This 616-page book is not something you lug to the beach. It’s a skiing media extravaganza that takes you from the Alpine heart of Europe through the Mediterranean—skiing on Corsica, anybody?—then to the north. Denmark’s green carpet of Neveplast on the roof of Copenhagen’s power plant can give you an 85-foot vertical, 365 days of the year. Move on to Eastern Europe, and to the Americas north and south, and elsewhere on the corners of the globe. This is, after all, Skiing Around the World, Volume II: Collecting Ski Resorts, by Jimmy Petterson.
Journey to the sands of Qatar and Oman, and to the massive indoor-skiing center of Dubai (104° F outside and 25° F inside). Continue to Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, North Korea—Kim Il Jung’s Masikryong does not compare well with PyeongChang, the 2018 Olympic venue in South Korea, especially for lifts.
Petterson travels as far east as Kamchatka and finishes in Antarctica: an exhausting, pleasurable, sometimes enchanting 45 chapters. Whew! You could consider it a hardcover skier’s bucket list.
How does Petterson do it—and on senior-citizen knees? The answer: live a life full of curiosity, as we are all told we should do, spiced up with the athletic joy to keep your body in motion. Every page supports that life theory. Here are magnificent skiing photographs: powder spumes follow Petterson making first tracks at Livigno and on pristine glaciers in Antarctica, then panoramic views of Kamchatka. Then ‘tourist’ photos: the author posing with skis on shoulder at St. Basil’s cathedral in Moscow, Ugandans and their animals, the 1,500-room Atlantic Palace Hotel in Dubai. There are enthusiasts skiing and swimming naked, and not a few celebrations, libations and guitar at hand.
Here I sit in rural New Hampshire and I revel in Petterson’s exploits. I ski along with him in the Alps and Scandinavia, at resorts I, too, have known, and I feel a nostalgic rush.
I turn a page or two and am in Peru, then Lesotho (not highly recommended), Greenland and the Ukraine. Turkey looks intriguing. There is a feel for the spray of powder, living free, and having a heck of a time of it for over 40 years. —E. John Allen
Skiing Around the World, Volume II: Collecting Ski Resorts by Jimmy Petterson, Published by Ski Bum Publishing Company, (2019), hardcover, $97, Winner: 2021 ISHA Baldur Award. www.skiingaroundtheworldbook.com
The Forgotten Race of the 10th Mountain Division
On June 3, 1945, the 10th Mountain Division of the US Army held a special race on Mount Mangart. At first glance, this is hardly a breathtaking announcement, but it was the first peace-time race, only 26 days after Germany’s unconditional surrender ended World War II in Europe. However, the authors of Američani na Mangartu 1945. Smučarska tekma 10. gorske divizije na Mangartu 3. junija 1945 (English translation: Americans on Mount Mangart: Ski Race of the 10th Mountain Division at Mount Mangart, Slovenia, on June 3, 1945) are more interested in detailing “a race long forgotten by Americans,” and one of which Slovenians—whose national winter sport is skiing—were unaware.
The race took place on Mount Mangart, 2,679 meters (8,789 feet), situated in today’s Slovenian Triglav National Park. This corner of the world has a varied border history whose modern roots lie in the line between the Kingdom of Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After World War I, a new border was drawn by the 1920 Rapallo Treaty. After World War II, the Morgan Line of demarcation separated Tito’s partisans and the area under Allied military administration. It was signed on June, 10, 1945, and lasted until September 15, 1947, so this ski race took place during the uncertain days of immediate post-war land settlements.
The book, in Slovenian but with chapter summaries in English, includes 10 papers presented at a conference titled Americans on Mount Mangart. The centerpiece is Brigadier Janez Kavar’s essay on the race itself. The essay details the top times: Sgt. Prager (1.05.2), followed by Sgt. Steve Knowlton six seconds back (1.11.4).
There were an astonishing number of DNFs. I can only suppose this is because none of the men had any real race practice while fighting in Italy. Readers will recognize Herbert Schneider, Dev Jennings, John Litchfield and Arthur Doucette to pick four prominent personalities among the 50 men listed.
