Commentary

Pandemics create social change. In the 14th century, the Black Death killed at least one-third of Europe’s population. In western Europe, the resulting labor shortage drove up wages, freed the serfs, inspired adoption of time-saving technologies in agriculture and manufacturing, accelerated the growth of cities and trade, triggered peasant rebellions and hastened the replacement of feudal economic arrangements with capital investment schemes. Wealth inequality decreased. It took 250 years for the aristocracy to regain its 80 percent wealth concentration, and it had to open its ranks to bankers and merchants.

On a smaller scale, in the wake of Covid-19, ski towns and skiing culture are experiencing greatly accelerated social change. Thanks to modern medicine, the virus proved about 150 times less deadly than the bubonic plague, and its social effect thus far is almost the opposite of the 14th-century experience. Across the larger economy, Covid-19 concentrated wealth mightily, into the hands of internet retailers and tech entrepreneurs. Anyone who has lived in or visited a ski town over the past three winters noted ominous changes since Covid arrived early in 2020.

Real Estate Spikes

High real estate prices, and rents, soared higher. Using one prominent region, among many, in Colorado’s Eagle and Pitkin counties (which includes Vail and Aspen), the median selling price of a condo more than doubled between April 2019 and April 2023, from $850,000 to $1.75 million, rising an average of 23 percent per year. (During the previous 20 years, which included the dotcom crash and the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, the average annual increase was about 3.5 percent.) The median price for a single-family home rose 320 percent, or 43 percent annually, from $2.5 million to $10.5 million (compared to an average annual 13.5 percent appreciation over the previous 20 years).

One reason for these spikes in value is that technology enabled wealthy people to work from home, and they chose to do it in the isolated splendor of luxurious mountain retreats. Another is that real estate looked like a sensible hedge against a volatile stock market, especially when mortgage rates fell below 3 percent in 2020 and 2021, while inflation peaked briefly at 9 percent in 2022 before falling to about 4 percent in May 2023. Even a severe recession is unlikely to bring real estate prices down to earth. Finally, any ski town can be an attractive refuge from climate change.

Covid, and resulting low interest rates, drove more modest inflation in other wealthy real-estate markets—prices of the top 5 percent of homes rose less than 11 percent worldwide at the peak of the boom in early 2022. As a result, Bloomberg reported, sales at the top of the U.S. market fell 17.8 percent that quarter.

Employees Driven Out

In all ski towns, rising prices and rents accelerated the flight of service employees. Those who kept their jobs faced long, expensive and sometimes dangerous commutes along snowy mountain roads. Along with labor shortages, the situation was tough on locally owned businesses, too. Many folded, to be replaced by restaurants, hotels and retail stores owned by cash-rich public corporations. NIMBY millionaires have even, perversely, worked to prevent construction of new employee housing. Pity the employee-housing resident forced to leave town at retirement. The exile of longtime residents greatly dilutes the character and flavor of ski towns, both for locals and visitors.

Crowded Slopes

Ah, visitors. Visitation to ski towns skyrocketed. At the height of Covid’s social distancing and masking experiments, outdoor sports boomed. Retailers sold out of bicycles, camping gear and ski equipment. After the ski resorts shuttered in March 2020—they were considered potential Covid super-spreader sites—skier visits for that winter dropped 12 percent, to 51.1 million in the U. S. (according to the National Ski Areas Association), and fell about 18 percent worldwide. But visits at U.S. resorts soared back to 59 million for the 2020–21 season and set a record at 60.7 million in 2021–22. Vail Resorts reported a 67 percent drop in profits for the fiscal year ending in July 2020, but set records in 2022, with revenue above $2.5 billion and profits up 15 percent over pre-Covid 2019.

There’s no evidence, however, that these record skier visits are based on any growth of the skier population. It’s never been more expensive to learn to ski at a destination resort—a well-heeled newcomer might spend $10,000 for lifts, lessons and lodging over the first week of a skiing career (for that kind of money you could earn a private pilot license). But with cheap season passes, existing skiers skied more often. Covid sent them home from the office and their kids home from school; the internet encouraged them to work from hotel rooms. As a result, skiers lined up in droves, creating early-morning lift lines and tromping out the powder by 9:30 a.m.

The rush sparked resentment among the swollen population of second-home “locals” and shrinking cast of seasonal employees. Locals have cursed tourists in the past (remember the “Turkey, Go Home” sentiment of the early ’70s?) but today’s wage-earning locals also resent lack of housing, static income and the entitled attitudes of some wealthy patrons.

Meanwhile, lodging costs inflated, too. The traditional shoulder and low seasons evaporated, as hotel owners found they could fill $500-per-night rooms until after Easter.

Long Term Trends

It’s likely that most of these changes would have happened anyway, but absent Covid, at a much slower rate. As noted, in Aspen and Vail, home prices rose about 13.5 percent per year for the two decades ending in 2019. At that rate, the median single-family home would be $4.2 million today and wouldn’t reach today’s value of $10.5 million until the year 2031.

All this may prove a boon to smaller resorts. “Independent” has become a valid brand. On the other hand, former ski-bum secrets are in many cases rapidly Aspenizing. Powder havens like Fernie and Big Sky are growing too expensive for the kind of gap-year ski bum who might once have settled in for good.

We’re decades past the era when someone like Whip Jones could respond to an overpriced monopoly market by building a competing resort (in his case, Aspen Highlands). We may be stuck with gentrified ski towns with no room for colorful ski bums, or for middle-class mom and pop with three kids in a van. And if you’re a lifelong skier, your options for retiring to a ski town have narrowed, perhaps vanished.

What can a middle-class skier do? Travel afield. Search out that off-brand indie mountain with cheap motels nearby. Go to Europe, where you can still buy a $50 daily pass for a network spanning three valleys and 120 lifts and get a $120 hotel room. Buy a winterized motorhome. Free your heels: climb for your turns or ski cross-country.

Resorts and ski-towns have proposed dozens of schemes for affordable employee housing. They want to repurpose or replace existing structures, build on city-owned land, incentivize homeowners to rent space on year-long leases (instead of short term), or import tiny homes. Any and all projects can meet with vociferous local opposition. Opponents cite neighborhood impacts on congestion, noise and architectural unsightliness, but it often boils down to anxiety about having working-class families around the corner. It’s a universal problem: Everyone recognizes a social issue but few want to be part of the solution. In May, the Colorado legislature failed to enact a statewide land-use bill meant to encourage construction of affordable housing because counties and towns didn’t want to cede authority to the state.

