association. He has written several books to promote travel and exploration, including Get Sponsored: A Funding Guide for Explorers, Adventurers and Would-Be World Travelers and Travel With Purpose: A Field Guide to Voluntourism. 

SKI ART

Ewald Thiel (1855-before 1939)

For such a prolific social painter and illustrator, it’s surprising so little is known about German artist Ewald Thiel; we don’t even know when his death occurred. We do know he was born in Kamanten, in East Prussia (now Klimowka in Kaliningrad, Russia) on August 12, 1855. He studied at the Prussian Art Academy in Berlin and in 1878 at the Royal Academy of Art in Munich. He settled in the Halensee region of Berlin.

Thiel became an illustrator of many Berlin scenes, and his work appeared in popular weeklies. He illustrated books and created wood engravings; he drew scenes of lakes and drainage works, the lighting of bridges, exposition openings, and dancers, lawyers, workers, and politicians. Perhaps his most famous sketch (turned into a color portrait) was the drawing of Otto von Bismarck addressing the Reichstag on February 6, 1888 when he proclaimed: “Wir Deutsche fürchten Gott, aber sonst nichts auf der Welt!” (We Germans fear God, but nothing else in the world!).

He drew skiing scenes, too, including a hunter on skis, a skiing postman, and skiers on the Feldberg. He based the scene pictured here on a sketch by Ernst Hosang of the crowd enjoying the Spreewald, Berlin’s nature preserve. In 1866, a railway from the capital reached Lübbenau, a village at the center of the 200-square-mile area of heathland and pine woods crisscrossed by canals.

An enterprising teacher, Paul Fahlisch, had begun promoting tourism here in 1882. The Spreewald soon became the bourgeois’ place to enjoy summer and winter. Many of the skiers in the scene are locals; the women are wearing the traditional headgear of the Sorb community, Slavic immigrants who settled here in the 6th century. Thiel’s careful depiction of the skier with scarf tying down his cap and protecting his ears, one with a pipe, another carrying a sack, and a third putting on a ski, all attest to a well-grounded knowledge of the skiing world of 1899. The picture was published in Das Buch für Alle, a magazine that appealed to the middle class. — E. John B. Allen

Why's it called that?

Sneg, Schnee, Neige: Why do we have different words for snow?

Five or six thousand years ago, near the beginning of the bronze age, a tribe in what is now Ukraine domesticated horses and learned to ride. They quickly spread their culture, and language, in all directions.

No direct record of their language survives, but scholars call it Proto-Indo-European or PIE. By comparing words in Sanskrit, ancient Greek and Latin and modern languages, linguists have come up with a list of about 200 root words from PIE—white was albus, the root of our word Alps.

The PIE word for snow was sneygh. Cultures close to the PIE homeland kept that word: Slavic languages use some variant of sneg, and the tribes north of Central Asia’s Altai mountains, where bronze-age skiing survives to this day, say snig.

In Northern Europe, the word evolved to schnee (German), sneeuw (Dutch), snow (Friesian and English), snø, snö and snjorr (Norwegian, Swedish and Icelandic). In the Mediterranean, proto-Latin (Italic) turned sneygh into snix. Then the s dropped, becoming nix (Classical Latin), neige (French) and nieve or neve (Italian and Spanish). —Seth Masia

SNAPSHOTS IN TIME

1936 RACING ON KENYA’S GLACIERS
British ex-pats held a ski meet on the Lewis glacier on 17,057-foot Mount Kenya, in central Kenya about 90 miles northeast of Nairobi. The sole female contestant—the dashing Nancye Kennaway—won the women’s division and Bill Delap, who started organized skiing on the glacier starting in 1933, won the men’s downhill. The true ski pioneers of the region, however, were German geographer Hans Meyer and Austrian mountaineer Ludwig Purtscheller, who in 1889 became the first people to reach the 16,893-foot summit of Kibo — the highest of Kilimanjaro’s three cones, 200 miles to the south. —E. John B. Allen (Historical Dictionary of Skiing)

1944 CLOSED ON SUNDAYS
For the first several years after its opening in 1944, Timp Haven in Utah’s Provo Canyon was the only ski area in the country that closed on Sundays, due to the religious beliefs of its owner. Paul “Speed” Stewart, a sheep rancher, ran the resort with his brother Ray for more than 20 years. “We just don’t believe in working on Sunday,” Speed’s wife Hilda told the Deseret News in 1965. By that time, his busy resort offered skiing, skating and tubing — but Speed never did learn to ski. “Don’t have the time,” he said. Actor Robert Redford and other investors bought the resort in 1968 and renamed it Sundance. —Mike Korologos

1967 SHOVEL-RIDING GNOMES
While skiing down for our last run, we stopped in the lee of a big cedar tree to look at the view of endless Laurentian hills and frozen lakes stretching out below us. Suddenly, as we all stood there leaning on our ski poles, six little men who looked like tassel-capped gnomes came laughing by us—hell-bent and sliding straight down the mountain—sitting on big, wide snow shovels. Clutching the handle up between their legs, they were having the ride of their lives, speeding with merry abandon over the bumps, down the chutes and through the trees. Their shouts and laughter echoed up the slopes as they went at crazy speeds down the fall line. “Who are those crazy little men?” said Johnny. “Zee trail packers, Monsieur,” said Pierre. We shoved off and chased the “gnomes” to the base of the mountain, swinging through slalom glades, losing them, finding them and laughing all the way. We were in love with the day, the mountain, and the French-Canadian people.  —Frankie and Johnny O’Rear,
“Chateau Bon Vivant: The Hilariously True Misadventures of Two Vastly Unequipped Innkeepers Who Run a Ski Lodge in Winter in Old Quebec”

1978 STICK TO THE TRAILS
Don’t go blithely whipping off the trails at Vail, Colorado, this season. Under a new get-tough policy, the U.S. Forest Service is planning to prosecute people who ignore ski-area boundary and trail-closing markers. The penalties: six months in jail and a $500 fine. —SKI (October 1978)

PARKING THE MIND AT KEYSTONE
First the instructor asked us to think of a word that described our skiing. I chose “wobbly.” Mark, a Los Angeles advertising man, chose “strain.” Judy said “tense.” We each acted out our bad quality, exaggerating and clowning. We skied down a gentle intermediate run, clenching our teeth and holding our arms out like scarecrows. “Look at them,” said a voice on a chairlift. “Oh, they’re just doing Inner Skiing,” said its seatmate. —Abby Rand on the Inner Skier Week at Keystone, based on the best-
selling book Inner Skier (SKI, November 1978)

1989 UNITED NATIONS IN THE ALPINE LIFTLINES
Our State Department should analyze national deportment in liftlines across the Alps as an aid to understanding the character of Europeans. The Germans are the most aggressive. The French step all over everyone’s skis. An Englishman slammed into the line and knocked over my daughter. The Swedes make a wedge of six skiers and slowly surge through the line. The polite Japanese make block reservations on the cable cars. As for the Americans, they’re so afraid of making the wrong impression that they get squeezed to the back—the wimps of the European liftlines. —Peter Miller (Snow Country, August 1989)

The Winter Park Express ski train, which has hauled Denver skiers through the Moffat Tunnel on and off since 1940, takes another hiatus for the 2020-21 winter season.

According to a Winter Park press release dated September 30, " Amtrak has been reducing the number of seats sold on each train to enable distancing, a best-practice that will likely continue into the upcoming winter season. Amtrak and Winter Park Resort evaluated seating options on the Winter Park Express and agreed that with social distancing requirements, it was not possible to operate the train successfully this season. The resort and Amtrak thank our customers and look forward to welcoming them back again in the 2022 season."

For more, see Ski Trains: A History, and Amtrak revives Winter Park Ski Train.

Japan’s skiing history is rich and varied. People had long used simple homemade skis to get around, but then in the 1930s the great pioneer Hannes Schneider arrived from the Arlberg to introduce his downhill technique.

From then on, as in Europe and North America, skiing grew as a popular sport. Hundreds of ski areas opened. By the 1980s there may have been more ski areas in Japan than anywhere else -- at least 700, some open 24 hours a day.

During the recession that followed the 1989 collapse of Japan’s real estate bubble, skier visits dropped from over 20 million to nearer five million and hundreds of Japanese ski areas closed, many quickly overgrown by bamboo forests.