Supporting essays explain the border problems (Karla Kofol), the general history of military skiing and the Yugoslav Partisan Olympics held in January 1945 (Aleš Guček). Col. Boštjan Blaznik, commander of the NATO Centre of Excellence for Mountain Warfare, presents an overview of modern military skiing.
The book also maintains that Alpina boots and Elan skis made their mark in North America as a result of the American connection. At just over 100 pages, with many photographs, the book brings this uncelebrated military race out of the shadows of
history. —E. John Allen
Americans on Mount Mangart: Ski Race of the 10th Mountain Division at Mount Mangart, Slovenia, on June 3, 1945. Editor: Janez Kavar. Proceedings Editor: Matijo Perko. Editor: Bohinjska Bela, Association of the Slovenian Military Mountaineers. Winner: 2021 ISHA Ullr Award. Available from tomaz.pirjevec@telemach.net.
Visions of Arlberg Past
There has been a recent focus on ski-history photography. In the United States, the interest ranges from an upcoming exhibition of 1950-2000 photos by the New England Ski Museum in Franconia, New Hampshire, to the donation of Ray Atkeson’s photo archive to the University of Oregon. In Europe, an exhibition is planned of the works of Emanuel Gyger and Arnold Klopfenstein, Swiss photographers of the 1920s and ’30s, by the Swiss Alpine Museum in Bern. And now here is Martin Rhomberg and Christof Thöny’s Sichtbar: Eugen Heimhuber: Fotographien am Arlberg und Hochtannberg (English translation: Eugen Heimhuber’s Vision: Photographs of the Arlberg and Hochtannberg.) It’s 128 pages of stunning photographs by Heimhuber (1879-1966), mostly from the 1920s but some earlier.
The book is sourced from a trove of 30,000 glass plates from Heimhuber and covers a number of his excursions. This is, the editors tell us, probably the largest photo collection (estimated 250,000 taken from 1876 to 1960) from a single source with documentation to go with it.
Sichtbar has four short essays in German and translations in English. Sections portray Stuben, St. Christof, St. Anton, Lech, Zürs and Warth. We see the Arlberg before any lifts. We see single and double ski spoor in a lonely line up the Widderstein in February 1911, and on the Schindler Spitz in 1920. It’s a world gone by.
There is St.Anton before the razzmatazz of industrial downhill skiing. And Zürs, today claiming 88 lifts, but the photos show the Edelweiss and Alpenrose inns alone in the landscape.
We learn the importance of regional pioneers such as Dr. Max Madlener of Kempten and Dr. Christof Müller of Immenstadt and, yes, there is a photo of Hannes Schneider jumping off the Rendelschanze (Rendel jump) in 1914. This book is a wonderful evocation of the Arlberg, through the lens of a skilled photographer. — E. John Allen
Eugen Heimhuber’s Vision: Photographs of the Arlberg and Hochtannberg edited by Martin Rhomberg and Christof Thöny. Published by Lorenzi Verlag (2019), 128 pages, hardcover, $30. Winner: 2021 ISHA Skade Award.
Mount Assiniboine: The Story
This coffee-table book, with 336 pages and 382 images, is a tribute to the many people who made Mount Assiniboine so special. Historian Chic Scott has written more than a dozen books on the Canadian Rockies and knows the collections of the Whyte Museum of the Canadian Rockies, perhaps, like no other. So it’s not surprising to find Mount Assiniboine: The Story full of evocative photos of the mountains and its people.
The first section starts with the local First Nations, followed by the explorers, priests, and early mountaineers. It ends with James Outram’s first ascent of Assiniboine in September 1901. Four more sections are dominated by personalities.
During 1913-1927, A.O. Wheeler promoted the area to mountaineers and tourists, and in 1922 the Mount Assiniboine Provincial Park came into existence. Then came two mercurial skiers, the Marquis degli Albizzi and Erling Strom, who brought the first skiers into Assiniboine and got the initial Assiniboine Lodge constructed. Strom’s 55-year tenure at the lodge introduces all sorts of characters: horse wranglers, Chinese cooks, guitar-strumming cowboys, dog-sled drivers, Swiss guides, pilots, and a parade of strong women, not least Lizzie Rummel, who ran her own camp for 20 years.