In economics, the concept of tragedy of the commons describes the overuse of a finite resource by self-interested individuals. That’s where we stand. No zoning law, or peasant rebellion, can restore the original spirit of the ski town. 

Seth Masia is the president of ISHA.

Snow Country December 1988

“She wants to know if it’s got the modified slalom sidecut with pre-preg glass laminate for superior shock absorption.”

 Historical gem still a political football. 

Gunstock, one of the nation’s oldest ski resorts, suffered a near-death experience over the summer. Management pulled off a heroic last-minute save, but right-wing politicians may still try to close the county-owned property.

Photo above: County-owned Gunstock Mountain Resort built the first chairlift in the East in 1937.

Organized recreational skiing in Belknap County, New Hampshire, goes back to the 1918 founding of the Winnipesaukee Ski Club, and the area soon became a hotbed for ski jumping. The Lake Region was already a draw for summer visitors from the Boston area, so it was natural for the Boston & Maine to run weekend ski trains too. When Alpine skiing caught on early during the Depression years, volunteers

began cutting trails: According to Carol Lee Anderson’s book The History of Gunstock (a 2011 Skade Award winner), ski club members cleared 15 miles of trails during the summer of 1931. In early 1932, Belknap Ridge Trail hosted the first Eastern Downhill Championship. There followed a whole series of Eastern Championship races, both Alpine and Nordic. The rope tow went up in 1935. County commissioners and the legislative delegation jumped on the chance to funnel federal Depression-recovery funds into the local economy. They formed a county-owned recreation district and put nearly 1,000 men to work building a 60-meter jump, and then, in 1937, a chairlift—paid for mostly by the Works Project Administration. Ski tourism became the linchpin of the local economy, supporting a burgeoning base of hostels and restaurants. Northland built a ski factory and hired 100 woodworkers. The region even put in a bid for the 1940 Olympics.

New Hampshire voters have long been a fiscally conservative bunch but they have a 300-year tradition of town-meeting democracy and have always supported public enterprises like schools, hospitals, fire and police departments, highway maintenance and parks (including the state-owned ski area, Cannon). They elect moderate Republicans to state offices (the Sununu dynasty, for instance) and, in recent cycles, Democratic U.S. senators and presidents. Belknap County is the most conservative region of the state; of its 18 state delegates, all are Republicans and half a dozen are “Free State” libertarians.

Free Staters believe that government should function only to protect life, liberty and property, which means they’re hostile to public education, libraries and recreation, and, perversely, even to public health and safety agencies. In New Hampshire, a county’s legislative delegation shares budgeting power with the elected county commission; in recent years, Belknap’s delegates have slashed funding for the county’s 90-bed nursing home (at the height of Covid, of course) and sheriff’s department. In neighboring Sullivan County, as reported in The New York Times, Free Staters on the Croydon school board cut its budget by 50 percent. The budget was restored in a town meeting by a vote of 377 to 2.

In 1959, the state legislature put governance of Gunstock Mountain Resort in the hands of the Gunstock Area Commission (GAC), whose five members are appointed to five-year terms by the county’s legislative delegation (the Belknap County Delegation, or BCD). Historically, the GAC is composed of local businesspeople with an interest in keeping a healthy flow of skiers coming to town. But the delegation’s role in budget-setting has, over the decades, kept the resort chronically undercapitalized and dependent on bridge loans to get through the summer. In 2017 and 2018, under the influence of Free State delegate Norm Silber, the BCD withheld those summer funds. Silber, a tax lawyer and nonskier, suggested that the resort be leased to a private operator.

Silber left office in 2018, and in November 2018, ski industry veteran Gary Kiedaisch, who had served as president/CEO at Stowe from 1989 to 1997, was named chair of the GAC. His revitalization effort included recruiting retired Waterville Valley CEO Tom Day. Day joined Gunstock in January 2020 (just in time for Covid), with a crew of experienced resort managers. They turned the business around, bumping skier visits to more than 220,000, with annual revenue in 2021 of $18 million—enough to remit $240,000 to the county (and $350,000 in 2022), over and above sales taxes. Far from needing summer funds, the resort sails into the 2022-23 season with $8 million in the bank. The GAC approved a three-lift expansion plan that would also double the skiable terrain.

Gunstock’s future appeared bright, but in November 2020 Silber—now chair of the county Republican party—returned to the legislature and to the BCD. What followed was widely reported in The Boston Globe and New Hampshire papers: Silber filled vacancies on the GAC with three more Free Staters, who tried to micromanage Tom Day and his employees. On July 20, 2022, Day and six key managers resigned, followed, in solidarity, by Kiedaisch. That proved to be a tactical error—it simply removed a rational voice, and vote, from the commission.

The remaining members of the GAC proved incompetent to operate the resort. Many line workers refused to punch in, leaving Gunstock’s summer business closed and preparations for the upcoming ski season hanging fire. On July 26, at a rowdy public meeting, the staff offered to return if GAC members Peter Ness and David Strang resigned. Instead, Ness and Strang fled an angry mob. On July 29, Ness resigned. The BCD called an emergency meeting for August 1; Silber and delegation chair Mike Sylvia called for a boycott, hoping to prevent a quorum, and with six other BCD members stayed home. But 10 of the 18 delegates attended and voted 9 to 1 to oust Strang and appoint ski instructor Denise Conroy to his seat. Tom Day and his team returned to work, just in time to save the ski season.

The crisis is by no means over. The BCD will fill two vacancies on the GAC, possibly with Silber allies. Silber, Sylvia and the anti-resort crew are still in place on the BCD, unless replaced by Belknap’s voters in November. The county cast 38,000 votes in November, 2020, 54 percent for Donald Trump. One might hope that attentive citizens concerned for the future of the resort, and for the nursing home, the sheriff’s department, and the public schools, might vote them out. Republican Gov. Chris Sununu has publicly encouraged voters to do just that.

One way to protect the resort from the Free State movement might be to sell it outright. The existence of an approved expansion plan could attract a buyer. Kiedaisch believes that Belknap citizens wouldn’t allow that. “They’ve seen what is happening at [Epic Pass resorts] Stowe, Sunapee, Attitash and Wildcat,” he said. “The assets would need to be unwound from the federal and county dollars invested, and, potentially, all the real estate taxes that were exempt because of county ownership.” The county, he said, should run it profitably, “like a business, just like the state runs the liquor commission and the lottery.” 

For further news, follow citizensforbelknap.org

Seth Masia is president of ISHA and has skied in New England since 1972.