Now Andrew Lea, creator of Japan’s largest ski-oriented website SnowJapan.com, has launched http://SnowJapanHistory.com. The new site documents all these lost Japanese ski areas.

Andrew is meticulously cataloguing the former ski areas, making personal visits, taking current pictures and adding aerial images. The work in progress so far has more than 110 former ski areas and almost 1,000 pictures.

Among the listings are Goshiki in Yamagata, which opened in 1911 when the Austrian Egon Edler von Kratzer skied there, and closed in 1998. Nanamaki, located less than 3km (2 miles) from Nozawa Onsen (home to the world-famous Japan Ski Museum) operated only 15 years, to 1982. Dedicated skiers walked a kilometer from the rail station, crossing a river on a cable-pulled ferry to reach the slopes. —Patrick Thorne

Photo: Goshiki Onsen (Hot Springs) today. From Wikimedia.

Maple Valley offered a variety of ski trails on its 1,000-foot vertical drop served by two chairlifts and a T-bar, as shown in this late 1980s trail map.

New Beginning for Maple Valley

Lost Vermont ski area starts over as a brewery…with a long-term plan to bring skiing back. By Jeremy Davis

Over the last few decades, many of Vermont’s former ski areas have reopened or found new life as backcountry slopes. Magic, Ascutney and the private High Pond are now lift-served again, while Dutch Hill, Hogback and Timber Ridge (with permission) are available for hike-to skiing. Maple Valley, a lost ski area in the southeast corner of the state, will soon begin its own renaissance.

Located on Sugar Mountain, Maple Valley was a classic family ski area. It was built by the Pirovane brothers, who owned the North Haven (CT) Construction Company, along with Terry Tyler. Opening in 1963, the first lifts included a beginner’s T-bar and chairlift. Five trails ran from the summit on a 1,000-foot vertical drop.

Maple Valley’s location off Route 30, fifteen minutes north of Brattleboro and I–91 and a gateway to other southern Vermont ski areas, made it easily accessible to skiers from western Massachusetts and Connecticut. Crowds became common, and in 1966, another chairlift was added to relieve lift lines. In the 1970s, snowmaking helped alleviate a lack of natural snow at this low-elevation ski area.

Peaking in popularity in the early 1970s, Maple Valley changed little into the 1980s, and in 1988 financial difficulties closed the ski area for a year and it was auctioned off. New owners reopened the area for the 1989–1990 season and made some modest improvements, including a halfpipe. More financial problems ensued, and the ski area closed in 1996.

Maple Valley was sold at a foreclosure auction the following year to Frank Mercede and Son Inc., owned by Nick Mercede. It reopened for one final season in 1999–2000 on a limited basis.

Over the next decade, Mercede made plans to rejuvenate the property. But it needed significant investment to compete with larger ski areas 45 minutes to the northwest, and his plans to add off-season activities like concerts and mountain biking did not receive local approval. Maple Valley remained dormant.

That’s all about to change. Sugar Mountain Holdings, an investment group led by Keane Aures, purchased the former ski area and base lodge on May 23, 2018 for $745,000. The group has initial plans to open a craft brewery and distillery made with Vermont products inside the former base lodge.

The lodge, while in need of renovations, is structurally sound. Its interior features plenty of natural wood with large windows overlooking the ski slopes. Existing tables will be reused for seating. The group also intends to make the entire building energy efficient. An iconic giant trail map on the exterior, visible to drivers on Route 30, will be cleaned up and remain on display.

The new owners are optimistic that the process of slowly reopening the ski area could begin in the next several years, depending on the success of the brewery. Dormant since 2000, the slopes are overgrown. The archaic diesel-powered chairlifts, although spun a few times for maintenance in the last two decades, are now most likely beyond the point of salvage. In addition, flash flooding caused damage to the lower slopes in the past year.

Although the brewery and distillery are the main priorities, some of the former ski trails may be cleared so backcountry skiers can earn their turns and hikers can ascend in warmer months. In five to ten years, the existing lifts could be removed and replaced with a single chairlift to the summit, along with new snowmaking. The aim is to eventually make Maple Valley an authentic throwback ski area — a unique alternative to the larger areas not far away. And while skiers may chuckle at the concept of a beer-fueled ski operation, it’s nothing new. Fred Pabst, heir to the famous Milwaukee brewing family, founded nearby Bromley and created the country’s first skiing conglomerate when he owned 16 small ski areas in the Midwest, East and Canada. Pabst, a member of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame who died in 1977, was a snowmaking pioneer and innovator with lifts.
Sugar Mountain Holdings is intent in building good relationships with the local community, where it already has obtained local permits. State approval is currently pending.

It will take a long time for Maple Valley to be a full-fledged ski area again. But by the end of 2020, Maple Valley hopes to welcome visitors, this time to enjoy a craft brew or drink in a classic Vermont setting. Readers can follow Sugar Mountain’s progress at sugarmountainvt.com, where details on the development will be posted.

So Long, Squaw Valley?

Squaw Valley Ski Resort in California may change its name to remove the word “squaw,” a derogatory term for Native American women. As coast-to-coast protests forced a national reckoning about racial inequality in America, resort president and CEO Ron Cohen said in mid-July that the company was taking inventory of the many places that the name appears — both on and off the property — and assessing how much it would cost and how to manage the switch. California tribes have requested this move many times over the years, but only now is the proposal gaining traction.

Derived from the Algonquin word for “woman,” over time the word evolved into a misogynist and racist epithet, said Vanessa Esquivido, a professor of American Indian Studies at California State University, Chico. “That word is an epithet and a slur. It’s been a slur for a very long time,” she told the Reno Gazette-Journal. She explained that when settlers first arrived in the 1850s, they saw Native American women working in a meadow near the Lake Tahoe resort, and that may be how the area got its name.

Cohen said it would be a long and expensive process to remove “squaw” from the resort name. It appears on hundreds of signs and is printed on everything from trail maps and marketing material to uniforms and vehicles. In a statement, he said that resort management is meeting with shareholders, homeowners and local business leaders, as well as local Washoe tribal leadership. He didn’t yet know when a decision on the potential name-change would be made.

Washoe chairman Serrell Smokey supports the name change and suggested “Olympic Valley” as a replacement. —Associated Press, Reno Gazette-Journal

Fernie: 9 Legends and One Myth

Fernie Skiing Heritage inducted its Class of 2020 on March 6, 2020. Established in 2012 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Fernie Alpine Resort in the southern Canadian Rockies, in British Columbia, the mini-museum maintains a permanent Ski Wall of Fame in the Cornerstone Lodge that includes photographs and displays honoring the region’s pioneers. More than 130 attendees showed up to celebrate the contributions of the evening’s honorees.

A highlight of the evening was the induction of Griz—a legendary man, myth and snow god of the southern Canadian Rockies. —Mike Delich (Founder, Fernie Skiing Heritage and Wall of Fame; FIS Technical Director Emeritus, former board member, Alpine Canada)

60 Years of Utah Factoids

In writing ski articles about Utah for 60 years, you encounter all sorts of quirky quotes and factoids. Some disappear like the mist; others become encamped in your brain. Here are a few from the latter category:

• In 1957 I asked Bob Barrett, Utah’s bulldozer operator-turned uranium mining multi-millionaire, why he invested a good portion of his newfound fortune in developing Solitude Ski Area. “It’s the only business I know where people stand in line in a blizzard to pay you money,” he said.

• To lure Japanese skiers to Snowbird in the 1970s, the fledgling resort launched a campaign that included trail signs, menus, trail maps and lodging brochures printed in Japanese. A major “whoops” occurred when translators could not match the name of a ski run derived from the name of resort developer Dick Bass. The word? “Bassackwards.” —Mike Korologos

Skiing History Underground

Researchers using ground-penetrating radar have found what may be a buried Viking Age longship in the town of Horten in Norway. Until the ship is excavated, examined and archaeologically dated, much remains unknown. But most of the burial mounds uncovered to date by scientists from the Midgard Viking Center are from the Viking Age (793–1066).

In addition to a ship, a burial mound almost always contained possessions. At Tune, there’s a burial mound of a man whose possessions indicate high status: In addition to his longship, the mound contains the remnants of horses, a sword, spearheads, chainmail, a saddle, and parts of a ski.