During World War II, the lodge was open only in summer. After the war, although summer tourism picked up, skiing tourists preferred the rope tow, t-bar, and chairlifts. The long haul to Assiniboine on cross-country skis was no longer attractive to clients who did not have a month to spend, but only a weekend for mountain skiing.
Part Five covers the Renner Years (1983-2010), introducing many improvements. It tells how regional bureaucracy at its worst almost removed Sepp and Barb Renner as hosts; they were about to leave the lodge when they learned that their contract had been renewed. After 2010, their work was taken on by their son and two friends—a happy ending.
This book includes the sources used, a good bibliography and index, which all add to the tales of camp and lodge living, to knowledge of the prime movers and to the story of those for whom the mountain came to dominate their lives. —E. John Allen
Mount Assiniboine: The Story by Chic Scott. From Assiniboine Publishing (2020), hardcover, 336 pages and 382 images. $75. Available from The Assiniboine Lodge (assiniboinelodge.com)
Movies have had a special place in the history of skiing, of course. Because motion picture cameras were invented just about the time skiing emerged as a sport in the Alps, snippets of footage exist all the way back to the years before World War I. There's even newsreel footage of alpine troops training in France and Austria.
But what is widely regarded as the very first commercial ski film was released 100 years ago, on December 23, 1920. Arnold Fanck’s “Das Wunder des Schneeschuhs” (The Wonder of Snowshoes) is a documentary following an expedition that climbs up to 4,200 metre (13,780 feet) high glacier slopes in the Swiss Alps. It then follows pioneering downhill skiers using the Arlberg System created by Hannes Schneider. Among other tricks and stunts skiers are shown leaping crevasses and even setting off small avalanches.
The skills and bravery of the skiers filmed, the spectacular isolation of the high mountain winter landscape were beautifully portrayed in Fanck’s film and remain as visually stunning today as 100 years ago – even when viewed vias Youtube rather than on the big screen as intended.
Born in Germany in 1889, Fanck originally trained as a geologist. His love of mountain scenery took him to remote locations creating movies that were tremendously popular with German audiences. They became known as the "mountain films" genre with more filmmakers, including American director Tay Garnett, starting to make films a similar style.
Fanck co-founded the Berg and Sportfilm company (Mountain Sport Films) to create the movies and had a run of popular successes including The Holy Mountain (1926), The White Hell of Pitz Palu (1929), Storm over Mont Blanc (1930) and The White Ecstasy (1931).
In the 1930s Fanck is reported to have run in to problems with the rise of the Nazi regime after he initially refused to join the party instead working on a film called The Eternal Dream which had a French hero in the lead, was filmed in the French Alps and had a Jewish producer – all politically unacceptable in Germany at the time. –Patrick Thorne
Photo above: Arnold Fanck in 1925. Matthias Fanck archive.
INTERNATIONAL SKIING HISTORY ASSOC. HONORS 14 OF THE BEST HISTORICAL BOOKS AND FILMS OF 2020
MANCHESTER CENTER, VT (Feb. 8, 2021) – The International Skiing History Association (ISHA), the nonprofit organization whose mission is to preserve and advance the knowledge of ski history, today announced the 14 recipients of its annual awards honoring the best works of history published during 2020.
First established in 1993, the ISHA Awards include the year’s best creative works of ski history, including books, films, websites and other media projects.
From the frozen spine of the Colorado Rockies to the icy steeps of Riva Ridge in Italy; to ski tourism in Idaho's remote Wood River Valley; Arapahoe Basin in the Rockies; the Arlberg region; and the history of handicapped skiing; to movies about the American men’s downhill team; and a book the size of a coffee table that covers skiing around the world, these winners exemplify the best in ski communications.
“We like to think of these as the Pulitzers of snowsports history, projects that honor the people and places that have made skiing so memorable for millions of current and past enthusiasts,” says Seth Masia, ISHA president.
“Few sports have impacted so many people as passionately as skiing.”