Can Vail Resorts improve employee and customer relations? Efficient operations, and market share, may depend on it.

Overcrowding and staff shortages at ski resorts first attracted the attention of local and online media at the end of 2021, then in January spread to traditional outlets like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, statewide papers like the Denver Post and Seattle Times, and special interest magazines such as Outside. 

To be fair, resorts faced the same issues as businesses in general: namely labor shortages and slow delivery of inventory. When a shortage-afflicted business takes payment up front, fulfillment and customer services deteriorate. Late delivery angers customers.

That’s what happened at ski resorts this winter. Covid accelerated and exposed long-term trends, creating a perfect storm of employee and customer angst. A booming real estate market and an increase in Airbnb-type short-term rentals pushed the housing shortage from chronic to acute, which, combined with decades of static wages, forced employees into onerous commutes. Many employees simply declined to work that way, and when Covid put remaining employees in isolation, there weren’t enough bodies to shovel or make snow, drive groomers, maintain equipment, bump lifts, patrol and teach, flip burgers, make beds, punch cash registers, fit rental boots and provide childcare. At the same time, skiing seemed a Covid-safe outdoor activity, season passes were cheap, and skier visits on peak days soared. Ski retailers sold out early, highways and parking lots jammed up, and skiers stood in 40-minute lift queues. Skiers tolerate the late arrival of natural snow, but when the snow is great and the lifts don’t turn, they fume.

Vail Resorts was a particular target of consumer fury, incurring an organized protest movement and threats of class-action lawsuits, beginning at Stevens Pass, Washington. There, more than 44,000 skiers signed an online petition calling VR responsible for failure to open lifts and terrain, and about 300 complaints went to Washington’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson. By late January a new general manager, Tom Fortune, was turning the corner, solving some of his staff issues and opening popular backside access. The fixes were simple: more efficient use of available employee housing, increased employee shuttle service and new hiring. VR also offered the resort’s passholders deep discounts to sign up for next winter, and promised to extend the season through April. It’s worth noting that Vail very publicly bumped its minimum wage to $15 per hour in the key states of Colorado, Utah, California and Washington—but in the pre-Covid era VR’s average hourly wage for its roughly 47,000 seasonal employees was around $12 per hour. In mid-January VR offered a $2-an-hour bonus for employees who stay on until the end of the season.

In recent years, VR has set itself up for local disaster. The universal Epic Pass was a huge boon to average skiers, and a tonic to investors; it has transformed the resort industry with one simple, game-changing mantra: Skiing will now be purchased in advance. Meanwhile, VR took steps to bolster the bottom line for shareholders, such as slashing middle-management salaries by centralizing most corporate functions at its Broomfield, Colorado headquarters. The unintended consequence is a corporation slow to react to emerging local problems. Off-site marketing and finance personnel are blind to the nuances of local markets, and local issues. But the bridge too far was the cutback in local human-resources personnel, and the consequent loss of on-site expertise in local recruiting tactics, transportation and housing issues. Payroll functions were moved to an app that didn’t work.

As part of VR’s campaign to maximize margin in every segment, it built retail, lodging, food service and transportation enterprises that compete with local businesses. Building employee housing is always difficult, but alienating prominent locals doesn’t help.

VR cut the price by 20 percent and sold more than 2.1 million Epic Passes last summer, up 76 percent from pre-Covid 2019. According to its December 9 quarterly report, the company sailed into the season holding $1.5 billion in cash. It can well afford to spend what’s needed to fix local problems. Those problems now include settling class-action lawsuits by employees, meeting obligations under new collective bargaining agreements—and fixing housing and transportation issues. While they’re at it, they need affordable learn-to-ski packages for first-timers who get the itch in January, and improved access to free or cheap parking.

The original Vail Associates, from opening day in 1962, set the gold standard for American skiing. Vail offered the best slope grooming in the world. It recruited a top-ranked ski school. Vail’s managers, many of them veterans of the 10th Mountain Division, promoted skiing culture, for example by enlisting well-known skiers like Pepi Gramshammer and Dave and Renie Gorsuch to establish businesses in town, and later, under George Gillett, by bringing the World Championships to town. When the private equity firm Apollo Partners took VR public in 1997, they did what Wall Street always does: managed for shareholder value rather than customer and employee morale. To skiers, it now looks like VR has been cannibalizing VA’s good will.

According to annual reports, in fiscal year 2019 (the last pre-Covid year), VR’s mountain-operations revenue was $1.9 billion, and company-wide gross profit margin (EBITDA) was 36 percent. The National Ski Areas Association Economic Analysis shows the average large North American ski resort EBITDA then at about 26 percent. The difference was not only Vail’s success in selling season passes, but in strict cost control. To solve the employee crunch and relieve skier crowding, VR may have to give back some of that margin. With its 25 percent market share (in skier visits), the sport needs VR to succeed.

Will spending that money affect the stock price? Some 95 percent of VR stock is held by institutional investors, who may not care much about employee and skier morale. Closely held resorts have more freedom of action, and they’ve shown it this season to the benefit of their guests, employees and the communities they operate in. The other major resort conglomerate, Alterra of the Ikon Pass, has from day one taken the decentralized path, ceding control to its individual resorts. Aspen in mid-February gave a $3-an-hour raise to every employee in the company.

Rob Katz, the change-agent who created both the Epic Pass and VR’s 44-resort empire, stepped down as CEO in the fall and is now executive chairman of the board. His handpicked successor, veteran Kirsten Lynch, the data-driven marketer who has brainstormed the Epic Pass metrics, is now in the hot seat. “One of the hallmarks of our company is agility and change,” Lynch told the Wall Street Journal in its January 15 story “Steep Slope for a Ski Empire.” By the time you read this, in March, we’ll have seen how agile VR can be.

Image at top of page: Skiers on the hook, by Rudiger Fahrner

Can Vail Resorts improve employee and customer relations?

By Seth Masia

From the January-February 2022 issue

(Posted February 12, 2022) Overcrowding and staff shortages at ski resorts first attracted the attention of local and online media at the end of 2021, then in January spread to traditional outlets like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, statewide papers like the Denver Post and Seattle Times, and special interest magazines such as Outside. 

To be fair, resorts faced the same issues as businesses in general: namely labor shortages and slow delivery of inventory. When a shortage-afflicted business takes payment up front, fulfillment and customer services deteriorate. Late delivery angers customers.

