Long before the internet, influential newspaper columnists gave us up-to-date dispatches on where to ski, where to stay, and where the snow was best.
By Jeff Blumenfeld
Long before the internet took over our lives like a giant electronic Godzilla, when skiers wanted to know where to go, where to stay, what to bind to their feet, and what to wear in all kinds of weather, they turned to ski magazines. But it was newspapers that carried the most up-to-date information. Legendary scribes like ski columnist Frank Elkins (1910–1973), one of the country’s most influential mid-century ski writers, worked for 28 years at the The New York Times and 18 years at the Long Island Press, and was elected posthumously to the U.S. Ski Hall of Fame in 1974.
Legendary ski columnist Frank Elkins worked for 28 years at The New York Times and for 18 years at the Long Island Press. He was elected to the Hall of Fame in 1974. Photo courtesy Jeff Blumendfeld.
But Elkins wasn’t the only journalist whose columns influenced generations of skiers. From Europe to Canada and across the United States, during the 1950s to 1980s heyday of print journalism, a skiing press corps churned out copy. Usually every Thursday or Friday, these outsized personalities—old-school journalists, every one of them—would profile ski area executives, write about their visits the previous week, offer tips about money-saving lift and lodging packages, and stories about beginners, seniors, children, gear, racers and ski patrollers. Snow conditions were rated: poor, fair, good, very good or excellent, although a Friday night freeze could turn it all to boilerplate.
Their names are now legendary and include, in addition to Elkins, 1928 Canadian Olympic women’s track-and-field star Myrtle Cook (1902–1985) of the Montreal Star, one of Canada’s greatest advocates of women’s sport; Sir David English (1931–1998), editor of Britain’s Daily Mail and noted ski writer; Robert William Lochner (1930–2015), sportswriter/editor for the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times and Oregonian newspapers; John Samuel (1928–2014), sports editor of the UK Guardian; Carson White (1914–2001) of the Sacramento Bee and San Francisco Examiner, among other outlets; and Archer Winsten (1905–1997), a leading American film critic and ski writer for the New York Post.
Reading their columns, one imagines them pounding on classic Remingtons or Olivettis, then later TRS-80 desktop microcomputers (affectionately nicknamed “Trash-80s”), sipping bourbon as unfiltered Camels burned down to their fingertips.
Today fewer newspapers cover skiing, due to competition from online sources and loss of advertising dollars. Snow condition reports and race coverage has been drastically reduced. Newspapers have less space to cover hard news, let alone to write about winter enthusiasts who slide down mountains. This is despite the fact that for most newspapers, skiers are an ideal demographic that tends to be upscale, affluent, active, suburban, and thus, attractive to advertisers. So it’s not surprising that ski writers who still file a column every week during ski season reminisce fondly about four ski journalists in particular.
Kings of the Press Rooms
No one could dominate a press room like French journalist Jean-Jacques “Serge” Lang (1920–1999). An imposing 6-foot, 7-inch mountain of French Alsatian stock, Lang was a sports journalist for Blick, La Suisse, 24 Heures, and L’Équipe, and founded the Association of International Ski Journalists in 1971.
French journalist Serge Lang co-founded the World Cup in January 1966, hashing out the details in a meeting with Bob Beattie and Honoré Bonnet in Kitzbühel. Photo Skiing History archives.
“Here was this giant man with his hands on a small typewriter. He was so huge and his hands were so big, you wonder how he could type,” remembers John Fry, author of The Story of Modern Skiing (University Press of New England, 2010). “Much of Lang’s avoirdupois appeared to be concentrated in a beach-ball abdomen, teetering on surprisingly sturdy legs. His skull was square and massive, framing a florid peasant’s face that could have come from a Bruegel painting. His eyes tightened into slits when he was angry, and his smile was gap-toothed and friendly,” Fry said.
Lang also co-founded the World Cup, the racing circuit that made stars out of Jean-Claude Killy, Ingemar Stenmark and Franz Klammer. He modeled the concept on the soccer competition of the same name. With U.S. Ski Team coach and broadcaster Bob Beattie and French coach Honoré Bonnet, Lang hashed out the details in January 1966 near Hinterseer Farm, halfway up Kitzbühel’s Hahnenkamm downhill course.