The awards will be presented during an online event to be held in April 2021. To see the 2020 Awards Presentation Program, and for details about ISHA Awards, go to https://skiinghistory.org/events Meanwhile, watch for reviews of the winning books and films in the Media Reviews section of the magazine accessible through skiinghistory.org.
The 2020-21 winners are:
ISHA Ullr Award
Maurice Isserman: The Winter Army: The World War II Odyssey of the 10th Mountain Division, America's Elite Alpine Warriors Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019
Janez Kavar (ed). Američani na Mangartu 1945: smučarska tekma 10. gorske divizije na Mangartu 3. Junija 1945 Slovenia.
Zdruzenje vojaskih gornikov Slovenije, 2020 [Title in English: Americans on Mount Mangart 1945: Ski race of the 10th Mountain Division at Mount Mangart, Slovenia June 3, 1945]
Maurice Woehrlé Les Peuples du Ski: 10,000 Ans d’Histoire Books on Demand, 2020 [Title in English: Skiing Peoples: 10,000 Years of History]
ISHA Skade Award
John W. Lundin Skiing Sun Valley:A History from Union Pacific to the Holdings The History Press, 2020
Nancy Campbell Stone Buck Hill: Let's Give it a Whirl! A History 1954-2015 Printed by Smith Printing Co. LLC, 2019
Cathleen Norman with Alan Henceroth Arapahoe Basin:A Colorado Legend Since 1946 The Donning Company Publishers, 2020
Martin Rhomberg and Christof Thöny (Hg.) Sichtbar: Eugen Heimhuber - Fotografien am Arlberg und Hochtannberg Lorenzi Verlag, 2019 [Title in English: Eugen Heimhuber’s Vision - Photographs of the Arlberg and Hochtannberg]
Robin Morning For the Love of It: The Mammoth Legacy of Roma and Dave McCoy Blue Ox Press, 2020
Donald A. Johnston Hotel Kosciusko: The History and Legacy of Australia's First Planned Alpine Resort Produced by The Perisher Historical Society, printed by Hogan Print, 2020
Ingrid P. Wicken Lost Ski Areas of Tahoe and Donner The History Press, 2020
ISHA Baldur Awards
Jimmy Petterson Skiing Around the World II: Collecting Ski Resorts Skibum Publishing Company, 2019
ISHA Film Awards
Fresh Tracks Produced by: TFA Group + Leimkuehler Media Producers: Mo Finn and Lena Moss Glaser Executive Producers: Jeremy Snyder, Katie Leimkuehler and Mallory Weggemann Director: Hans Rosenwinkel [*Note all the "producers" (as listed in the film credits)]
Bode Miller USSST photo
[The] American Downhiller: The Legend of the Men's Team Produced by Claire Brown and Scott Lyons Editors: Susie Theis and Claire Brown Narration: Steve Porino POC, Ski Racing Media and Jalbert Productions
About ISHA
The International Skiing History Association (ISHA) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization whose mission is to preserve and advance the knowledge of ski history and to increase public awareness of the sport’s heritage. It is recognized worldwide as an important resource for comprehensive, accurate information on the history of ski resorts, personalities, equipment, technique and events. ISHA’s 1,400 members – including resort and industry leaders, World Cup and Olympic racers, leading authors and historians, and passionate skiers from two dozen nations – share a love of the sport and its rich past. The association publishes the magazine Skiing History six times a year. For more information, including details on membership, view www.skiinghistory.org.
If you drove the family to a New England ski area in the 1950s and ’60s, lunch might be hot dogs. This ad from the Eastern section of SKI Magazine (January 1961) pitched Tobin First Prize frankfurters. The firm was founded by Fred Tobin in Rochester, New York in 1921, and by 1957 he’d built additional plants in Albany, then two locations in Iowa, then Buffalo. Tobin weathered a post-war meat rationing crisis to become the largest maker of hot dogs in the Northeast. After Fred Tobin’s retirement in 1969, the company suffered chaotic management and declared bankruptcy in 1981.
Coming Up in Future Issues
Suitable for Framing Everett Potter reports on the annual Swann Galleries vintage ski-poster auction.
