Dear Editor:
My husband Carson White was one of the prime promoters of skiing in California and the state’s best-known ski journalist. We have been I.S.H.A. members since 1992 and attended the wonderful Gathering at Park City in 1994, nearly sixty years from the day we met at an Oakland Ski Club lodge party. After our marriage, we moved to Donner Lake in 1952, lived there for 42 years then moved to Auburn five years ago.
In 1937, Carson organized and served as the Secretary of the Southern Pacific Railroad Ski Club, which sponsored snow trains to Donner Pass when that was practically the only way to ski the pass.
In 1946, he was elected Chairman of the Bay Area Ski Federation, a group of 21 ski clubs. In 1947, Carson began his career as a ski journalist, writing for the California-Nevada Ski News as correspondent for the Bay Area. He continued to be an avid skier. We went on spring trips into Squaw Valley in the 1940s and climbed what is now KT-22. It was the best slope in the valley. In 1955, Carson became Winter Sports Editor for the San Francisco Examiner and wrote a daily ski column for ten years.
He also wrote for magazines. One of his stories ran in Skiing in 1959. It was called Meet Bud Jones and was about a hard working squatter, Squaw Valley’s only resident before Wayne Poulsen bought the floor of the valley. “Bud” ran a herd of dairy cattle there, pasturing them in the big green meadow—right up to the point where it became the parking lot for the 1960 Olympics.
Carson covered the 1960 Olympics, of course, and represented the Examiner at the 1962 World Championships at Chamonix. There he spent time with Bill Eldred who published Ski, Martin Lurary, ITS editor, and Del Mulkey, its photographer. Carson also covered the 1964 Innsbruck Olympics.
In 1963, Carson was elected first president of the North American Ski Journalists’ Association and re-elected in 1964 and 1965. In 1990 NASJA nominated Carson for the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame. In 1995, NASJA renamed its most prestigious annual award for him. It is now called “the Carson White Golden Quill Award.”
Vi White Auburn, California

Maintaining a Sense of Humor

Dear Editor:
Really enjoyed your Humor Boom stories in your Fourth Issue 2000. It is a great change of pace to read an issue that was put together purely for the fun of it. Those of us in publishing sometimes take our work too seriously. And skiers can take the sport too seriously. This is a good antidote. Keep giving us ski humor pieces.
Alan Baker
Orrington, Maine

Alan is the publisher of a prize-winning New England weekly, the Ellsworth American—ed

Dear Editor:
I was in a really bad mood the day the Humor Boom issue arrived. But in two minutes I was laughing. It was so hilarious it lifted me right out of my funk. I have worked for many years in ski fashion and found Babara Wrenn’s piece about her collision with all those long-ago fashions the funniest of all!
Thanks for the morale-boost issue!
Sandy Heath
Stowe, Vermont

Sandy is a member of the board of directors of the New England Ski Museum; she is responsible for staging heritage ski fashion shows at NESM benefits—ed

A Valued Reader Comments

Dear Editor:
Kirby Gilbert’s letter listing errors in Sun Valley, A Surprising History was very good—just so you know my skiing background: as a kid I spent Christmas vacations at Caramat Terrace, an inn below Peckett’s on Sugar Hill in Franconia. In the winter of 1936 or 1937, I took ski lessons from Sig Buchmayr at Peckett’s.
As I recall, Sig was the only instructor on duty at that time. We climbed back and forth on that little slope in front of Peckett’s as Sig taught me in genuine Arlberg style.
In 1942, I was a member of the Harvard ski team. We didn’t manage many trips because of wartime gas rationing. I also belonged to the Hochgebirger Ski Club.
In 1945, after serving as an Army artillery spotter flying a Piper Cub, I talked the Army into founding what became the Third Army Ski School, which operated on the Zugspitze in Garmisch.
In 1956, I was one of the founders, with Al Sise, of the Boston Hill Ski Area in Andover, Mass. We were the second ski area in the state to have machine-made snow. In 1983, I served a term as trustee of the U.S. Ski Team Foundation.
On a recent ski trip this Januar, I went to Steamboat Springs with my son David, who was researching an article for the Boston Globe on Billy Kidd. We also went to Yellowstone Mountain Club, the new members-only resort at Big Sky, Montana, for another of his assignments.
David B. Arnold Boston