Another larger-than-life character was Michael Strauss (1912–2008), The New York Times sports journalist for 54 years and its ski writer for 25 winters. He had a seemingly inexhaustible reserve of personal anecdotes about everyone from Babe Ruth to Pete Rose, Sonny Liston to Joe Namath, Calvin Coolidge to Richard Nixon. Strauss covered everything from archery to yachting, but he especially loved skiing. As the Times ski specialist from 1954 through 1979, it’s said he wrote more ski stories than any other writer for a major American newspaper, about 1,600 of them.
At The New York Times, Michael Strauss was a sports journalist for 54 years and ski writer for 25 winters. Over his career, it’s said he wrote more than 1,600 ski stories.
“Straussy” was a Panama hat-wearing sportswriter who would enter a press room shouting, “Somebody give me a lead for my story,” remembers Phil Johnson, a ski columnist for the Schenectady, New York Daily Gazette.
Sports reporting was in his blood. Stories in the Times covered every facet of skiing, including alpine and nordic competitions all over America, NCAA tournaments, and recreational ski happenings, according to Carol Hoffman, president of the Lake Placid Ski Club. He was elected into the organization in 2001. Strauss covered the Winter Olympics at Calgary, Squaw Valley, Grenoble, Innsbruck and Lake Placid.
Olympic silver medalist and world champion Billy Kidd, now 76, met Strauss when he was a teenager. “He used to come to Stowe to cover the International Races, created by American International Group (AIG) founder C.V. Starr, and write about the skiing Kennedy clan and the Aga Khan, a competitive downhill skier who skied for Iran in the 1964 Olympic Games…If he mentioned you, that meant you were playing in the big leagues.”
After retiring from the Times in 1982, Strauss became the Florida Palm Beach Daily News sports editor for 25 years. Asked through the years why he never was a fine skier himself, Strauss had a ready answer: “I never found time to do much skiing. By the time I finished my interviews, wrote my stories and went into town to send them by Western Union to make my paper’s deadlines, the lifts had stopped running.”
No Better Advocates
There were no better advocates for the sport of skiing than enthusiastic ski writers, many of whom can be credited with the early growth of the sport.
One such super journalist/fan is Arnie Wilson, a veteran British ski writer who started in the 1970s, and for 15 years was the London Financial Times ski correspondent. He then wrote for Ski+board, the Ski Club of Great Britain magazine, which he edited for 13 years, and for a few years had a regular ski column in Australia’s The SkiMag.
British journalist Arnie Wilson was the ski correspondent for the London Times and in 1994 skied every day for a year, visiting 240 resorts in 13 countries. Photo courtesy Arnie Wilson.
In 1994, he and the late Lucy Dicker skied every day for a year in The Financial Times Round The World Ski Expedition—a feat which took them to 240 resorts in 13 countries, and into the pages of the Guinness Book of Records. In all, Wilson has skied 737 resorts worldwide, including ski areas in all 38 U.S. skiing states, and 40 heli-ski operations in 14 countries.
From his home south of London, he tells Skiing History, “When I started writing about skiing there were very few full-time ski writers except the tiny staffs working on dedicated ski magazines. Most of the writers who gradually became regular ski writers were all doing other jobs on national newspapers at the time.
“I suppose you could say we were all cheerleaders for the sport. I’d like to think that our enthusiastic stories about skiing were contagious and hopefully led to more people taking beginner lessons,” Wilson said.
The power of the printed word should never be underestimated, and certainly not when it came to Charlie Meyers (1937–2009) of the Denver Post. Meyers, who also wrote for magazines, covered six Winter Olympics, opening doors to the nascent sport of American ski racing.
As a sports writer for the Denver Post, Charlie Meyers covered six Winter Olympics. Photo courtesy Denver Post
In February 1987, tragedy struck the sport when an avalanche killed four skiers on Peak 7, a then-unpatrolled backcountry stash in Breckenridge. In search of epic powder, skiers disregarded the skull and crossbones on bluntly worded warning signs, and were swept away. More than 250 volunteers and skilled mountaineers were involved in the recovery efforts, working shoulder-to-shoulder with probes and ground radar. Lawsuits ensued. Even the mountain’s own ski patrol thought the company was negligent, according to David Peri, Breckenridge director of marketing at that time.
In the aftermath of the deadly slide, Meyers attended town meetings and witnessed volcanic anger among parents, ski patrollers and resort management. Peri says Meyers worked to defuse the situation with even-balanced Denver Post coverage of both sides of the issue.