That’s what happened at ski resorts this winter. Covid accelerated and exposed long-term trends, creating a perfect storm of employee and customer angst. A booming real estate market and an increase in Airbnb-type short-term rentals pushed the housing shortage from chronic to acute, which, combined with decades of static wages, forced employees into onerous commutes. Many employees simply declined to work that way, and when Covid put remaining employees in isolation, there weren’t enough bodies to shovel or make snow, drive groomers, maintain equipment, bump lifts, patrol and teach, flip burgers, make beds, punch cash registers, fit rental boots and provide childcare. At the same time, skiing seemed a Covid-safe outdoor activity, season passes were cheap, and skier visits on peak days soared. Ski retailers sold out early, highways and parking lots jammed up, and skiers stood in 40-minute lift queues. Skiers tolerate the late arrival of natural snow, but when the snow is great and the lifts don’t turn, they fume.

Vail Resorts was a particular target of consumer fury, incurring an organized protest movement and threats of class-action lawsuits, beginning at Stevens Pass, Washington. There, more than 44,000 skiers signed an online petition calling VR responsible for failure to open lifts and terrain, and about 300 complaints went to Washington’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson. By late January a new general manager, Tom Fortune, was turning the corner, solving some of his staff issues and opening popular backside access. The fixes were simple: more efficient use of available employee housing, increased employee shuttle service and new hiring. VR also offered the resort’s passholders deep discounts to sign up for next winter, and promised to extend the season through April. It’s worth noting that Vail very publicly bumped its minimum wage to $15 per hour in the key states of Colorado, Utah, California and Washington—but in the pre-Covid era VR’s average hourly wage for its roughly 47,000 seasonal employees was around $12 per hour. In mid-January VR offered a $2-an-hour bonus for employees who stay on until the end of the season.

In recent years, VR has set itself up for local disaster. The universal Epic Pass was a huge boon to average skiers, and a tonic to investors; it has transformed the resort industry with one simple, game-changing mantra: Skiing will now be purchased in advance. Meanwhile, VR took steps to bolster the bottom line for shareholders, such as slashing middle-management salaries by centralizing most corporate functions at its Broomfield, Colorado headquarters. The unintended consequence is a corporation slow to react to emerging local problems. Off-site marketing and finance personnel are blind to the nuances of local markets, and local issues. But the bridge too far was the cutback in local human-resources personnel, and the consequent loss of on-site expertise in local recruiting tactics, transportation and housing issues. Payroll functions were moved to an app that didn’t work.

As part of VR’s campaign to maximize margin in every segment, it built retail, lodging, food service and transportation enterprises that compete with local businesses. Building employee housing is always difficult, but alienating prominent locals doesn’t help.

VR cut the price by 20 percent and sold more than 2.1 million Epic Passes last summer, up 76 percent from pre-Covid 2019. According to its December 9 quarterly report, the company sailed into the season holding $1.5 billion in cash. It can well afford to spend what’s needed to fix local problems. Those problems now include settling class-action lawsuits by employees, meeting obligations under new collective bargaining agreements—and fixing housing and transportation issues. While they’re at it, they need affordable learn-to-ski packages for first-timers who get the itch in January, and improved access to free or cheap parking.

The original Vail Associates, from opening day in 1962, set the gold standard for American skiing. Vail offered the best slope grooming in the world. It recruited a top-ranked ski school. Vail’s managers, many of them veterans of the 10th Mountain Division, promoted skiing culture, for example by enlisting well-known skiers like Pepi Gramshammer and Dave and Renie Gorsuch to establish businesses in town, and later, under George Gillett, by bringing the World Championships to town. When the private equity firm Apollo Partners took VR public in 1997, they did what Wall Street always does: managed for shareholder value rather than customer and employee morale. To skiers, it now looks like VR has been cannibalizing VA’s good will.

According to annual reports, in fiscal year 2019 (the last pre-Covid year), VR’s mountain-operations revenue was $1.9 billion, and company-wide gross profit margin (EBITDA) was 36 percent. The National Ski Areas Association Economic Analysis shows the average large North American ski resort EBITDA then at about 26 percent. The difference was not only Vail’s success in selling season passes, but in strict cost control. To solve the employee crunch and relieve skier crowding, VR may have to give back some of that margin. With its 25 percent market share (in skier visits), the sport needs VR to succeed.

Will spending that money affect the stock price? Some 95 percent of VR stock is held by institutional investors, who may not care much about employee and skier morale. Closely held resorts have more freedom of action, and they’ve shown it this season to the benefit of their guests, employees and the communities they operate in. The other major resort conglomerate, Alterra of the Ikon Pass, has from day one taken the decentralized path, ceding control to its individual resorts. Aspen in mid-February gave a $3-an-hour raise to every employee in the company.

Rob Katz, the change-agent who created both the Epic Pass and VR’s 44-resort empire, stepped down as CEO in the fall and is now executive chairman of the board. His handpicked successor, veteran Kirsten Lynch, the data-driven marketer who has brainstormed the Epic Pass metrics, is now in the hot seat. “One of the hallmarks of our company is agility and change,” Lynch told the Wall Street Journal in its January 15 story “Steep Slope for a Ski Empire.” By the time you read this, in March, we’ll have seen how agile VR can be.

Follow-up, March 14: Vail Resorts raises minimum wage to $20 an hour  --Vail Daily

Image at top of page: Skiers on the hook, by Rudiger Fahrner

We’ve all heard that ski resorts will operate this coming winter under social-distancing rules. That means limited cafeteria space, restrooms, chairlift seating, lift-line queues and equipment-rental facilities. Some of these limitations will be addressed by box lunches, new tented outdoor seating and Portapotties, and by online advanced reservation requirements. Many skiers won’t want to fly off on destination holidays, so some major resorts may see a drop in ticket sales.

Meanwhile, in the wake of Black Lives Matter protests, companies say they plan to do more to address diversity issues. CEO Rob Katz of Vail Resorts sent out a letter to employees pointing out the obvious: the skier population is still very largely white, and so is his workforce. Katz has actually been out front on diversity issues, particularly with unprecedented female leadership and training at his company, but also with various programs (and personal donations) to get minority youth on the slopes. It hasn’t moved the needle much, he admits, and he terms this a “person failing.”