From the radar images, the Horten contents suggest that the man was expected to travel to the afterworld on skis or on horseback, and to do battle on his journey there.

Longship burial mounds are often located in marshes, where the acidic environment destroys wooden objects, like skis. So the best places to look for Viking-era skis are mountain ice fields that in prehistory may have been crossed by travelers or foraged by hunters. In 2014, a 1300-year-old ski was found in Norway in the Reinheimen ice field (“Home of the Reindeer”), evidence that hunters had been there on skis more than 13 centuries ago. The Reinheimen Ski is 172 centimeters long and 14.5 centimeters wide. Remarkably, that’s about the same dimensions as the laminated ash wood cores now made by Skibaumarkt of Germany (https://www.skibaumarkt.de/en/) for those who wish to build their own. —M. Michael Brady 

SNAPSHOTS IN TIME

1959: WHO SAYS THIS IS A NOVICE TRAIL?
In the days when the rope tow was the mainstay of ski areas, it was relatively easy and inexpensive to provide separate slopes for each class of skiers. But with the introduction of the chairlift, originally intended to serve only more experienced skiers, the situation changed. Operators found that the attractions of the chairlift tempted beginners to ski way over their heads. To alleviate the problem, they cut novice trails from the top of the mountain over lengthy but gentle routes. This solved one problem, but created others. These novice trails frequently merge with more-advanced trails, or worse, advanced trails branch off novice trails. The answer seems to be a radical increase in trail marking. —John Southworth (SKI, December 1959)

1968: TEENY-TINY SKI HOUSE
The “Nutshell” house is an 8-by-18-foot cubicle that comes completely furnished, with kitchen, bath and sleeping spaces for five people. The little house is like a ship’s cabin inside, with the addition of wall-to-wall carpeting and a fireplace that warms the space in 15 minutes. The price is $4,000—delivery and connection to sewage, power and water are extra. The buyer’s best bet is to lease a lot from Acorn for $180 a year at Killington (Vermont), Jackson (New Hampshire) or Sugarloaf (Maine). —SKI (February 1968)

1978: HERE WE ARE, BUT WHERE ARE WE?

You know the kind of skier who strives to prove they are “in” by using names that are officially “out?” They insist on calling Aspen Mountain “Ajax” or referring to Vail’s Tyrolean Inn and Garton’s as the Blue Cow and the Casino, so you’ll know they were here before the masses followed them. Well, snobbery is getting to be more difficult with a spate of new names for ski areas that are actually old names, revived. You can no longer get insider points by referring to the area on the back side of Stowe as Smuggler’s Notch instead of its second-generation name, Madonna Mountain. You’d now have to call it Madonna Mountain because management has given it its third-generation name: Smuggler’s Notch. And now comes Keystone’s purchase of A-Basin. Throughout the 70s, Rocky Mountain skiers have been proving their pioneerhood by using the area’s original name, Arapahoe Basin. Sorry. The Keystone folks have changed the name back to Arapahoe Basin, so the in-name is the one that was the out-name before last May.  —SKI (December 1978)

1989: MOVE TO PENTURBIA

Jack Lessigner, professor emeritus from the University of Seattle, and a land and urban development economist, predicts that by 2010, one-third to one-half of the American and Canadian middle class will live outside metropolitan and suburban areas. Many of these people will move to the mountains, where resorts will develop a four-season economy. He has identified “rural-urban counties” with small-town populations but big-city resources: ready access to university education, the lively arts, computer data banks and good communications via modems and fax machines. His “best bet” counties for growth include Grafton, New Hampshire (Cannon Mountain, Loon Mountain, Waterville Valley); Carroll, New Hampshire (Attitash, Cranmore); Green, New York (Hunter Mountain, Windham); Lamoille, Vermont (Stowe); Emmet, Michigan (Boyne), and Summit, Utah (Deer Valley, Park City). —MORTEN LUND (SNOW COUNTRY, FEBRUARY 1989)

1989: GOING UP IN SMOKE

Perhaps no other aspect of the total ski experience is as traditional as returning home after an invigorating day on the slopes to sit in front of a roaring fire. But the air-pollution problem linked to wood-burning fireplaces and stoves stems from the fact that many picturesque Western ski valleys are encircled by high mountains. This terrain, combined with common temperature inversions, creates a situation in which air pollution simply cannot escape. Thus, the atmospheric conditions that frequently contribute to terrible build-ups of air pollutants create similar conditions in many mountain resort towns, especially in the Rockies and High Sierra. —GEORGE RAU (SNOW COUNTRY, JUNE 1989)

World Pro Ski Tour draws star athletes but suffers short season due to COVID-19.

The World Pro Ski Tour never got to the meat of its season, which would have seen seven-time gold medalist Ted Ligety contending with silver-and-bronze Olympian Andrew Weibrecht for $150,000 in championship prize money.

Before the pro season was canceled, Ligety, at age 35, did break away from the World Cup season to compete in two Pro Tour races at Steamboat’s Howelsen Hill and Eldora. He had trouble learning to time the barn-door starting gates and his best finish was a fourth place at Steamboat—proving, he said, that the Tour was serious competition.

The Tour entered its third season with six events scheduled. A long list of sponsors, led by Tito’s Handmade Vodka, offered $300,000 in prize money. When COVID-19 canceled the final three events, Rob Cone of Killington and Middlebury College, a former NCAA champ and U.S. Ski Team Europa Cup racer, topped the field of 21 racers who finished in the money, winning $30,200 for the truncated season. Michael Ankeny, of Buck Hill and Dartmouth College, a veteran of eight years on the U.S. Ski Team, came second ($12,200). Garrett Driller of Squaw Valley and Montana State, an NCAA All American and U.S. Alpine Championship parallel slalom winner, finished third ($8,350).

The Tour Finals at Sunday River and the World Pro Championships at Taos were scheduled for April, after the close of the World Cup and national championships. Ligety and Weinbrecht were on the schedule to compete at those races. “To succeed, the tour needs those top athletes,” said tour chief Jon Franklin, who earned his chops managing top skiers for International Marketing Group. Because the Taos championship event would have awarded $150,000 in prize money, the participation of FIS superstars might have upended the full-season leaderboard. All the events were televised by CBS Sports Network (see season highlights at https://worldproskitour.com/multimedia/).

Franklin predicts a longer, richer tour for the 2020-2021 season. “We don’t have a schedule yet because it has to fit around the NorAm and World Cup schedules,” he points out. He hopes to open the season before the Beaver Creek World Cup in November.

Pro skiing has always depended on the star power of World Cup racers, beginning when Bob Beattie’s new World Pro Skiing circuit recruited the likes of Jean-Claude Killy and Billy Kidd. Fifty years ago, in 1970, Kidd won the FIS World Championship combined gold medal, promptly turned pro and then won the WPS championship the same season. He’s still the only skier to pull that one off. —Seth Masia

A Day for Jake

On March 13, snowboarders around the world took a ceremonial run to honor the late Jake Burton Carpenter —pioneer, innovator and entrepreneur—who died last November of testicular cancer. Though the global “Day for Jake” took some serious hits, most notably from the novel coronavirus and nasty weather, the event still came off at about a dozen resorts, from Avoriaz (France) to Boyne Mountain (Michigan), Big Sky (Montana) and Copper Mountain (Colorado).

Jake’s wife and business partner, Donna Carpenter, and his sons George, Taylor and Timi, attended the festivities at Stowe, Vermont. A gentle beginner’s trail, Lullaby Lane, was renamed “Jake’s Ride” and Jeff Boliba, Burton’s vice president of global resorts, read a Vermont General Assembly resolution honoring Jake for his role in pioneering and promoting the sport. Just a few days earlier, Boliba had dropped by the statehouse to meet Rep. Kathleen James, a first-term legislator and the editor of Skiing History. James sponsored the resolution, which received unanimous approval from all 180 of Vermont’s Representatives and Senators.

Burton Snowboards then quickly turned its attention to the COVID-19 response, delivering more than 200,000 KN-95 masks to hospitals across Vermont and to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, just across the border in New Hampshire. ISHA has launched a digital archive project to document how the ski industry is responding to the pandemic; see page 26.

Looking for Vintage Ski Books?

The word ski is derived from the Old Norse word skið, which means “snow-shoe” and “billet of cleft wood.” It first appeared in print English in 1755, in Volume 12 of The Monthly Review of London, an English periodical.