“Charlie advocated for backcountry skiing and wondered whether it’s better to give people freedom, or try to create a nanny state that attempts to protect them from themselves,” says Peri, who now lives in Santa Cruz, California. “His words soaked in like a rainstorm. People were still hurt but Charlie had brought all of us together, particularly first responders on the front line.”
Rise of the Internet
Ski columnists are no longer the primary source of snowsports information. During the winter season, nonstop coverage is everywhere: Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat, blogs, vlogs and podcasts. The news may be instantaneous, but it lacks the depth evident in the work of those ink-stained wretches who were the greatest advocates for the sport.
Tom Kelly, U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame honoree and former VP-Communications at U.S. Ski and Snowboard, fondly remembers that the sport was lucky to have dedicated sports writers, especially considering its size compared to traditional ball sports. It was more than a job.
“If you participated in skiing and were a journalist, you wanted to write about it. Maybe they did it for their passion, the sense of adventure, the ability to travel or the free lift ticket—or all of the above,” Kelly says.
“We don’t have that same level of coverage now. They helped play a significant role in helping grow the sport. Skiing wouldn’t be what it is today if not for the grassroots efforts of journalists in those days.”
Adds Billy Kidd, “They brought new and creative ways of covering skiing. People followed along as their favorite athletes accumulated points. It built up season-long interest, and more importantly, readership.
“Sure, I can obtain ski race results online, but it doesn’t provide the kind of insights I gained from classically trained ski columnists who took a lot of information and boiled it down to concise analysis.”
Kidd continues, “The columnists who followed ski racing were the best at helping readers understand why an exceptional athlete like Jean-Claude Killy, for instance, had his best events under pressure when it counted the most. Try getting that on Instagram or Twitter.”
ISHA vice president Jeff Blumenfeld, a resident of Boulder, Colorado, is the president of the North American Snowsports Journalists Association (NASJA.org). He is author of Travel With Purpose: A Field Guide to Voluntourism (Rowman & Littlefield, 2019). Learn more at travelwithpurposebook.com.
From the January-February 2020 issue of Skiing History.
When MAD Magazine put skiing on its cover, millions bought it. Ski editors were influenced too.
By John Fry
MAD, which ceased publication last year, was a seminal, grungy magazine of American culture during the second half of the 20th century. Its intensely illustrated and caustically written pages skewered the media, education, government agencies, politicians, hippies, psychoanalysts, the sexual revolution and even the lifestyles of its own cynical, adolescent-minded readers.
The image most closely associated with the magazine was Alfred E. Neuman, the boy with misaligned eyes and a gap-toothed smile. A skiing Neuman appeared on at least four MAD covers between 1975 and 1980. Publisher William Gaines and MAD’s editors and artists clearly saw frantic humor in putting him and the image of reckless skiing on the magazine’s cover. MAD’s most prolific illustrator was Jack Davis, an enthusiastic skier himself. Davis did the covers on the facing page and on page 25.
Seen through MAD’s eyes, a recreation in which people donned a pair of wooden boards and slid at high speed off a jump—or into a tree—must be as stupidly conceived as the TV shows, movies, health cures, and other sacred cows mocked by MAD. The ski-disaster visual also happened to be funny to the two million-plus newsstand buyers of the magazine.
MAD was part of a golden age of publishing that happened to coincide with the peak newsstand sales of SKI and Skiing magazines. They picked up on MAD’s satirical spirit. In 1966, when I was SKI magazine’s editor-in-chief, I hired the talented young staff of the Harvard Lampoon to create a special eight-page humor section with fake articles. The most memorable joke was a letter from a bogus reader asking the magazine, “What is the cheapest way to engrave my name on my skis?” The answer was, “Change your name to Kaestle.”
In another spoof, SKI staffer Karen Rae wrote about visiting Mount Oniontop, with its glorious 100 feet of vertical, where nine jet flights a day soared over the local airport. “The sun sparkled and the crunch of my boots upon snow scared a volunteer patrolman,” she wrote. The prolific ski journalist Morten Lund wrote about a bus trip to Mt. Nowhere, a “mystical mountain where all the siren songs of ski resort publicity finally ring true.”
