65 years of skiing: Silver Run Ski Education
Foundation marks birthday with fund-raiser

By Brett French
Billings Gazette Outdoor Writer

RED LODGE - Its name and mission have changed, but the Silver Run Ski Education Foundation will still celebrate its 65th birthday this year as one of the oldest ski clubs in the nation. The foundation is the offspring of the Silver Run Ski Club, founded in 1938.

"We were a pretty active group," said Bobbie Ostrum, of Billings. As a member of the Silver Run Ski Club, she recalled dances, pancake breakfasts, fund-raising plays and a bit of tomfoolery in addition to a lot of skiing. "Red Lodge rocked when we got down there," she said.

But around 1965, the Silver Run Ski Club - which brought skiing to the Red Lodge area - changed from a social club to focusing more on ski racing. It wasn't until the early 1980s that the name actually changed, mainly for income tax purposes to allow tax deductible donations. By then, the once rambunctious club and its older members had quietly stepped aside for a new generation committed to ski racing.

The foundation will recall its gregarious roots on Dec. 13 during its 14th annual dinner and fund-raiser at 6 p.m. at the Bridge Creek Restaurant in Red Lodge. The event features silent and live auctions and is open to the public. Tickets at the door are $20 for adults and $7 for children 10 and under.

But there won't be any cardboard boat races down a trough-like spittoon, an event once hosted by the club. No, this will be a much tamer affair. Silver Run Ski Education Foundation operates as a nonprofit organization specifically to provide ski race coaching at Red Lodge Mountain. Its primary funding comes from its annual auction, business and individual donations and through coaching and training fees paid by athletes. So, the fund-raiser is important.

About 40 athletes from the Billings, Cody and Red Lodge areas, ranging from 6 to 18 years old, take part in foundation activities. The best racers travel across the West to compete. The Silver Run Ski Team races in the Northern Division, which includes Montana and northern Wyoming. Its graduates include Tyler Smedsrud of Red Lodge, who is racing for the Montana State University ski team in Bozeman, and Bridgett Tucker of Billings, who competes on Rocky Mountain College's ski team. Silver Run had seven athletes compete in last year's Junior Olympic Championships.

Jennifer Stielow, Silver Run's coach, is pumped up about this year's team. "I'm excited. We've got a good bunch," she said. "We've got three good racers over 14 that haven't had a lot of exposure. And, we also have a couple of really good skiers in the younger group."

Although the foundation concentrates on racing, the original ski club was primarily a social group for skiers from Billings, Red Lodge and the surrounding area. Members of the 10th Mountain Division, upon returning from World War II, got the club off the ground. According to a club history, the group's skiing outings started on a run above Willow Creek, just west of Red Lodge. A rope tow hooked to an old car pulled skiers up the hill. A small chalet with a wood stove served as a warming hut at the bottom of the slope. Because of the run's low elevation, however, snow cover was spotty. So club members searched out other places to ski in the Red Lodge area.

There were many. In the early 1930s, skiers plowed down Mount Maurice, just south of town, at the Princeton Camp founded by Princeton University professors. By the 1940s, after the Beartooth Highway was constructed, skiers traveled to the Gardiner Headwall at the top of the highway. During World War II, when gasoline was available, they'd drive on the road to the Hellroaring Plateau to find good snow. The road was open as mines atop the plateau shipped ore to Red Lodge.

Later in the '40s, Percy Bliss developed a run about 15 miles up Rock Creek, toward Glacier Lake. It was named Shangri-La and offered a 2,000-foot rope tow, the longest in the state at that time. But a forest fire wiped out the ski area in 1948, forcing another search.

Although the group had cast about for better skiing, it still kept Willow Creek running from 1941 to 1957. The Sundance Winter Sports Area gave the club some competition in the 1960s when it opened a ski hill on the northwest flank of Mount Maurice. It later folded for a lack of adequate snow.

As the ski club looked for someplace better than Willow Creek, it drew up a list of necessary components: The new hill had to be accessible, have adequate snowfall as well as terrain for beginner and expert skiers. In 1955, the club settled on Grizzly Peak on Custer National Forest land. Forming a corporation, Grizzly Peak Inc., shares were sold in the business to get it off the ground. Grizzly Peak Ski Run opened officially on Feb. 27, 1960, with one double chair lift. It is the same mountain upon which Red Lodge Mountain resort now resides with a total of eight lifts and 70 trails, more than the ski club could have imagined.

"Just about every function that ski area has was once a function of the ski club," said Lou Penwell, a former club member. Everything from the ski school, ski patrol and ski shop were at one time run by ski club committees.

Ostrum takes pride in the fact that she helped skiing in Red Lodge take wing, and had fun doing it. "We put all our heart and soul into that club," she said. "After it became a racing club, it became much more professional. We were just thinking about having fun."

Donations to Silver Run Ski Education Foundation can be mailed to P.O. Box 725, Red Lodge, MT, 59068.