The Teaching Years of Martin Fopp:
Davos to Tacoma

Dear Editor:
Herewith new information passed on to me by my friend Martin Fopp, a well-known instructor about whom you ran my letter three years ago. He was from Davos and a ranking European racer before he came here in 1940 to become a top American racer—and one of the best-known instructors in the Northwest.
His father was Lieni Fopp, the hotel owner at Davos who financed the world’s first J-bar, the first overhead circulating cable lift, which revolutionized lift design, built near Fopp’s hotel in 1934.
Martin won the 1938 Parsenn Derby and held the course record for many years. He came to the U.S. in 1940, and in 1942 won the U.S. downhill championship at Yosemite. His future wife Shirley won the 1942 women’s combined, beating Gretchen Fraser six years before she won Olympic medals.
After the 1942 races, Martin and Shirley taught at Sugar Bowl. Greta Garbo filmed Two-faced Woman her only “ski movie” there. Martin was a technical director for the film and Shirley doubled for Garbo in the ski scenes (Shirley later doubled for Ingrid Bergman for the ski sequences in Spellbound). Fopp’s clients at Sugar Bowl included Errol Flynn and Norma Shearer.
Martin and Shirley married in 1944, while he was instructing at Timberline on Mt. Hood and she was working in a wartime Portland shipyard. After marriage, they taught at Big Bromley in Vermont, and then at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where they spent the winter in a small cabin, taking turns caring for the infant Marty Jr. before returning to Washington.
In 1963, the two of them bought Joe LaPorte’s Cascade Ski School in Tacoma in 1962 (in turn taken over by Marty, who had been managing it). A few years ago, Martin reached 70, and the two of them added it all up: they had put in 87 years of ski teaching between them over nearly the entire span of American alpine skiing
Rich Nelson
Swan Valley, Montana

Dear Editor:
In researching the history of Wilmot Mountain in Wisconsin, I noted that Wilmot started making snow around 1952, using Joe Tropiano machines, essentially lawn sprinkler systems with heaters. I thought the Tropeano system was the first but this contradicts the editor’s comment in Readers Response in the last issue.
Chuck Roberts
Wilmot, Wisconsin

The Tropeano brothers, aka Larchmont Engineering of Lexington, Massachusetts, were manufacturing and selling systems for irrigation and spraying. They played no part in the invention of the classic snow gun, which uses compressed air to break water into droplets and freeze them.
The first snow gun was invented by Tey Manufacturing. The Tropeanos simply bought the Tey patent. See the letter from John Hitchcock—who saw some of the earliest snowmaking by Tey at Mohawk Mountain in Connecticut—in Reader’s Response, Third Issue 1999. Tey had the rare experince inventing a unique device for skiing that succeeded from the start. Others, like metal poles and skis, were reinvented many times before a practical version arrived—ed

Oldest Contiuous Club Name

Dear Editor:
In early December, I was skiing with Lyndall Heyer at Stowe at a ski school clinic. Lyndall has been at Stowe for many years and knows a good deal about the early development of skiing. During our chairlift rides, our conversation frequently turned to the history of the sport, especially as it relates to ski clubs.
After we were off the hill, Lyndall showed me some of the articles in Skiing Heritage and I was fascinated. I was gratified to see references to Norm Dibelius’ book, Winter Sports, centered on the story of the Schenectady Wintersports Club. Norm will be pleased. As president of the club, I certainly was.
As I am sure you are aware, the Schenectady Wintersports Club was founded in 1932 and has a long history of promoting skiing in the Northeast. I think, but cannot prove, that the “Schenectady Wintersports Club” is the oldest, continuously-used name among ski clubs in the U.S., although we do not claim to be the oldest club, of course.
Our fear now is that with the aging of our membership, some of the club history will be lost. Norm’s book went a long way to preserving much of our history and we are working on a club archive. Joining I.S.H.A. will contribute to the preservation of our history.
Walt Kangas Schenectady
New York

California’s Auburn Ski Club, founded in 1927-28, holds the “continuous” title, but creating an archive is a great idea.
Winter Sports has wonderful anecdotes about the early skiers who formed the SWC and convened regularly at North Creek before it became Gore Mt. Dibelius tells the story of the first woman jumper in the East, Natalie Gammey, who once jumped blind, her eyelids frosted shut; he tells of Lloyd Lambert, founder of the 70+ Ski Club, befriending Lowell Thomas and Dot Hoyt Nebel tangling with Otto Schniebs over trail design—and winning. To get the book, send a check for $18.00 to Schenectady Wintersports Club, PO Box 228, Schenectady. NY 12301—ed