With such deep linguistic roots, it’s no surprise Norway is a key source of vintage ski history books. And one of the country’s top shops is Ruuds Antikvariat on Ullevålsveien, a busy north-south artery in Oslo. From the Latin antiquarius, also the root of the word “antique,” Antikvariat means “vintage bookseller” in Norwegian.

The shop was founded in 1972 by Jon Ruud and is now managed by his daughter, Vibeke Ruud. Its glass display cases and shelves include such ski-history classics as Farthest North by polar explorer Fridtjof Nansen (1861–1930), with its many drawings of skiing, then called “snow-shoeing” in English. Another hallmark is Voyage picturesque aux alpes norvégennes (Pictorial Journey Through the Norwegian Alps) of 1821 by Finnish-Swedish military officer and cartographer Wilhelm Maximilian Carpelan (1787–1831), among the first to survey and describe the interior of the country.

Bibliophilism is a cherished part of Scandinavian culture, reflected in the presence of no less than 72 antiquarian and used bookshops in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden. They’re all interconnected in an online network, where you can search more than 1.5 million titles in English, Danish, Norwegian and Swedish (https://www.antikvariat.net/en/?currency=USD). To learn more, go to: https://ilab.org/booksellers/ruuds-antikvariat. —M. Michael Brady

Typo Makes Trump Into X-C Skier

As a leading journal of skiing’s historical record, we feel compelled to correct an error noticed by an eagle-eyed Skiing History correspondent.

Not known as a fitness buff in this COVID-19 time or any other era, U.S. President Donald Trump was recently described (incorrectly) as a Nordic destination skier. On May 9, 2020, Positively Scottish carried the headline “IVANKA TRUMP’S PERSONAL ASSISTANT TESTED POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS, ACCORDING TO A CNN SOURCE.” Included in the text was the startling statement that, “The day after breaking his self-isolation of the White House for a cross-country skiing trip intended to report the country’s willingness to start again, Trump received the news one of his Oval Office waiters tested positive for the virus.” While the route may have been cross-country, ski gear was not involved. —Jonathan Wiesel

Mount Ascutney Adds T-Bar

Mount Ascutney, a former major ski resort in southern Vermont, operated from 1946 to 2011. Generations of skiers learned to ski at this family-friendly area and were sad to see it become a “lost” ski area. But it wasn’t lost for long.

Several years after it closed, the nonprofit group Ascutney Outdoors worked hard to reopen a few trails, served by a brand-new rope tow in 2016. This past season featured the opening of a refurbished T-bar, expanding the lift-served vertical to just over 400 feet and 10 trails. The upper slopes, under a conservation easement, are maintained as hike-to terrain for those who earn their turns. The lower slopes also host a tubing facility, and an Outdoor Center serves as a hub for skiers, hikers, mountain bikers and community events.

Purchased from Le Relais, a ski area just outside of Quebec City, the T-bar was donated by Glenn and Shelley Seward in 2017 in preparation for future installation. Over the next two years, a fundraising campaign collected enough money for the T-bar to be installed at the end of 2019 and fired up in February 2020.

Ascutney’s humble beginnings are similar to many Vermont resorts. It was founded in 1946 as a rope-tow area by investors Bob Bishop, Catharine “Kip” Cushman, Robert Hammond, Bob Ely, Dr. Peter Patch and Dick Springer. Over the next six decades, the area went through many ownership changes, experiencing financial setbacks but also expansions, including a large hotel in the mid 1980s and a high-speed quad to the summit in 2000. Mounting fiscal problems led to its closure in 2011, and the ski area assets were sold off bit by bit.

Mount Ascutney is now a shining example of a new paradigm for smaller ski areas throughout New England that had financial difficulties or closed. Strong volunteer support, generous donations, and operating as a nonprofit can help these areas to succeed where prior operating attempts have failed. Loyal skiers have refused to let their favorite mountains fall by the wayside and are doing whatever they can to save special places like Ascutney.

Just ask Glenn Seward: “Those of us who love Ascutney don’t give up easily.” For more information, go to www.ascutneyoutdoors.org. —Jeremy Davis

SKI ART

Rolf Winkler (1884–1942)

The solid shape of any silhouette is what gives the image its power. In the mid-18th century, Louis XV’s finance minister, Étienne de Silhouette, levied a wealth tax on the citizens of France. This brought ignominy upon him; he was mocked and associated with cheapness. In the art world, a quick outline became known as a drawing à la silhouette.

At the time, portraits were painted, and therefore only those who could afford to sit for an artist were portrayed. But some artists had the ability to cut the profile of a person: These “silhouettes” were both quick and cheap and therefore, before photography, increasingly popular with the middle classes. And the cutting was done extremely quickly—for example, if you were visiting a country fair and happened on an artist with scissors in hand. One of the most well-known of these artists used to advertise “three-minute sittings.”

With the development of photography in the mid- to late-19th century, the call for silhouettes declined. However, in the early 20th century, probably inspired by the Arts and Crafts Movement, silhouette artists became extremely popular as they seemed to portray, in a curiously old-fashioned and nostalgic way, a treasured past. Nowhere was this more obvious than during World War I, as displayed here: These troopers are emerging from the woods and heading for the village below, just as they would have done in peaceful years.

Rolf Winkler, born in Vienna in 1884, was a painter, illustrator and silhouette artist. He studied at the Landeskunstschule (State Art School) in Graz, Austria, and later he spent time in Dachau, Germany in a vibrant art colony under the leadership of Ludwig Dill and Adolf Hölzel, landscape painters who were embracing modern trends. Dill was a founding member of the Munich Secession. Winkler settled in Munich in 1905 and over the decades illustrated over 400 books, mostly for juveniles. He also worked for the satiric weekly, Fliegende Blätter (Flying Pages). The illustration here is entitled “Skipatrouille” and was published by Teubner in Leipzig. This extraordinary publishing house specialized in Greek and Roman texts, mathematics and the sciences, and yet here in 1915 is Winkler’s “Ski Patrol,” one of six silhouettes contained in a special folder. Maybe this was their way of supporting the war effort. —E. John B. Allen

FIS calls for a ban on all fluorinated waxes for next season. By Greg Ditrinco

The International Ski Federation (FIS) surprised some ski-race insiders by calling for a ban on the use of all fluorinated ski waxes for next season. The announcement, made at the Federation’s annual fall meeting in Constance, Germany, will catalyze changes in race ski-prep procedures and technology.  

“The use of fluorinated ski waxes, which have been shown to have a negative environmental and health impact, were banned for all FIS disciplines from the 2020–2021 season,” according to a FIS press statement released in November 2019. A working group will be formed to establish the new regulations.

The ban originated from the Committee for Competition Equipment, a panel that defines the technical specifications used across the FIS snow sports spectrum: alpine, cross-country skiing, nordic combined, ski jumping, snowboard, freestyle and freeski. The new working group has a rugged road ahead to unite a diverse array of nations and competitive disciplines to agree upon compliance standards.

The Norwegian Ski Federation banned the use of “fluoros” for all racers U16 and under last season, which was used as a test case by FIS to determine if a widespread ban was feasible, according to Ski Racing. Apparently, the answer was yes.  

Fluorinated waxes significantly decrease friction and increase glide, and can be used across all ski and snowboard disciplines. As with all bans involving athletic performance or equipment, the success of a prohibition greatly depends on the ability to enforce the ban in the field and reliably test for non-compliance. 

The waxes contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively known as PFAS, which have been linked to a growing list of health concerns. The chemicals are found in drinking water and persistently remain in the food chain. Sometimes called “forever chemicals,” PFAS are resistant to moisture and extremely slow to break down. These are the same qualities that make them so effective in ski waxes. 

From pine tar to fluorocarbons, waxing to win has been a constant in ski competitions. Ski waxing, however, long predates alpine skiing. It arose in the early days of Scandinavian ski-sport, from the coincidence that waterproofing wood also helps it to glide on snow. Whether you’re building a ship or a ski, you need to apply a preservative to wood. The earliest known preservative was pine tar, often called pitch.