Going Deep As droughts and weather events grow weirder, we look into the history of the world’s biggest storm cycles.
Yellowstone on Skis In 1886, U.S. Cavalry troopers protecting the park swapped horses for skis in winter.
Spider’s Web The lasting legacy of Spider Sabich may surprise you.
PLUS
Listen Up! Remember singing “Super Skier” around the ski lodge fireplace? From yodeling odes to “90 Pounds of Rucksack” to modern ski-video soundtracks, music has always been part of ski culture. Listen to the classics through ISHA’s multi-media reconstruction of ski-music history.
Paul Post’s “Back to the Future” (November-December 2020) brought back fond memories of the early days at West Mountain, of which my family was a major part. I faintly recall the opening day, December 25, 1961, when the first rope tow started spinning. The Brandt brothers (Mike, Claude and Paul) had commissioned my father, Tom Jacobs, to open the ski school and ski shop. The following season he started the junior race program at West and helped organize the Southern Adirondack Junior Racing League.
When Tom hired Izzy Ture in 1966 to take over the ski school and race program, West Mountain racing was well on its way to becoming a significant player on the New York scene. However, the pivotal moment came when Mike Annett was hired by Izzy in 1969 to run the race program.
I agree with Steve Lathrop that history may well repeat itself under his race department directorship. The program is blessed with the full support of West Mountain’s managers, Sara and Spencer Montgomery, who are providing a unique opportunity for high level training and racing at a very reasonable cost, something unique at resort and academy settings throughout the nation. It’s most gratifying to see the race program at West Mountain continue to flourish!
John Jacobs
Glens Falls, New York
Alta is for…?
The Goldminer’s Daughter’s matriarch, Elfriede Shane, recently departed this life at the age of 97. (See Remembering, page 31). Hers was a life lived with passion, purpose, generosity, wisdom and a boundless appetite for fun!
When my parents, Neef and Shirlee Walker, took over operation of Alta’s Watson Shelter, Jim and Elfriede were among our family’s most constant friends. One afternoon during the 1966-67 season, Elfriede invited me, an eighth-grade student, to help her devise a suitable slogan for Alta. Elfriede kicked the discussion off with a suggestion I’ll never forget: “Alta + Skier = Happy!” After a short lull, my mother suddenly volunteered “Alta is for Skiers.” Elfriede’s face alit with a smile as telling as it was enthusiastic. “That’s it!” she proclaimed.
Tom Walker
Alta Historical Society
Alta, Utah
Gone Fishing
I greatly enjoyed the excellent article on the Seigniory Club (“Canada’s Forgotten Ski Center,” September-October). It’s entirely appropriate, of course, that an article on the Seigniory Club in Skiing History should focus on skiing and other winter activities, but the Club also catered to people with a passion for fishing and hunting.
As it happens, the father of a childhood friend contributed a team of horses to haul the many logs of which the main club building was constructed. His reward was access to Seigniory Club grounds for fishing and hunting. This gave my friend and me the chance to do a little fishing. Using only bits of white bread on a hook crudely knotted to a thick line on a rod and reel set bought for $1.49 at a Canadian Tire store, we were able to catch some decent brook trout. We would kill for an experience like that at the fishing club in Quebec to which I have belonged for more than 40 years.
Ivo Krupka
Canadian Ski Hall of Fame & Museum
Thank you, ISHA
I joined Skiing History in 2009 as a part-time freelance assistant editor at the invitation of John Fry to start training and learning under editor-in-chief Dick Needham, who stepped down in 2010. Over the years, my duties expanded as I took on duties as Director of Operations and eventually Executive Director.
In 2018, I decided to toss my hat in the ring and run for the Vermont House of Representatives. I won. Then I won re-election in November 2020. I am passionate about public service and the role that grassroots community leaders can and must play in guiding us to a more equitable and unified future. So while I will dearly miss my daily involvement with ISHA, I look forward to my new role as a legislator. (Learn more at my website: kathjamesforstaterep.com.)
I loved my years at ISHA for many reasons. I am a passionate skier, having spent most of my life as an enthusiastic alpine skier but switching in recent years to the peace and serenity I find in classic nordic. So it was an honor to learn about, and help to preserve, the history and heritage of the world’s most wonderful and fascinating sport and lifestyle.