It’s hard to recruit new customers of any ethnicity at a time when businesses must ration access—and with the state of the economy. But staffing should be another issue. NSAA president Kelly Pawlak reports that half of resorts are understaffed, by an average of 44 positions. If visas for foreign workers remain unavailable and if international travel remains restricted, resorts won’t be able to staff up with young Latin Americans on temporary work permits. Resorts instead will need to find new seasonal staff, for jobs from mountain operations to cafeteria workers, perhaps in nearby cities—and local recruiting needs to begin now. Some of the new employees will be people of color. Close-in resorts may bus in workers. Destination resorts will have to ramp up availability of employee housing. If hundreds of nearby hotel rooms and condos are empty, as was the case at destination resorts during the Great Recession, that may not be a challenge.

One of the barriers to minority entry into the sport is that newcomers often don’t feel welcome when they don’t see other people like themselves in town. So more Black and brown faces in customer-facing staff positions would help to recruit new populations to the sport, once marketing outreach becomes practical again. Best of all: Some of the new employees will catch the mountain bug, stick around, and advance up the ranks.

Henri Rivers, president of the National Brotherhood of Skiers (NBS), has been talking to resort managers in Colorado, Utah and elsewhere. He points out that diversity needs to happen at all levels. Recruiting people of color for profit-center and senior management jobs isn’t hard. “But you can’t recruit the traditional way,” he said. “Outsource recruiting or look for other resources. Partner with the Black MBA Association or NBS, or with a Black lawyers’ association. Start by hiring four managers. They’ll be successful. There’s no shortage of highly qualified people eager to move out of the city into the mountains, for a better lifestyle.”

Skiing’s history is on the side of diversity. Going back to the early 20th century, once Norwegian immigrant ski clubs got over their resistance to the admission of English-speaking members—and notwithstanding the 119-year-history of anti-Semitism at Lake Placid and other Adirondack communities—the sport has generally accepted new arrivals. European refugees populated resorts beginning with the rise of Nazism, staffing ski schools and launching businesses. Postwar skiing in North America had strong roots in the fight against racist Axis governments.

Officialdom has had more trouble with new forms of snow-sport than with ethnicity. FIS took at least a decade to come to terms with alpine skiing, then with freestyle. More recently, in the 1980s and ‘90s, the sport’s leaders, and many skiers, fumbled badly with the integration of a new kind of customer—snowboarders. This relatively diverse group would eventually become saviors, pumping new life into a stagnant sport, then helping birth the freeskiing movement, which has been welcomed to resorts with untold resources dedicated to terrain parks. Back in February, a few months before George Floyd’s murder, the outdoor and ski industry suppliers banded together on a DEI pledge (diversity, equity and inclusivity). Pre-BLM, there had also been an upsurge in advocacy groups for diversity, ranging from industry- (Outdoor Afro) to consumer-based (Share Winter).

While the general skier population has remained largely of European ethnicity, ski areas have long drawn local ethnic groups as employees and customers, with several marketing efforts launched in the 1990s. Native American and Latinx skiers are unremarkable at resorts in New Mexico and Arizona, Asian skiers common at West Coast resorts. Black skiers remain under-represented despite the success of the NBS. This needs to change. The combination of the pandemic business disruption and the Black Lives Matter movement is an opportunity to accelerate that change. 

Pie chart at top of page comes from 2013 SIA particpant study.

Finally perfected after 30 years, the carving ski failed to gain a following in North America. In its place, we got a ski that has made resort slopes less safe.

(Photo above: Modern “shaped” skis were originally developed to help racers achieve the pure, carved turn—eliminating the braking effect of skidding. Ron LeMaster photo)

For most of modern skiing’s history, the execution of a perfect turn has been an unobtainable ideal. Leather boots and wooden skis weren’t able to initiate and sustain a continuous, seamless carve. In the January 1967 issue of SKI magazine, Olympic gold medalist and Jackson Hole ski-school director Pepi Stiegler described a teaching method of getting the skis on edge so “the skis are literally carving the turn for you.” He called it the “Moment of Truth on Skis.”

“To start the turn, the skier should have the feeling of his weight going forward on the uphill ski and twisting the skis downhill. The resulting sensation is of a drift in the direction of the turn. At some split second during this process, the skier senses a moment to apply the edges and start the skis carving.”

At the time, the invention of plastic boots and the use of metal and fiberglass in ski design had brought the grail of the carved turn within reach. Stiegler, who became the NASTAR national pacesetter, clearly saw the desirability of recreational skiers knowing how to carve a turn.

The year before he died, the incomparable Stein Eriksen sent ski historian John Fry a package that included several photos of Stein in his iconic reverse-shoulder stance, along with a letter in which Eriksen asked Fry whether he should be considered the inventor of the carvedturn. Ever the diplomat, Fry replied that he doubted an uninterrupted carve was possible on 1950s-era equipment, “but if anyone could do it, it would be you.”

Perhaps the best-known apostle of the carved turn was Burke Mountain Academy founder Warren Witherell, who explained in How the Racers Ski (1972) what constituted a perfect carve: “In the very best racing turns, the entire edge of the ski passes over the same spot in the snow. The tip initiates the turn, biting into the snow and setting a track or groove through which the remainder of the ski edge flows.”

While Witherell’s gospel found faithful adherents in the race community, it failed to ignite interest among recreational skiers—in part because carving on a long,

narrow ski was still a difficult skill to develop. While Witherell was preaching to the coaching choir, the public’s attention turned to the counter-culture phenomenon known as hotdog skiing, a.k.a. freestyle. Short skis would soon be all the rage, both as a means of abbreviating the learning curve and as a superior tool for moguls, aerials and ballet.

The concept of carving recaptured a toehold in the public’s consciousness with the advent of snowboarding and images of a steeply angled board sending up geysers of powder. The popularity of snowboarding and its short learning curve challenged ski designers to reconsider their assumptions about ski dimensions.

By 1995 there were just enough wasp-waisted models to muster a carving-ski category worthy of examination by Snow Country, where I oversaw the magazine’s testing. Over the next two seasons, deep-sidecut carving skis would render the relatively shapeless skis that preceded them obsolete. The universal acceptance of shaped skis appeared to augur a new world in which everyone would henceforth carve turns because every ski was a carving ski. The nirvana envisioned by Stiegler in the 1960s had been attained. (For the history of shaped skis, visit https://skiinghistory.org/history/evolution-ski-shape.) But...it didn’t happen.

The disruptive force that altered the path of ski design began innocently enough. When Atomic introduced the Powder Magic in 1988, its target audience was the heli-skiing patron who no longer would tire quickly in the bottomless snow, thanks to the new fat skis.

All the ski designer had to do to make the fat ski easier to steer was lift the tip and tail out of the snow, leaving a short foundation underfoot that could be swiveled side to side much more easily than it could be tilted on edge. The ski forebody, instead of seeking connection with the snow, now performed the same function as a Walmart greeter: It’s friendly but otherwise plays no part in what goes on behind it.