The ski magazines also featured full pages of cartoon art by Bob Cram and Bob Bugg. Laugh-inducing cartoons were eventually banished because too many of them made fun of women, or were seen as anti-feminist, even if the Editor and the cartoonist didn’t understand why. Political correctness hadn’t yet penetrated their minds.
At MAD, anything and everything was politically incorrect. For many years the magazine’s offices were located on Manhattan’s Madison Avenue, several blocks north of the SKI Magazine office at 380 Madison. While MAD lampooned the work of the ad agencies on the avenue, SKI was selling Mad Men on the wonders of placing advertising in its pages.
In 2018, Burton’s Deep Thinker free-ride snowboard featured Alfred E. Neuman, the iconic MAD mascot. “If you’re wondering who these people are, they’re from an old humor magazine,” explained one website in a December 2017 review.
John Fry is the author of The Story of Modern Skiing, about the revolution in technique, equipment, resorts and media that revolutionized the sport after World War II. Skiing History and Fry are grateful to ISHA director Bob Soden for preserving the MAD covers, and to E.C. Publications, DC Comics and Warner Media for permission to reproduce them.
This season, Warren Miller Entertainment will present its 70th anniversary film, Timeless. The world tour kicks off in California on November 7 and includes stops in 31 U.S. states, four Canadian provinces, and six countries. Thanks to a new partnership, a fifteen-second ISHA slide will appear on the movie screen prior to all showings, and attendees will be offered a free six-month digital subscription to Skiing History.
Skiing was a handy punching bag when television searched for laughs. By Jeff Blumenfeld
It was one of the most famous broken legs in modern American history.
When comedian Lucille Ball suffered a leg fracture during a skiing accident in Aspen in December 1971, the mishap gave new meaning to the Hollywood term “break a leg.” Rather than cancel the fifth season of Here’s Lucy, the accident was written into the script, with the funny redhead performing in a wheelchair and full-leg cast. The first episode, “Lucy’s Big Break,” aired September 11, 1972 on CBS-TV.
It was the beginning of the end for Ball’s brilliant form of slapstick comedy. Sure, there were small gags that Ball could safely perform without further injuring her leg, but according to Geoffrey Mark Fidelman, author of The Lucy Book (Renaissance Books, 1999), this was the point where the Lucy character was “finally allowed to age.” In an effort to turn lemons into lemonade, publicists for the show pitched the media on printing x-rays of her fractured leg, adding insult to injury.
While we can all name our favorite ski scenes in Hollywood theatrical films—yes, we’re looking at you, James Bond—it was television that entertained us most in the pre-Internet era. From time to time this “vast wasteland,” as a former FCC chairman called it, would focus its gimlet eye on skiing, often giving the sport a black eye...
This article about how and why ski resorts can celebrate their history, researched and written by ISHA director and public-relations expert Jeff Blumenfeld, originally appeared in the Fall 2017 issue of the NSAA Journal, a bimonthly trade publication that covers all aspects of the ski resort industry. It is published here with permission.
RIDE NORTH AMERICA’S last continuously operating single chairlift at Vermont’s Mad River Glen, close your eyes, and you get a sense of the early rough and tumble days of the sport. It’s here, at New England’s iconic symbol of pure skiing, that skiing history comes alive. Mad River’s owners, stubbornly respectful of the past, wouldn’t have it any other way.
Considering the development of high-speed detachable eight-person heated bubble chairlifts, seven-figure ski-in/ ski-out condos, and valet parking at today’s modern ski resorts, recognition of the sport’s strong heritage often goes unnoticed, if it’s evident at all.
Does skiing history even matter anymore?
An informal survey of resort executives indicates that yes, skiing history does matter as both resorts and the International Skiing History Association (ISHA) work to maintain the relevance of early skiing pioneers, advancements in gear and apparel, in fact the entire culture of the sport.
ISHA chairman John Fry, author of the award-winning The Story of Modern Skiing, believes that too many ski areas fail to exploit their heritage.
“They name a trail after a pioneer of the resort, and seem to assume that people know who the person is and what he did. Some resorts fail to seize the opportunity to enrich the experience of the customer through history,” Fry says. “Awareness of the history of the sport and of the resort deepens a person’s vacation experience. Knowing colorful stories about the area enriches the quality of every turn downhill and every ride up.”