But for me ISHA has always been about the people—the chance to work and learn from my mentor and dear friend John Fry, to work with a fantastic board of directors, to meet lifelong ski journalists and historians who are the most knowledgeable stewards of our sport’s past, and to connect almost every day with our wonderful members around the world. I’ll hang onto my email—kathleen@skiinghistory.org—and I hope my ISHA friends will stay in touch!
How is it that a young man—raised in the road camps of California’s Central Valley, abandoned at age 15 by his father, deposited with his grandparents in a damp coal-mining town in central Washington by his mother, and thrust into adulthood near the end of the Great Depression—eventually came to build one of the biggest and most successful ski resorts in the country?
Dave McCoy’s work ethic, self-reliance, determination, optimism and ingenuity certainly played roles, but perhaps there was a more determinative influence.
Author Robin Morning returns with her second comprehensive work covering the history of California’s Mammoth Mountain and its protagonists with For the Love of It: The Mammoth Legacy of Roma & Dave McCoy. Note the order of Mammoth’s founders in the title, as Robin (and Dave) both attribute much of his success to his wife of 80 years, local girl Roma Carriere. In the book, Roma’s perspective is intimately shared through first-person chapters alternating with the third-person descriptions that tell Dave’s story.
The book details the lives of Dave and Roma from childhood through the completion of Chair One in 1953, marking the beginning of commercial skiing at Mammoth. While the legends of Dave’s life in the Eastern Sierra are widely known—from aqueduct repair work with the Civilian Conservation Corps, to erecting ski tows throughout the Highway 395 corridor, and his fortuitous hiring as a hydrographer (for his skiing ability)—the familiar stories blossom here in a conversational tone.
Dave met Roma in Bishop, a shy local girl who had a passion for dance but was soon converted to the rhythms of skiing. Inspired by a desire to have fun up in snow country and share that fun with others, together they built a legendary junior racing program at Mammoth while raising six racers of their own. Kids from near and far gravitated to Mammoth to enjoy Roma’s home cooking and cozy floor space while under the tutelage of Coach Dave.
Mammoth Mountain was developed not through any vision shared with would-be financiers, but through the McCoys’ remarkable resourcefulness. Dave became something of a Pied Piper on the mountain, with a diverse following of former accountants, engineers, World War II veterans and surfers abandoning their former lives to participate. Roma provided the home base where all were welcomed as family after a day of good clean fun moving tows, fixing weasels, clearing roads and skiing.
Morning grew up in Santa Monica and raced for McCoy at Mammoth, competing for the U.S. Ski Team from 1965 to 1968. The day before the opening ceremonies for the 1968 Winter Olympics at Grenoble, she broke her leg on a downhill training run. After coaching junior and master’s racers in Southern California, Mammoth, and Colorado, she became a schoolteacher and eventually found her way back to Mammoth, where she still lives. She’s the author of the ISHA Award-winning book Tracks of Passion: Eastern Sierra Skiing, Dave McCoy & Mammoth Mountain.
Morning has published her new book, For the Love of It, in part as tribute to her friend McCoy, who died in February 2020 at 104 (see Skiing History, March-April 2020). Available in softcover, 426 pages with numerous photos, signed copies available. Order online at www.blueoxpress.com. —Chris I. Lizza
Artificial slopes, using carpet or matting in place of snow, bring skiing to areas without reliable natural snowfall. Skiers have used them for over a century, but the earliest artificial surfaces manufactured specifically for skiing date from the 1950s. Since then, more than 1,000 have been built in 50-plus countries worldwide. The slopes come in many different shapes and sizes, with several companies involved in their manufacturing over the past 70 years, so no two are ever the same.
Dry ski slopes are essential for teaching millions of people to ski or snowboard. They can take the basic skills acquired on artificial slopes and then ski at conventional resorts around the world. Indeed, claims ski writer Patrick Thorne, dryland slopes have been a major factor in the success of the global ski industry. Many established dry slopes have strong community support, enabling children and people with special needs to learn to ski or board as well as practice regularly. They’ve also bred some of the world’s best skiers and snowboarders who’ve gone on to World Cup and Olympic glory.