Waxing evolved along with ski gear. Cross country racer Peter Østbye, born near Lillehammer in 1888, patented Østbyes Klister in 1913. By 1940, a rub-on alpine wax called 1-3-5 was sold under the brand Toko. In 1946, a company was founded under the name of Swix, a blend of the words ski and wax. Swix offered hard and soft waxes to cover a range of snow conditions, providing both glide and durability. Beginning in 1986, Terry Hertel in California and Swix chemists in Norway independently discovered that adding fluorocarbon to wax increased glide by two percent, which can determine the margin of victory in a race. Hertel introduced a commercial version in 1986; Swix followed in 1990, with a fluorocarbon powder that sold for $100 for three grams.

The growing use of fluorinated waxes came with increased scrutiny. Recent studies and subsequent publicity apparently accelerated the push for the ban. In 2016 Congress amended the Toxic Substances Control Act, requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to control chemicals deemed harmful to human health. As one result, starting in early 2018 the EPA notified all companies using fluorocarbons in their products to document the specific chemicals and amounts used. For ski wax manufacturers and importers this would mean reporting all chemicals – dyes, scents, waxes, hardeners and fluorines, retroactively. Most wax companies couldn’t afford the complex procedures and many immediately stopped selling and making fluorowaxes. Besides, the most common fluorines will be banned in the EU starting in July 2020. It was in this context that FIS imposed the new ban. 

For more information on the history of ski wax, see “Grip and Glide” by Seth Masia in the June 2010 issue of Skiing History, or read a variation of his article online:  skiinghistory.org/
history/grip-and-glide-short-history-ski-wax

FIS Bans Fluorinated Waxes

By Greg DiTrinco

The FIS ban on fluorinated waxes for the 2020–2021 season applies to all ski and snowboard disciplines, but will be especially relevant in nordic competitions, such as the American Birkebeiner. Racers can shave off minutes in a typical 50k race with the advanced wax.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) surprised some ski-race insiders by calling for a ban on the use of all fluorinated ski waxes for next season. The announcement, made at the Federation’s annual fall meeting in Constance, Germany, will catalyze changes in race ski-prep procedures and technology.

“The use of fluorinated ski waxes, which have been shown to have a negative environmental and health impact, were banned for all FIS disciplines from the 2020–2021 season,” according to a FIS press statement released in November 2019. A working group will be formed to establish the new regulations.

The ban originated from the Committee for Competition Equipment, a panel that defines the technical specifications used across the FIS snow sports spectrum: alpine, cross-country skiing, nordic combined, ski jumping, snowboard, freestyle and freeski. The new working group has a rugged road ahead to unite a diverse array of nations and competitive disciplines to agree upon compliance standards.

The Norwegian Ski Federation banned the use of “fluoros” for all racers U16 and under last season, which was used as a test case by FIS to determine if a widespread ban was feasible, according to Ski Racing. Apparently, the answer was yes.

Fluorinated waxes significantly decrease friction and increase glide, and can be used across all ski and snowboard disciplines. As with all bans involving athletic performance or equipment, the success of a prohibition greatly depends on the ability to enforce the ban in the field and reliably test for non-compliance.

The waxes contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively known as PFAS, which have been linked to a growing list of health concerns. The chemicals are found in drinking water and persistently remain in the food chain. Sometimes called “forever chemicals,” PFAS are resistant to moisture and extremely slow to break down. These are the same qualities that make them so effective in ski waxes.

From pine tar to fluorocarbons, waxing to win has been a constant in ski competitions. Ski waxing, however, long predates alpine skiing. It arose in the early days of Scandinavian ski-sport, from the coincidence that waterproofing wood also helps it to glide on snow. Whether you’re building a ship or a ski, you need to apply a preservative to wood. The earliest known preservative was pine tar, often called pitch.

Waxing evolved along with ski gear. Cross country racer Peter Østbye, born near Lillehammer in 1888, patented Østbyes Klister in 1913. By 1940, a rub-on alpine wax called 1-3-5 was sold under the brand Toko. In 1946, a company was founded under the name of Swix, a blend of the words ski and wax. Swix offered hard and soft waxes to cover a range of snow conditions, providing both glide and durability. Beginning in 1986, Terry Hertel in California and Swix chemists in Norway independently discovered that adding fluorocarbon to wax increased glide by two percent, which can determine the margin of victory in a race. Hertel introduced a commercial version in 1986; Swix followed in 1990, with a fluorocarbon powder that sold for $100 for three grams.

The growing use of fluorinated waxes came with increased scrutiny. Recent studies and subsequent publicity apparently accelerated the push for the ban. In 2016 Congress amended the Toxic Substances Control Act, requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to control chemicals deemed harmful to human health. As one result, starting in early 2018 the EPA notified all companies using fluorocarbons in their products to document the specific chemicals and amounts used. For ski wax manufacturers and importers this would mean reporting all chemicals – dyes, scents, waxes, hardeners and fluorines, retroactively. Most wax companies couldn’t afford the complex procedures and many immediately stopped selling and making fluorowaxes. Besides, the most common fluorines will be banned in the EU starting in July 2020. It was in this context that FIS imposed the new ban.

For more information on the history of ski wax, see “Grip and Glide” by Seth Masia in the June 2010 issue of Skiing History, or read a variation of his article online: skiinghistory.org/
history/grip-and-glide-short-history-ski-wax

Alf Engen’s Idaho Roots

Alf Engen was one of the best—and best known—skiers in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s, and won more championships, awards and honors than any other competitor in both nordic and alpine disciplines. Though he is closely associated with Utah, he played a significant role at Sun Valley in the resort’s early years.

Alf’s first connection with Sun Valley was in early 1936, when he met Count Felix Schaffgotsch, who was sent by Averell Harriman to find the perfect location for Union Pacific’s new ski resort. Alf was the U.S. Forest Service Recreational Supervisor in Salt Lake City, in charge of locating and planning winter sports areas in Utah, Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming, at a time when New Deal programs were providing substantial assistance to the fledgling ski industry. Engen took Schaffgotsch to inspect Alta and Brighton. Schaffgotsch toured six states in six weeks, rejecting many areas that later become successful ski resorts—either their snow conditions or locations were unacceptable—before concluding the area around Ketchum, Idaho, had the perfect combination of snow, weather and hills.

The Forest Service sent Alf to visit Ketchum in winter 1936, when Sun Valley was being built. He met Harriman, who gave him a tour of the area, beginning a long friendship. In spring 1937, Alf and Sigmund Ruud located a site for and designed a ski jump at Sun Valley so Harriman could hold four-way competitions, and Ruud Mountain became the center for ski jumping and slalom events. Alf and Evelyn spent their honeymoon at Sun Valley in December 1937, at Harriman’s invitation.

Harriman hired Engen as a sports consultant and Superintendent of Recreational Facilities at Sun Valley, which included representing Sun Valley in skiing competitions, a role that brought substantial publicity to the resort. In 1938, Alf directed CCC crews that cut a downhill course on Bald Mountain, designed for the Harriman Cup by Dick Durrance. In 1939, his crews cut ski runs on Baldy and chairlifts were installed there for the 1939–1940 season.

Alf competed for Sun Valley virtually his entire amateur career, from 1937 to 1948. He battled fellow Norwegians in widely publicized jumping tournaments all over the country, including Birger and Sigmund Ruud, Torger Tokle, Reidar Andersen, and Olav and Sigurd Ulland, winning honors and setting several national distance records. Alf perfected his alpine skiing at Sun Valley, and led the country’s transition from nordic to alpine skiing, becoming the national four-way and open slalom-downhill combined champion.

Alf helped to coach the U.S. women’s national ski team at Sun Valley in 1939, who were training for the 1940 F.I.S. and Olympic Games (that were cancelled). U.S. Alpine teams for the 1948 Olympic Games at St. Moritz, Switzerland, were selected at Sun Valley. Alf coached prospective Olympians from the Sun Valley Ski Club before the tryouts, and he and Walter Prager, Dartmouth College’s famous coach from Switzerland, were co-coaches of the 1948 U.S. Olympic Team. Alf assisted Gretchen Fraser in her dominating performance at the 1948 Games, where she won gold and silver medals, the first American to win any Olympic skiing medal.

Alf, Evelyn and their son Alan moved to Utah after the Olympics, where he took over the Alta Ski School from his brother Sverre in 1949, directing it until 1989. Alf was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 1959, joined by his brothers Sverre (1971), Karre (Corey) (1973), and his son Alan (2004), becoming the only family with four members in the Hall.