If Warren Witherell was the evangel of carving, the Pied Piper of the emerging fat ski was Shane McConkey. McConkey wanted a better tool for attacking bottomless snow in extreme terrain. He persuaded his sponsor, Volant, to create the Spatula. The Spatula was the embodiment of the anti-carver, with a reverse sidecut and reverse camber. It inspired an explosion in the wide, rockered, all-terrain ski designs that currently dominate the U.S. market.

In the European Alpine countries where skiing has always had a broader base of participation, the notion that carving was a teachable skill found fertile soil. To this day, carving perfect turns on prepared slopes is central to the European ski experience.

Carving never caught on in America. A carved turn is best practiced on groomed terrain. Americans were more attracted to the versatility afforded by an all-mountain ski. By definition, “all-terrain” includes powder, and proficiency in deep snow depends on width. The appeal of skiing the entire mountain, and being properly equipped for the rare powder day, outweighed the allure of making a perfect turn every day.

Americans were enticed away from carving skis by fat skis that enabled skiers to easily swivel their way downhill. Lower-skill skiers can access ungroomed terrain they didn’t have the confidence to try before. But on regular groomed terrain at high speed, fat skis with limited edge contact don’t make for better or safer skiers. Quite the opposite. I’ll bet there aren’t ten people reading this who either haven’t been involved in a skiing collision, had a close call or knows someone who has been hit. The bottom line: Skis with waists from 75-90 millimeters would better serve the vast majority of skiers rather than models that are 100 millimeters and above. The wide platform of fatter skis does provide stability, but the trade-off in loss of quickness and edge control is not worth the price.

In a recent member survey, seniorsskiing.com found out-of-control, fast and reckless skiers and snowboarders to be the number-one grievance about the resort experience. “A few jerks skiing dangerously” and “risk-takers who don’t turn on groomers” far surpassed complaints about lift ticket prices, cafeteria food quality, and long walks to and from parking lots.

Carving skis offered a means of enabling skiers to control their speed and trajectory. The proliferation of highly specialized powder skis being used as everyday skis has had exactly the opposite effect. Not only are these skiers personally at risk, but everyone who shares our crowded slopes with them is also potentially in harm’s way.

Jackson Hogen is the editor of Realskiers.com, which tests and evaluates ski equipment. He is past General Secretary of the ASTM Committee on Ski Safety, and past Chairman of SIA’s Skiing Safety Committee. 

Next winter, the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame will induct up to eight new honored members, selected from a ballot of 15 nominees. But the ballot of 15 was chosen from a list of 71 skiers nominated by their friends and family. It took two rounds of voting, by a selection committee of 25 chaired by Jeff Leich of the New England Ski Museum, to break ties. Fewer than 11 percent of those nominated will be chosen by the electorate, numbering about 365 ski-sport veterans. The odds are long, and not likely to improve.

The field wasn’t always this crowded. Long-time ski-show promoter and Hall of Famer Bernie Weichsel recalls that when he was elected chairman in 2009, “We had to beg people to submit nominations. The Hall simply wasn’t very well known.”

Between 1985 and 2008, there were 14 years when the Hall found four or fewer inductees. At that point the selection committee instituted new criteria, and nominations began to grow after 2011, when the Hall partnered with ISHA for a gala event in Sun Valley. By organizing a reunion of professional freestyle skiers, Weichsel boosted attendance at the Hall’s induction banquet to about 600, and drew national attention. Weichsel also promoted the Hall at trade shows and ski resorts. One result: Baby boomers in the ski business began nominating their friends.

During his tenure on the selection committee (beginning around 2005), U.S. Ski Team communications chief Tom Kelly made sure that champion athletes got nominated. That’s a rich source: With the addition of freestyle and snowboarding to the FIS schedule, and new events in alpine and nordic competition, the number of medalists and World Cups has tripled. For instance, at the 1984 Olympics, American skiers won five medals of 87 available (5.7 percent). In 2018, Americans took home 14 medals of 255 awarded (5.4 percent). That’s triple the number of medalists who will eventually find their way into the Hall of Fame. Pro freestylers and prominent snowboarders also build the count of Hall nominees.
According to newly elected Hall chairman David Ingemie, the board of directors wants to limit nominations to people with national, as opposed to regional, influence. Another challenge is that people who are well known for leading large organizations—corporate executives, for instance—tend to pull more votes than innovators, regardless of their universal influence, who worked behind the scenes. For them, the odds are long indeed.

—Seth Masia

Charges of sexual abuse come to light in Austria, Canada. By John Fry

The #MeToo movement has come to skiing in a swirl of proof and denial. 

Nicola Werdenigg—Austria’s women’s national downhill champion in 1975 when she was teenager Nicola Spiess—has charged that she was sexually molested during her years as a competitor. Though she refuses to cite names, the Tyrol State Office of Criminal Investigation is looking into the 59-year-old grandmother’s allegations. 

A few months before Werdenigg’s searing confession, across the Atlantic Ocean in Quebec, a magistrate found a Canadian junior women’s ski coach guilty of 37 criminal charges related to sexual assaults on young racers in the 1990s. Nine women have publicly testified against Bertrand Charest, 52. He has been sentenced to 12 years in prison. 

AUSTRIAN ACCUSERS

In November of last year, Werdernigg publicly disclosed in the newspaper Der Standard that while attending a ski academy run by a pedophile, she had been raped. She disclosed also that she had been fondled by a ski-manufacturing executive, and had witnessed abuses of other young racers. 

According to Werdenigg, a second former Austrian racer has reported to Der Standard about sexual assaults in the 1970s. “We were fair game,” said the athlete, who wants to remain anonymous. “It happened to everyone. Often alcohol was involved.”

The Bavarian newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung headlined that “a climate of abuse and a culture of looking away” existed in Austrian ski racing. Former racers report serious sexual assault and rape in ski academies and on the World Cup circuit. Even the name of the iconic Austrian ski hero Toni Sailer, Olympic triple gold medalist and head coach of the Austrian national team in the 1970s, has been dragged into the scandal. 

Among the Austrian coaches was the legendary Charly Kahr, who coached the women’s team in the period 1966–1970. Three former racers have accused Kahr of sexual misconduct and rape. Kahr, 86, has denied the charges. His attorney says the allegations “are pulled out of thin air…it’s outrageous now, after 50 years, to drag Charly Kahr through the dirt.” The Austrian Ski Federation, Österreichischer  Skiverband (ÖSV), says it has no knowledge of the accusations. 