Resorts Celebrate History
Take a tour of Americam ski resorts and you’ll find numerous examples of how resorts celebrate their history. Montana’s Whitefish Mountain Resort holds races in vintage ski apparel to support its Ski Heritage Center; the Pennsylvania Snowsports Museum and Hall of Fame hosts displays at Camelback Mountain, Liberty Mountain Resort, and Bear Creek Mountain Resort; Ski Museum of Maine schedules heritage days every winter at Sugarloaf and Sunday River; Vermont’s Bromley Mountain Resort displays a plaque in its base lodge honoring founder Fred Pabst and his commitment to family skiing; New York’s Whiteface Mountain has extensive tributes to the 10th Mountain Division; and Waterville Valley Resort in New Hampshire brands itself as the “birthplace of freestyle skiing.”
One resort that revels in its history is Sun Valley in Idaho, opened in 1936. Hundreds of black and white photos displayed in the Sun Valley Lodge depict visiting celebrities, politicians, world-famous ski racers, movie stars, and filmmakers (among others).
“Snowsports enthusiasts are generally a perceptive group, and as such, they tend to value authenticity and heritage,” says Tim Silva, Sun Valley vice president/ general manager. “I constantly notice our guests stopping to admire photos and memorabilia, whether it is Ernest Hemingway writing, For Whom the Bell Tolls, or Clint Eastwood receiving a film festival award. I think most people are looking for a strong sense of place in their travels, and we try to preserve and foster a connection to those things that make the resort so special.”
Cranmore Mountain Resort in New Hampshire honors the life of the late Austrian Hannes Schneider, a mountain soldier from World War I, later jailed by the Nazis, who then emigrated to the New Hampshire White Mountains in 1939 to revolutionize ski instruction. Cranmore’s Hannes Schneider Meister Cup combines the best of skiing today with the warm nostalgia of yesterday.
Dual GS races on Cranmore’s lower intermediate terrain, a vintage skiwear fashion show, torchlight parade, and ice carving competition help fund the New England Ski Museum in Franconia, NH.
“I believe the way to connect the younger generation of skiers and riders with the rich history of the sport is to really focus on just how cool this sport was at the time and remains to this day,” says Hiram Towle, Mt. Ashland’s general manager.
“There is an attraction among younger generations to all things ‘retro.’ Whether you are talking about old school leather and wood ski gear or 1980s ski fashion and grainy ski films, these could be attractive subjects for the Millennial generation as they seek to learn more about how their favorite winter sport has evolved into what we experience today,” Towle says.
“And remember, to a Millennial, Bode Miller may seem old and to them represents ski history. I do not think history is lost on the Millennial generation, I simply believe we have not caught up to their more recent history, and instead sit in the comfort of our heroes and stories from before our time, the ones in black and white on the ski bar wall, not in full animated color on the screen of a smartphone,” Towle says. “Either way, it is still history.”
Working with ISHA
Resorts can embrace their history even further by working with the nonprofit International Skiing History Association (ISHA), founded in 1991 by Mason Beekley, who over the years compiled one of the world’s largest private collections of ski art and books.
Today ISHA has 1,500 members around the world, including racing champions like Jean-Claude Killy, Penny Pitou, Nancy Greene, and Billy Kidd, and many other innovators, leaders, and pioneers of the sport.
ISHA, based in Manchester Center, Vt., in working to preserve skiing history, publishes the bimonthly Skiing History magazine that covers the sport’s illustrious past.
ISHA also maintains skiinghistory.org, the internet’s most extensive website for information about the sport’s history, and presents annual ISHA Awards for lifetime achievement and the year’s best ski history books, films, and creative media.
Resorts can reinforce their place in skiing history by working with ISHA on one or more programs, such as:
Offering an introductory ISHA membership to passholders, VIP customers, or employees, which includes a one-year trial digital subscription to Skiing History.
Becoming a sponsor of ISHA. As a nonprofit public charity, ISHA relies on membership dues, individual donations, grants, and support from 50-plus corporate sponsors—resorts, manufacturers, suppliers, and retailers in the ski industry. ISHA sponsors are listed in every issue of Skiing History, promoted on its website, and receive print and digital subscriptions.
Submitting story ideas to Skiing History magazine, which seeks short items for “Why’s It Called That,” “Short Turns,” and “Museum News,” plus longer pieces that celebrate resort and ski town history during important anniversaries or milestones. Become ISHA’s eyes and ears in the community.
Nominating local or regional books, films, websites, and other creative media that cover resorts and other ski-history topics for ISHA’s annual awards.