Alf loved Sun Valley, calling it in his 1986 oral history a “great mountain … difficult to beat.” —John Lundin

On March 25, John Lundin will deliver the first John Fry Legacy Lecture following ISHA’s opening reception during Skiing History Week 2020. The topic is “Sun Valley’s Early Days: Union Pacific, Averell Harriman and Alf Engen.”

Skiing History Day: Mad River Glen

On February 28, we woke up to a foot of new snow at historic Mad River Glen, Vermont — a perfect way to welcome guests to Skiing History Day 2020. A collaboration between the resort and the International Skiing History Association (ISHA), the event drew more than 100 people for skiing, history talks and artifacts, contests and camaraderie.

The day kicked off with a presentation on Vermont ski pioneer Roland Palmedo and the 1948 founding of Mad River Glen by Rick Moulton (ski historian and filmmaker), Dr. John Allen (Skiing History contributor, author and New England Ski Museum board member), and John Schultz (longtime Mad River Glen skier and a founder of the Green Mountain Valley ski academy). Austrian ski legend Dixi Nohl (see article, page 16) entertained the crowd with memories from the ‘70s, when he ran Mad River’s ski school for some 10 years, joined by several of his instructors.

Trail guides led group mountain tours throughout the day, and all skiers who successfully completed the resurrected “No Stop, No Fall” challenge—a non-stop, no-wipeout descent from the summit—received an elegant antique pin. Rick Hopkins and Luke Prescott, Mad River patrollers for the last 40 decades, skied alongside to verify the successful “No Stop, No Fall” run. Meanwhile, winners of the vintage skiwear contest were awarded a free one-year membership to the Vermont Ski Museum.

Attendees included ISHA director Rick Moulton and his wife, Melinda (event co-producers); representatives from the Vermont Ski Museum and New England Ski Museum; and dozens of ISHA members and Mad River Glen stalwarts. One of the day’s highlights was the revelation that ISHA member Christopher Sweet of North Attleboro, Massachusetts had not skied Mad River in fifty years—he was eleven years old the last time he went up its iconic single chair. Sweet returned for this event and had a stellar day in the deep natural snow, promising to be back soon. —Melinda Moulton (photos by Melinda Moulton and Kim Holtan)

Sun Valley Skier Shares Rare Bibliographic Find

In 1979, 18-year-old Marc Corney did his best to become a Sun Valley ski bum. He left his Southern California home of Glendora with high hopes of joblessness, raucous nightlife, and endless days of skiing Baldy Mountain. He had some early success but eventually succumbed to responsibility and regular employment. He even went back to school, became an architect, and now has a family. Though a failed ski bum, Marc still skis more than 60 days a year and works as a guest services supervisor. Over the years, he’s developed an appreciation for Sun Valley history and its traditions of mountain camaraderie.

In a Vermont bookshop, Marc came across something unique. The Sun Valley Ski Book, a 1939 pictorial ski instruction tome by Friedl Pfeifer, is not uncommon among collectors and aficionados, but this copy had buried treasure. Along with Pfeifer’s step-by-step instruction and mountain lifestyle photos, there are hand-written captions from photo subjects and a four-page signature spread. Also tucked in are a few vintage newspaper clippings and a song lyric by poet Christopher La Farge, a friend of Ernest Hemingway.

Marc snapped up the souvenir and with his wife, Jill, put the probable story together. The book most likely belonged to Pfeifer and his wife, and was passed around at parties around the time of their wedding in the spring of 1940. The captions are directed to the Pfeifers and the signatures are those of the inner circle of accomplished skiers in Sun Valley’s magical formative years. Every time Marc and Jill open the book, they know they are holding traces of ski heroes in their hands, and they are pleased to share a look with Skiing History readers. We’ll be posting images at our website soon, for ISHA members only, at skiinghistory.org. —David Butterfield

Snapshots in Time

1924 A PRIZE OF DUBIOUS VALUE

Thor Groswold borrowed money for a train ticket and traveled to Dillon, Colorado to compete in a meet. The jumpers had to be sure to clear the knoll and get onto the landing hill, as they had never removed the stumps and rocks below the takeoff. It was very windy during the meet, and both Thor and then-national champion Lars Haugen were blown over and fell. At the Sunday evening banquet, he was given his prize—a crate of eggs. When he questioned the prize, he was told to stop by the general store, where they bought back the eggs for enough money to pay his train fare home. —Jerry Groswold, “Thor Groswold: One of Skiing’s First Great Salesmen” (Collected Papers of the
International Ski History Congress, 2002)

1936 HEY, SISSIES! YOU’RE SCARING THE MOTHERS!

The first death on the slopes shook up the small skiing fraternity of the day. An emergency meeting was called by the New York Amateur Ski Club, whose founder, Roland Palmedo, appointed Minot “Minnie” Dole chair of a committee to inquire into the causes and handling of ski accidents. The results of their questionnaires were disappointing. Only a hundred replies dribbled in. Of these, roughly half accused the committee of being “sissies, spoilsports, and frighteners of mothers.” —Gretchen Rous Besser, “Samaritans of the Snow” (Collected Papers of the International Ski History Congress, 2002)

1959 IVY LEAGUE ANTI-STYLE

If Dartmouth or Harvard types are your heart’s desire, you must spurn current fashions like a plague. Requirements are a pair of well-worn dungarees (preferably patched and faded) pulled over a bulky union suit. This should be topped by an olive drab Army surplus parka, preferably of genuine Camp Hale vintage. Box-toed boots is overdoing it a little bit, but don’t hesitate to resort to them. —Eleanor Prager, “The Happy Hunting Ground: Ski Resorts Are Heaven for Women” (SKI, October 1959)

1967 NEW GIRL IN TOWN

The series of nestling alpine towns and ski runs that tycoon Bill Janss is going to put into the mountains behind Aspen, Colorado, will make Snowmass the biggest, most sought-after and possibly the most beautiful of all the ski complexes of this country. She will debut this year with only some of her envisioned charms available, but even at that, Snowmass will be the new place to ski this winter. Snowmass will have Stein Eriksen in the role of ski school hero, but the star will be the magnificent, marvelous, enchanting, rolling snowland — terrain previously only reachable by ski plane or over-snow vehicle. This winter, Snowmass will have five double chairs, 3,500 feet of vertical, and 50 miles of trails. —(SKI, September 1967)

1974 SKIER’S CODE OF ETHICS

It is immoral to ski unsafely, and unmannerly to ski impolitely. These two ideas shade into each other. The unmannerly skier is also likely to be the immoral skier who skis out of control. For example, too many skiers do not take seriously the duty of staying clear of skiers below. They feel they have the right to yell “Track!” and to whiz by. They do not have that right! We would like to see the Ski Patrol rescind the ticket of every skier who fails to stay clear or who skis so as to endanger the skier below him.  —Ski Safety and Courtesy (SKI Magazine Encyclopedia of Skiing)

1978 11 HOURS IN HELL

At 3:45 pm on April 15, 40 people caught the last tram of the day from High Camp at Squaw Valley. Less than 150 feet from Tower 2, something caused the car to derail from the outside cable, suddenly doubling the inside cable’s load. The tram dropped 75 feet and bounced like a yo-yo. When everything had stopped moving, the car had opened up like a burst tin can, hanging 80 feet in the air. Three were killed almost instantly, and most of the 37 survivors were injured, several seriously. —“11 Hours in Hell” by Dick Dorworth (SKI, September 1978)

1995 TEACH YOUR PARENTS WELL

I was unprepared when my son, Andrew, appeared at my shoulder one day of his eighth year. “Uh, Dad?” he said, scraping his thumbnail across the ski edges I’d just spent half an hour sharpening. “Do you think I could go snowboarding with Wyatt today?” “Snowboarding?” I repeated in a voice that betrayed my disgust. Andrew was born to be a skier! “No,” I said. “Why not?” he inquired. I quickly listed a dozen excellent reasons: Snowboarders have weird hair and pierced noses. They sport tattoos. They wear rude stickers. But after much debate, I gave in, certain that a dozen jarring falls would surely discourage him. They didn’t. —Andrew Slough (SKI, February 1995)

SIA Alumni Breakfast

About 30 ski business veterans turned out for the annual alumni breakfast during the annual Outdoor Retailer + Snow Show in Denver on January 31. Here, John Stahler (second from right, Head, Tecnica) entertains Denny Hanson (Hanson, Apex), David Ingemie (SIA, ISHA, U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame) and David Scott (Head, Chivers, Lacroix, Nevica). Seth Masia photo.