National Ski Associations Shamed

The disclosures have proven deeply embarrassing to national ski associations. Alpine Canada “failed” its racers, admits board chair Martha Hall Findlay. “We are profoundly sorry.”

In Austria, the powerful ÖSV was criticized for insensitivity when it declared itself unable to investigate Werdenigg’s claims unless she provides names and details. “It is not appropriate to issue ultimatums,” said Defense and Sports Minister Hans Peter Doskozil. “If someone (Werdenigg) comes out and dares to take this step at personal risk, then we should expect sensitivity in dealing with the person concerned.” 

Werdenigg says that it was not her intention to publicly pillory the perpetrators, but to reveal what happened so that young people will have the strength to provide information in case it happens to them. 

Influence of Ski Companies

Werdenigg’s case has been intensely covered in German-language European newspapers and magazines, and she’s been interviewed on television. She stated that when she was 16 two men got her drunk, and a teammate then raped her. “I did not talk to anyone about it because I was so ashamed,” she says. 

In the Der Standard interview, Werdenigg recalls being touched inappropriately by a ski-manufacturing executive. “An unappetizing old man, he asked me to sit on his knees and touched me as it should not have been. He said he needed racers like me on his team. I got up and left.” 

Ski companies strongly influenced decision-making in the sport. In the 1970s, for the first time, financial contracts were at stake. Racers and trainers were rewarded for their actions.

Vonn, Moser-Proell: Differing Reactions 

“The time has arrived for women to stand up,” said American downhill superstar Lindsey Vonn in reference to sexual crimes against young U.S. gymnasts. At a World Cup race at Cortina in February, according to Andrew Dempf on Therepulic.com, Vonn said, “Thankfully I haven’t experienced any of that in ski racing,” adding, “this is an opportunity for us to change how women are treated in the world.”

Annemarie Moser-Proell, whose number of World Cup wins is second only to Vonn’s among women racers, appeared unsympathetic. Proell was a teammate of Werdenigg. “When I was racing, nothing like this happened,” she said in a televised interview. “I would have been able to defend myself. 

“It’s not unusual for racers on the team to become couples,” continued Proell. “It happened with Rosi Mittermaier and Christian Neureuther, and Marlies Schild and Benny Reich. There was no rape. There are always two.”

Proell expressed sorrow for coaches, supervisors and service people “who have given everything and are now put in a bad light.” Unsurprisingly, she received a verbal lashing in the social media. But she was supported by Alois Bumberger, who coached Nicola Spiess in the late 1970s. Bumberger said he was surprised by the allegations made by his former racer. He is quoted as saying that he heard nothing about sexual assaults, and no racer had ever spoken up.

She Grew Up in a Skiing Family

Nicola’s parents ran the ski school at the west Tyrolean ski resort of Mayrhofen, which at one time employed 170 instructors, and had a top-notch kindergarten. Her mother, Erika “Riki” Mahringer, won two bronze medals at the 1948 Winter Olympics at St. Moritz, and two silver medals at the 1950 FIS World Championships in Aspen. Her father, Ernst Spiess, coached national team women, and was race director at the 1964 and 1976 Olympics in Innsbruck. Her brother, Uli Spiess, won two World Cup downhills.

Nicola herself was a prodigy. At the age of 16 she already was on the Austrian national team, registering four World Cup podium appearances her first season. She missed by 0.21 seconds a medal in the 1976 Olympic downhill, edged out by America’s Cindy Nelson, who won the bronze. 

Werdennig retired from ski racing in 1981 and joined the family ski school, which no longer exists. She married Erwin Werdenigg in 1984, and has a son and two daughters. She lives in Vienna. 

She suffered from an eating disorder. “There were many female racers who had severe bulimia. I was one of them. I see it in the context of the self-image that we women skiers developed under the sexist abuse of power.

“Yes,” said Werdenigg, “maybe I should have turned my back on the ski circuit earlier. But don’t forget our great emotional dependence on the sport…the sport for which one lives, for which one makes everything, for which one makes sacrifices.

“Today I am a grandmother, I have everything behind me, it’s finished, I’m not angry anymore.”

Toni Sailer Redux

The #MeToo movement recently led Der Standard to re-visit a well-known scandal that happened about the same time that Spiess-Werdennig was molested. The newspaper revealed how, in 1974, the Austrian government intervened to extricate from Poland the nation’s iconic champion, Olympic triple gold medalist Toni Sailer (d. 2009), after he was charged in a notorious rape case. 

At the time, Sailer was the head coach of the Austrian alpine team and was in Zakopane for a World Cup race. He became entangled in a drunken episode in a hotel room with two Yugoslav ski servicemen. A part-time prostitute was violently raped. The Austrian government prevailed on Poland to get Sailer out of the country before he was jailed. Sailer claimed he was set up.

The best perspective on the entire affair comes from Austrian sports historian, Rudolf Müllner. You can read it online at https://derstandard.at/2000072416580/Das-Bild-wird-jetzt-veraendert-das-...

Canadian coach jailed

Between 1991 and 1998, Bertrand Charest coached the Canadian national junior ski team, the Quebec Ski Team, Team Laurentians and the Mont-Tremblant Ski Club. He was originally arrested in 2015 for sexual assault and exploitation of young racers, and has already served five years of a 12-year sentence. Charest is appealing the sentence. He denies the allegations, but remains in prison. 

Last June, in a packed courtroom in St. Jerome in the foothills of the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal, Quebec court Judge Sylvain Lépine described Charest as a “predator” who had total control over the girls and young women he was coaching. Nine of them, who were between 12 and 18 years old at the time of their molestation, came forward to testify.

According to the Star.com, which covered the trial in St. Jerome, one former Canadian ski racer testified that Charest took her to have an abortion when she was about 15. She’d become pregnant after having unprotected sex with him on numerous occasions. The woman, whose identity is under publication ban like the other witnesses, recalled that she was young and in love with her coach, and that Charest advised her to keep their relationship quiet because he would go to prison if it became known.

Judge Lépine said the victims were vulnerable and compromised because they were afraid to lose Charest as a coach. The judge said that Alpine Canada had failed to protect its athletes, and that the organization chose to close its eyes to what the athletes were saying about Charest. 

Canadian Ski Federation Apologizes

In a statement, Alpine Canada board chair Martha Hall Findlay said, “Today, after a long and very difficult time for the victims and families, Bertrand Charest was sentenced to 12 years in prison, for things that he did over 20 years ago. 