The website DrySlopeNews.com includes an extensive directory of existing and former dry slope operations, with a timeline history going back to the Vienna Schneepalast of 1927. The site is the brainchild of Thorne, who learned to ski on a dry slope as a youngster in the late 1970s.
Thorne has covered skiing from his base in the United Kingdom for more than 30 years and has recently joined ISHA as a contributor to Skiing History and skiinghistory.org. He operates the news site InTheSnow.com and a sister site, indoorsnownews.com, covering the snowdome universe. DrySlopeNews.com won a 2019 ISHA Cyber Award. —Seth Masia
The Berkshires of Massachusetts have long been known as a winter sports paradise. Forty-four ski areas popped up across the region from the 1930s to the 1970s. The legendary Thunderbolt Ski Trail put the Berkshires on the map for challenging terrain, while major resorts like Brodie Mountain sparked the popularity of night skiing with lighted trails. All-inclusive areas—like Oak n’ Spruce, Eastover and Jug End—brought thousands of new skiers into the sport between the 1940s and 1970s. Meanwhile, snow trains made it fun and easy for metro-area skiers to plan weekend ski excursions.
But despite the surge of interest in skiing in Berkshire County, the majority of these ski areas would not last. Early areas closed permanently during World War II, followed by lift relocations and the shutdown of the snow trains. In the 1970s and 1980s, the pace of closures increased due to competition from larger areas to the north, gasoline shortages, a dearth of natural snow, and a lack of volunteers at community ski centers. Over the last few decades, these once-storied places faded away and were nearly forgotten. Trails became forests once again, base lodges rotted into the ground, and lifts rusted away.
In Lost Ski Areas of the Berkshires, author Jeremy Davis has brought these lost locales back to life, chronicling their rich histories and contributions to the ski industry.
Each former ski area, no matter how small or brief in operation, is chronicled, along with 75 historical photographs and trail maps, and the stories of those who skied them. For those who wish to explore these areas and see their ruins, a hiking guide is included for publicly accessible locations. The seven still-surviving ski areas have their own chapter.
Jeremy Davis is the founder of the New England and North East Lost Ski Areas Project (www.nelsap.org) and has written five books on lost ski areas. He serves on the Skiing History editorial review board and the board of directors of the New England Ski Museum. He is a senior meteorologist and operations manager at Weather Routing Inc., forecasting for the marine industry.
Lost Ski Areas of the Berkshires by Jeremy Davis. 240 pages. The History Press. $22 softcover, Kindle edition available. Winner: 2019 ISHA Skade Award.
Since 2004, ski historian and ISHA Award winner Ingrid Wicken has housed her California Ski Library in a 960-foot modular building behind her home in Norco, California. The library has grown steadily over the years and is now one of the most extensive collections of ski books, magazines, photographs and paper memorabilia in the United States. The photo archive, for example, includes images of U.S. skiing from the 1930s through the 2000s, covering Sun Valley, Aspen, Squaw Valley, Mammoth Mountain, Yosemite, Mount Hood, American ski jumping, and many California ski areas, large and small. Her book collection numbers 4,500 titles from around the globe. She also has located many rare and hard-to-find brochures, programs, research documents and correspondence from ski racers, writers and resort developers.
Now Ingrid needs our help! Freestyle pioneer Doug Pfeiffer—honored member of both the U.S. and Canadian Ski and Snowboard Halls of Fame—has recently donated 99 boxes of one-of-a-kind ski books and vintage magazines. The building is chock full, and Wicken has launched a Go Fund Me page to add another 480 square feet of display and storage space.
The California Ski Library is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, so donations are tax-deductible. Chip in to the fundraising campaign online at: https://tinyurl.com/CASkiLibrary. Learn more about Ingrid’s library at skilibrary.com.
The Forgotten Race of the 10th Mountain Division
Visions of Arlberg Past
Mount Assiniboine: The Story
ISHA Ullr Award 
ISHA Skade Award
ISHA Baldur Awards