Ski History Calendar

April 16–26 World Ski and Snowboard Festival 2020
Whistler, B.C.

Claiming to be the largest celebration on snow, the World Ski and Snowboard Festival celebrates Whistler’s mountain culture with ten days of late-spring shenanigans. On the mountain, there are ski and snowboard competitions and demonstrations, including the 18th edition of the Saudan Couloir Ski Race Extreme. Named after the legendary Swiss “Skier of the Impossible” Sylvain Saudan, the competition is touted as the steepest ski race on the planet. Back on flat ground, art, filmmaking, photography, music and other events fill up the village for the festival’s raucous run.

May 4–7 NSAA National Convention and Tradeshow
Omni Amelia Island Plantation Resort, Florida

The National Ski Areas Association brings together the major influencers in the resort industry for its annual post-season convention and industry mixer. Keynote speakers include Afdhel Aziz, the author of Good is the New Cool: Market Like You Give a Damn, which explores how businesses can be a force for positive social impact and attract customers from the new generation of socially aware consumers. Educational sessions will address a wide range of topics, from the influence of digital lodging platforms, such as VRBO, to the growing importance of resort branding in today’s world of ski-area consolidation.

June 24–July 3 Aspen Ideas
Festival Aspen, Colorado

Featuring boldface names from around the world, the Aspen Ideas Festival is one of the nation’s premier public festivals featuring leaders, policy makers and business disruptors who explore ideas that both shape our lives and challenge our times. The festival is public and open to all. Topics have included Redefining Capitalism, Planet in Peril, Finding Beauty and the American Idea.

Top exec will step down after five decades at the sport’s governing body. 

Gian Franco Kasper, the president of the International Ski Federation (FIS), recently announced that he will step down this spring after 22 years at the helm of the sport’s governing organization. Both an effective and controversial executive, Kasper has held different roles at FIS for nearly 50 years...

Top exec will step down after five decades at the sport’s governing body.

Gian Franco Kasper, the president of the International Ski Federation (FIS), recently announced that he will step down this spring after 22 years at the helm of the sport’s governing organization. Both an effective and controversial executive, Kasper has held different roles at FIS for nearly 50 years.

Photo at top of page: An effective and controversial leader, Kasper’s reign has been spiked with controversy, often fueled by his off-hand remarks. DPA Picture Alliance / Alamy Stock Photo

Kasper, 75, was named secretary general of the federation in 1975 and took over as president in 1998. He succeeded the late Marc Hodler, who at 80 had headed FIS for nearly 50 years, the longest reign at any international sports organization. Under Hodler, the season-long World Cup competitions and freestyle were introduced, snowboarding competition came under FIS governance, and he exposed the bid-rigging scandal of the 2002 Winter Olympics.

Under Kasper’s reign, the number of ski and snowboarding medaling sports at the Winter Olympic Games has multiplied to more than 50, with many new freestyle events successfully geared to attracting a younger audience.

The FIS began in 1924 as a Scandinavia-based and operated organization. The first two presidents were a Swede and a Norwegian. With Hodler’s election in 1951, the FIS moved its headquarters to Switzerland, where they have remained for almost 70 years. The current headquarters are in Oberhofen, where the influential Marc Hodler Foundation is also located.

Regarding Kasper’s succession, the FIS says that it supports “a timely process for the national ski associations to prepare any applications for candidacies.” The less-than-transparent Hodler-Kasper succession process in 1998 was harshly criticized by former FIS vice-president Bjorn Kjellstrom. The betting now is on another Swiss, Urs Lehmann, 1993 world championships downhill gold medalist, President of the Swiss Ski Federation, a successful business consultant, President of the Laureus Foundation, and husband of Swiss acrobatic ski champion Conny Kissling.

Kasper’s long tenure also has been spiked with ongoing controversy, occasionally fueled by his off-hand remarks. Last year he caused worldwide headlines and brief outrage when in an interview with a Swiss journalist he sarcastically remarked that with authoritarian governments it was easier to overcome environmental obstacles to Olympic site selection. He previously found himself under the spotlight in 2005 after commenting about women ski jumpers that the physical force upon landing “seems not to be appropriate for ladies from a medical point of view.” The FIS did eventually sanction women’s ski jumping, which made its Olympic debut at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games.

This season, Kasper scrapped with athletes and coaches who criticized the expanded 2019-20 alpine schedule for not providing enough time for travel and proper recuperation. Kasper conceded that the alpine World Cup circuit contains “too many races,” and then offered not much more than sympathy.

“I know it’s not easy for the athletes and also for some organizers. We are now at a certain limit, there is no question,” Kasper said at a press event in October. “But FIS is not here to prevent races but to organize races.” He did say that the FIS would look into improving its scheduling process. Without Olympic Games or World Championships this season, the current alpine World Cup schedule runs nonstop from October through March, with 44 men’s events and 41 women’s events at nearly two dozen venues.

Kasper, a former journalist, also has held leadership roles with the International Olympic Committee and the World Anti-Doping Agency, among others. He was elected to another four-year term as FIS President in 2018, but will only make it halfway through. He will officially resign his post at the next FIS Congress in Thailand in May. --Greg Ditrinco

Wear Your Passion on Your Sleeve

Karl Johan grew up with an immutable ski uniform: a Demetre sweater. It made sense. He lived in Seattle, near Demetre’s Ballard-based factory. And his family all wore the sweaters whenever they skied. As did most Seattle-based skiers.

The factory and the brand have since shut down (Roffe purchased Demetre in 1987, and itself closed a decade later), but the sweaters still live on in Johan’s memories and closet in Sun Valley.

Marketing director for Sun Valley Culinary Institute, Johan has long collected the sweaters at garage sales, thrift stores, retro clothing stores, online—wherever he can find them. When he nabs one, he cleans it, steams it, and stashes it away. His collection can number more than 50 sweaters at a time. That number decreases whenever he holds a pop-up vintage sweater sale in Sun Valley.

Johan notes that the old-school sweaters hold up remarkably. “The designs and colors are amazing,” he says. And “they look brand new” whenever he still sees them on the slopes. He also enjoys the local angle to his soft-goods obsession, as John and Sally Demetre have long had a home in Sun Valley.

Demetre was founded in 1921 by John’s father as the Standard Knitting Company, which manufactured uniform sweaters out of its factory in Ballard, Washington, which is now a hip waterfront neighborhood of Seattle. During the time Demetre sweaters were being manufactured, Seattle was one of the largest apparel centers in the country and considered a pioneer in outerwear.

In the early 1960s, Demetre saw a business opportunity in the explosive growth of skiing, and expanded into ski sweaters. The company landed early sponsorships with the U.S. and Canadian Olympic ski teams. The U.S. Ski Team wore Demetre sweaters at the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. During its heyday, Demetre was tagged “America’s first name in fine ski sweaters,” with an ad from a 1972 issue of Skiing magazine pledging: “One look and you know it’s Demetre.”

As any skier of a certain age can confirm, Demetre sweaters were colorful, comfortable, and tightly woven to provide superior warmth. The construction resulted in a heavy-weight sweater that was virtually indestructible. Not surprisingly, many of the sweaters have survived, now 50 or so years later. And many Demetre fans have kept their favorite sweaters.

Pinterest, Ebay and other websites are full of Demetre sweaters—and memories from skiing’s golden era. One fan blissfully noted of her Demetre sweaters, “I wore them when I was skinny.” —Greg Ditrinco

Buck Hill Marks 50 With Sailer

In December 2019, Buck Hill—a small Minnesota ski area with a big racing reputation—celebrated 50 years with its legendary coach, Erich Sailer. Since founding the racing team back in 1969, Sailer has churned out an impressive roster of Olympic and World Cup athletes, including Kristina Koznick, David Chodounsky, Tasha Nelson and Lindsey Vonn. Vonn retired in 2019 with four World Cup overall titles, 11 Olympic and FIS World Championship medals, and 82 World Cup victories—a record for women, and just shy of Ingemar Stenmark’s record-setting 86 wins.