“At the time, Alpine Canada—instead of being there for the athletes, instead of providing support when these activities were discovered—put itself first, not the victims. In doing so, Alpine Canada failed them.” Findlay said Alpine Canada has changed its policies and procedures to prevent similar situations from occurring in the future. 

The #MeToo movement is not believed to have generated any actions against the U.S. Ski Team. The nonprofit organization SafeSport, created last year and based in Denver, offers athletes and trainers the opportunity to report a concern or a violation, and to research past disciplinary decisions.  

John Fry is the author of The Story of Modern Skiing, about the revolution in equipment, technique, resorts, Olympics, media and environment that transformed the sport after World War II.

In November 2016, 16,000 fans attended a World Cup alpine ski race in New England, where love of the sport has never waned. By JOHN FRY

Last November was a transformative month. . . not only for politics, but possibly for American skiing. In politics, a neglected bunch of underemployed voters, largely unobserved and resentful of political correctness and diversity, had grown skeptical of the Establishment’s message and mission. The result was an electoral surprise. 

A parallel with skiing may seem remote, but how about this? Two weeks after the election, more than 15,000 enthusiastic fans unexpectedly showed up at an alpine ski race. And as many came back the second day. Those kinds of crowds hadn’t shown up at a World Cup race in 50 years in the United States, since Jean-Claude Killy won all three races on Cannon Mountain, New Hampshire in 1967. 

Who were these forgotten people who jammed the roads leading to the Superstar slope at Killington? Who would have expected such a throng? 

Not the various organizations that have erased the word “ski” from their names, replacing it with the amorphous, somewhat inaccurate “snowsports” as part of a fruitless endeavor to unite skiing with a culture whose mission has been to replace skis with snowboards. Not the advertisers and publishers who have sought to cure anemic participation with images of young men recklessly hucking cliffs, doing aerial flips, in baggy clothing derived from urban street wear.

The thousands who lined the slopes and filled the stands at Killington, including children, came to see another chapter in the hundred-year-old sport of alpine ski racing. In the world’s top women racers they could observe athletic form to which they can relate their own technique, most obviously in giant slalom: carving turns, skis out from under the body, head and shoulders aimed downhill, going fast. 

Nothing else on the slopes—freestyle, aerials, snowboarding—does this, or possesses such a rich history.  

The surprise is where all it happened. Vacated by American skiing’s national organizations, which moved West, the Northeast is a region akin to the neglected industrial heartland, made famous in the recent election. It’s snow country’s Rust Belt. . .at least, figuratively. Over the past 50 years the Northeast has suffered the loss of hundreds of lift and rope-tow-served ski areas—up to 650 across New England and as many as 250 in New York, according to Jeremy Davis of the New England Lost Ski Areas Project (www.nelsap.org). Ski companies and associations headquartered in the East have folded or moved west. 

However, in New England, the historic cradle of American skiing, love of the sport has never waned. The heartbeat is strong. If you include the amount of skiing they do in Colorado in the total, Northeastern skiers account for fully a third of national skier-days. They also purchase about a quarter of alpine equipment. They were the ones who thronged the spectator stands and the roads leading to Killington. 

Credit Powdr Corp.’s Herwig Demschar (Austria) and U.S. Ski Team President Tiger Shaw (Dartmouth, Stowe), among others, for making the risky bet that World Cup racing, after an absence of 25 years, would be a success in the East. The crowds of spectators have also served to remind FIS officials that 56 million people live within a few hours’ drive of Vermont and New Hampshire ski mountains. Tops in TV ratings for ski racing are Boston and New York, the world’s media capital. The FIS should waste no time in putting the U.S. Northeast permanently on the annual calendar of World Cup races. 

Looking ahead, too, ski areas may question why they spend hundreds of thousands of dollars building free-admission terrain parks, while charging guests to compete in NASTAR. An easy open-gated course enables recreational skiers to sense an approximation of what Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller experience, or what the world’s best women racers were doing at Killington on Thanksgiving weekend, exciting a thrilled public, and reminding us of the path to making a great sport even greater, again.  

The writer voted the Democratic line in the recent U.S. presidential election. His opinions are his own, and not necessarily those of the International Skiing History Association. Fry is the author of the award-winning Story of Modern Skiing (University Press of New England, 2006).

By John Fry

A skiing friend of many years recently died, and I found myself traveling to talk at his memorial service. It was not, and he was not, religious. The afternoon memorial took place in an art gallery in Woodstock, on the eastern edge of New York’s Catskill Mountains. Most of my skiing with my friend had been here, in the Catskills, forty and more years ago.

Before I set out on the drive north, I noticed that snow was forecast, so I stuck my ski gear in the car, just in case. . .

 For those who think that life’s end should be a solemn affair, the idea of planning a combined funeral and ski trip may seem frivolous, or outright disrespectful. But why should it be?

Following the memorial service I spent the night in a motel in the village of Fleischmann, not far from the home of Mitch Cubberly, inventor of the revolutionary Cubco binding 65 years ago, and of Highmount, a lost ski area. Both gone.    

In the morning I drove the dozen miles to the base of Belleayre Mountain. Six inches of fresh powder had fallen overnight. I was among the first lift riders. Like most skiers over the years, I can’t find words to describe what happened next . . . two hours of ineffable, raw pleasure, cruising in snow lying light as feathers on a groomed base. Turns came effortlessly, the skis silent as they sliced the down-like snow.

It wasn’t the day’s only satisfaction. I caught a chair ride with an eight-year-old girl, geared for a giant slalom race. On the slope under the lift, blue and red poles were set. Volunteer gatekeepers were in position.

“What’s the race?” I asked. “A mini-World Cup.” she murmured. Dreams of Michaela Schiffren danced under the little helmet. But this petite racer had another concern. Her bib number was ‘7’, and already bib number 1 was on the course. “When we unload,” I urged her, “head straight for the starting gate. Don’t worry. You’ll make it!” She did.

That Sunday I found myself celebrating my friend’s life more than mourning his death. I watched as parents herded their kids, issuing the ages-old warning not to speed out of control. On stubby skis and snowboards they struggled or soared. All over the mountain children and parents exulted in the brilliance of sunlight and pristine whiteness. Their shouts of happiness rang across the slopes.

Skiing was alive and well, recycling its history, the conqueror of time otherwise wasted.

My friend had died. The sport, which he loved, lives on. . . and on.

-- John Fry