Susutaining a Sense of History

Dear Editor:
I immensely enjoy and respect the sport of skiing and ski racing. I have delighted in reading the articles printed in Skiing Heritage and am a true and passionate history ski ‘buff,’ having grown up in North Conway, New Hampshire, Hannes and Herbert Schneider’s hometown.
Your article on the Mahre brothers was a wonderful read about two of the best ever, but a few corrections are needed to keep ski history factual.
Mickey Cochran was not a pushy parent as stated. I happened to have the good fortune to have lived with the Cochran family in 1969-1970. The state of New Hampshire did not let high school students travel with the U.S. Ski Team and make up their work later, so I moved to Vermont, thanks to Mickey.
The Cochran family welcomed me and my family. Mickey was supportive, never a pushy parent; in fact, he did not care if the kids were ski racers. He only supported their love of sport and their dreams and goals in life. Mickey was an inspiration to many kids (not the least being his own and myself) and should be remembered as a great parent, coach and inspiration to many New England skiers!
And, as great as Phil and Steve were and are, it would have been difficult for Phil to best Tyler Palmer at the ’73 Spring Series, as both Tyler (then age 22) and myself (then age 20) quit the team after the ’72 Olympics and enjoyed many great years on Bob Beattie’s professional tour. (Mr. Brundage would have frowned on this type of competition, amateur vs. professional.)
Thank you for your informative and interesting articles on the wonderful sport of skiing and ski racing. Keep the stories coming and keep them factual.
Terry Palmer
Ketchum, Idaho

Tyler and Terry won national championships and Tyler won two World Cup events before the two went pro—ed

The First Ski Patrol Enquiry

Dear Editor:
Many myths are currently circulating in the ski world regarding “firsts.” In most cases, they are published by well-intentioned individuals—ski club communications directors, loyal mountain regulars and editors—who honestly believe them to be true. In other cases, commercial gain is involved.
However, believing in myths does not make them fact. For instance, one public relations release recently stated that Mount Mansfield at Stowe, Vermont had the “first” ski patrol in the nation.
Gretchen R. Besser’s landmark book, National Ski Patrol, Samaritans of the Snow states, “one of the earliest ski patrols was started at Mt. Mansfield in the winter of 1935-36.” And in fact there was a Gore Mountain Patrol formed in 1933 by Lois Perret, a nurse—who would soon become the wife of Vincent Schaefer, the founder of the Schenectady Winter Sports Club.
Another notable member of this early patrol was Dot Hoyt Nebel, a member of the 1940 Olympic Ski Team. The patrol first took to the slopes of Gore on March 4, 1934 with ten Red Cross-trained “competent skiers” equipped with first aid kits. They had toboggans “located in strategic places on trails” and a railroad car, parked on a siding which served as a medical clinic.
It was an active, working, trained ski patrol which eventually became part of the National Ski Patrol, an organization that followed many of the Gore patrol’s procedures.
Today, the Gore Mountain Ski Patrol is the largest in the Eastern New York Region of the NSP, with 120 active members with many years of outdoor emergency care experience.
Paul McMorris
Woodstock, Vermont

One difficulty with “first patrol” claims is that they often lack context. Some early “patrollers” had no toboggans. Some had no knowledge of first aid. Some did not patrol trails regularly but had simply volunteered to fetch medical help from the nearest town in case of an accident. Others, like the Gore
Patrol, had no fixed base. It all depends on what is meant by the phrase “ski patrol.”
Human memory can be at fault. The editor ghosted Adventures in Skiing, the Minot Dole autobiography published in 1965; in interviews, Minnie recalled that Stowe had the first ski patrol. But Minnie was remembering events from thirty years earlier. He had forgotten that the Gore patrol, among others, had equally long or longer histories. The editor had just begun writing about skiing and was in no position to correct Dole; this is the situation that often leads to a bevy of dubious facts. The Hannes Schneider bio, Flight Without Wings, is a classic example of a naive author and flawed recall—ed

Dear Editor:
The Miller Ski Co. is at present the oldest, continuous ski equipment company in the United States. We believe the secret is to “stay small, live long,” and that “making a contribution to the sport,” is infinitely more important than making money.
Our Miller all-angle snowboard release binding results from that philosophy. It took about ten years to get another of my inventions, the ski brake, accepted. We expect about the same for the snowboard release. I am sending you a copy of my Snowboard Deaths, the Cover Up. We are getting great support and recognition in our work from the medical profession.
You are lucky to be publishing Skiing Heritage and doing what you really enjoy. And, since I.S.H.A. is making such a large contribution to the sport, I am enclosing a check to help I.S.H.A. continue its fine work of putting ski history on the record.
Earl Miller
Orem
Utah