Thanks to Sailer, Buck Hill is home to one of the country’s most active recreational racing programs, drawing youth and adults from the Twin City suburbs for training, leagues and competitions. An honored member of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, the Austrian-born coach pioneered summer ski racing in the United States in 1956 with a camp at Timberline on Oregon’s Mount Hood. By 1967, his camp near Red Lodge, Montana had become the biggest in the country.

Buck Hill was founded in 1954 by Charles “Chuck” Stone Jr. and his future wife, Nancy Campbell. In late 2019, Nancy published Buck Hill: A History. To purchase a copy, email ncstone@aol.com. —Kathleen James

Snapshots in Time

1866 SONDRE NORHEIM’S HEEL
In 1733, a Norwegian military officer, Col. Jens Henrik, wrote the first ski instructions for the military. Those rules contain the first mention of heel bindings, but illustrations of military skiers throughout the 18th century show only toe straps. Despite the increased pressure of jumping and racing competition, begun in 1765 and 1767 respectively, the heel binding didn’t really catch on until Sondre Norheim’s dramatic exhibition at Mordegal a century later. “With legs drawn up, he flew like a bird.” Thus 41-year-old Norheim impressed the crowd at an 1866 jump at Hoydalsmo, near Mordegal in Telemark. Within two years, the Telemark skis—cambered at the waist, broadened at the tip—and Norheim’s new heel bindings astonished the crowd at Christiana. Sport skiing was on its way. —Ted Bays (Nine Thousand Years of Skis: Norwegian Wood to French Plastic)

1936 SISSIES, SPOILSPORTS AND MOTHER-FRIGHTENERS
The first death on the slopes shook up the small skiing fraternity of the day. An emergency meeting was called by the New York Amateur Ski Club, whose founder, Roland Palmedo, appointed Minot “Minnie” Dole chair of a committee to inquire into the causes and handling of ski accidents. The results of their questionnaires was disappointing. Only a hundred replies dribbled in. Of these, roughly half accused the committee of being “sissies, spoilsports, and frighteners of mothers.” —Gretchen Rous Besser, “Samaritans of the Snow” (Collected Papers of the International Ski History Congress, 2002

1959 LISTEN AND LEARN
Have you reached a plateau in your skiing where nothing seems to help you improve? Then “Skiing by Ear Method” may be just what you need! Relax and learn with these 33-1/3 rpm records. $8.95 each. Money-back guarantee! —Advertisement in SKI “Holiday Gift Guide” (December 1959)

1967 WORLD CUP ACCOLADES
The winter of 1967 marked the beginning of a new era in international ski racing. For the first time in the history of the sport, the world’s best racers were rated not on the basis of one or two headline races, but on a systematic accumulation of results over the whole season. The new system proved a smashing success. So much so that the World Cup of Alpine Skiing is to become a permanent annual fixture of the sport, rivaling the Olympics and the FIS World Championships. Initially ignored by international ski officialdom, the World Cup won instant and enthusiastic acceptance by the two groups most important to the success of ski racing: the racers themselves and the press, who report the results to an eager public. —John Fry (SKI, September 1967)

1978 THE BUCK STOPS HERE
Your three-miles-a-day skier is starting to see the wisdom of the East. For the first time, Stratton (Vermont) is drawing vacationing skiers from Washington DC, Texas, Georgia and Puerto Rico. And these are not weekend skiers. “Vail, founded the same year we were, programmed itself as a vacation resort from the beginning,” says Stratton marketing manager Jeff Dickson. “It worked closely with airlines and travel agents and ski clubs to get people to come for a week. The Eastern resorts are waking up. The only way we can support the lifts we’re building is by becoming a vacation destination.”  —Morten Lund (SKI, September 1978)

1989 CLAMORING FOR THE BEST
A great perplexity hits me every time I hear skiers talking about lift ticket prices. Late last season, I skied Butternut Basin in the Berkshires. The change from eight years earlier was dramatic: lifts, lodges, trails, parking and food were greatly expanded. And instead of narrow ribbons of icy snow or rock-hard moguls, the trails were white velvet from edge to edge. As good as Colorado. What happened? Butternut has been transformed into the New Skiing, with trail systems that disperse skiers around the hill, massive snowmaking, and squads of grooming machines that work every trail by sunrise into a soft-but-firm surface that spells, “Have a ball.” Yet skiers are having a fit—those lousy lift ticket prices keep rising. —Morten Lund (Snow Country, January 1989)

2000 HIGHER POWER OF POWDER
In the 2000–2001 season, I didn’t finish 13 of the 24 races I entered. I’ve seen people lose their hair or get religion over less. But I knew I was getting better; I knew I had far more control than ever before. It just wasn’t always obvious to everyone else. And explaining myself all the time got old fast. Better to be laconic—the shrug, the smirk. People hear what they want to, anyway. … When fans or young racers ask me the Big Question, I tell them: “Go fast.” It’s the whole deal, the only tip worth taking. —Two-time overall World Cup champion and 11-time Olympic and FIS World Championship medalist Bode Miller (Bode: Go Fast, Be Good, Have Fun)

SKI LIFE

from SNOW COUNTRY / DECEMBER 1988

That’s not what I said; I said “We have six inches of powder under an ice crust.”

Why's It Called That? Mont Tremblant

The Algonquin believed that Quebec’s Mont Tremblant trembled when violated by human exploitation.

The mountain lay in the heart of Weskarini Algonquin territory, and was the home of the Great God, or Manitou. They called it Manitou Ewitchi Saga, the mountain of the great god, or Manitonga Soutana, mountain home of the spirits. In 1652, Weskarini were massacred here by invading Iroquois. Many sought refuge with French Jesuits, and were forced to convert to Catholicism.

The Weskarini believed the mountain trembled when violated by human exploitation. And so the French settlers adopted the name Mont Tremblant (“Trembling” in English). What the Weskarini meant by “trembling” is unclear; one folk-tale recounts violent storms destroying swathes of forest. Seismic activity is common. Several faults run within 50 miles of the mountain and the region has recorded at least one magnitude 6.9 earthquake in the past 250 years, and a couple of 4.5 quakes right in Ste-Agathe during the past 25 years. It’s possible that the Weskarini actually felt the mountain shake. —Seth Masia

Ski Art: Gunnar Hallström (1875–1943)

On the one hand Gunnar Hallström, Swedish painter of national-romantic scenes, was everything a modern environmentalist might honor. He settled on the island of Björko in Lake Malar, about an hour by boat out of Stockholm, and became involved in the preservation of Birka, Sweden’s oldest town, and in the maintenance of the island’s traditional farms. He persuaded the government to buy up the land and put it under protection. Today it is managed by the Riksantikvarieämbetet, the National Heritage Board.

But there is another side to Hallström’s art, first coming to notice in the early years of the 20th century. The frontispiece of Henry Hoek and E. C. Richardson’s 1907 Der Skilauf und seine sportliche Benutzung (Skiing and its Sporting Use) is a reproduction of Hallström’s skier. The original is believed to have been owned by a Munich publishing firm that later had connections with the Nazis. When the Germans were in deep financial trouble following World War I, communities printed their own money, called Notgeld. The town of Furtwangen put Hallström’s Schneeschuhläufer (Ski Runner) on its 10-mark note. That gained him a great deal of attention. In 1921, for example, the German Ski Association’s journal Der Winter called Hallström “well known.”

In the political turmoil of the 1920s and 1930s, Hallström moved to the right in Sweden and became involved in decorating with swastikas one of the lodges to which Hermann Göring fled after the failed 1923 Hitler putsch. He signed his initials in the spaces created by the squared swastika symbol, and he appears to have been involved with the pro-Nazi Swedish Carlberg circle.

Politics aside, the painting illustrated here, used both as the frontispiece to Hoek’s and Richardson’s book and as the formidable image on Furtwangen’s 10-mark note of December 1, 1918 proves his knowledge of skiing as well as his expertise in landscape depiction. —E. John B. Allen

After World War I, a German town used Hallström’s image of a skier on its 10-mark note. He was likely involved with pro-Nazi circles in Sweden. --E. John B. Allen

This article first ran in the January-February issue of Skiing History.

Like Father, Like Son

By Michel Beaudry

Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a bona-fide rider and former snowboard instructor at Blackcomb, BC

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