Hosting a Skiing History Day in your base lodge. Whistler held one such event in February 2016. Former Whistler CEO Hugh Smythe told an ISHA board member shortly thereafter, “For a ski area there are spokes of interest—ski school, racing program, host/hostess program, restaurants, etc. This added a new dimension, an event focused on Whistler’s history.”
ISHA believes that skiers who understand and appreciate the sport’s history are more valuable customers—they are more dedicated to and passionate about the sport.
Adds ISHA board member Chris Diamond, former COO and president of Steamboat Ski & Resort Corp., “Every operating ski resort has a dedicated fan base that stretches back over generations. It was where parents first learned to ski or maybe even met for the first time—where their children learned to ski, then the grandkids. The connection with the resort’s history is very emotional, as it represents family history as well. That, in essence, explains why the skiing history of individual resorts is so valued,” Diamond says.
Jeff Blumenfeld, an ISHA board member, runs Blumenfeld and Associates PR in Boulder, Colo. He is the recipient of the 2017 Bob Gillen Memorial Award from the North American Snowsports Journalists Association.
Photo Caption: Participants in the Hannes Schneider Meister Cup at Canmore showed up in reproduction 10th Mountain Division snow-camouflage suits.
Ski filmmakers, authors and historians from North America and Europe will gather in Aspen, Colorado, on April 7, 2016, for the 24th annual ISHA Awards. Presented every year by the International Skiing History Association (ISHA), the awards honor outstanding creative works of ski history, including books, films and DVDs, Websites, museum exhibits and lifetime achievements. It is the most prestigious awards program in the world for projects that add significantly and artistically to the ski historical record. ISHA has honored 166 recipients since 1993, with Lifetime Achievement awards presented to Sir Arnold Lunn, John Jay, Warren Miller, Dick Barrymore, Bob Beattie, Billy Kidd, Michael Horn and Willy Bogner, among others.
ISHA is a nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving and advancing the knowledge of ski history worldwide; it publishes Skiing History (a bimonthly magazine) and operates www.skiinghistory.org, the world’s largest Website devoted to the history of the sport.
The April 7 awards banquet will be held at the historic Hotel Jerome in Aspen. For more information or to register, call 802.366.1158 or go to: https://www.skiinghistory.org/events.
The winners of the 2016 ISHA Awards are:
Lifetime Achievement Awards
Broadcasting: Greg Lewis
Over a thirty-year career, Greg Lewis excelled as a network television commentator, specializing in skiing and Olympic sports. He covered World Pro Skiing, two winter Olympics, four summer Olympics, and numerous world championships, earning two Emmy awards, among other broadcast honors.
Photo: Greg Lewis
Museum Curation: Karin Berg
Karin Berg directed Oslo’s Holmenkollen Ski Museum for three decades, until her retirement in September 2015. She supervised the creation of one of the world’s best collections of skiing artifacts while researching and writing several award-winning ski history books.
Photo: Karin Berg
Ullr Awards
Presented for a single outstanding contribution or several contributions to skiing’s historical record in published book form.
License to Jump! A Story of Women’s Ski Jumping
Edited by Marit Stub Nybelius and Annette R. Hofmann This book covers the 150-year-history of women’s ski jumping, from its beginnings until it debuted as an Olympic sport in 2014. It recounts the struggle of female ski jumpers, their coaches and families to achieve acceptance in international sport.
Photo: Annette Hofmann
Fra Første Stavtak: Skistavens historie (From the Start: The History of Ski Poles)
By Karin Berg Karin Berg, for three decades director of the Holmenkollen Ski Museum, has written the definitive history of ski poles. While it’s written in Norwegian, the fabulous illustrations are worth the price of the book even to the English monoglot.
Freedom Found By Warren Miller, edited by Andy Bigford Warren Miller’s colorful memoirs, including many of his essays from years past, are skillfully stitched together, with much new material.
Photo: Warren Miller
The Fall Line: How American Ski Racers Conquered a Sport on the Edge By Nathaniel Vinton By examining the careers of Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller, New York Daily News reporter Nathaniel Vinton has created the best introduction to alpine ski racing ever written in English.
Mathias Zdarsky: und die Bahnbrecher im alpinen Schnee (Mathias Zdarsky: Pioneer of Alpine Skiing) By Otmar Schöner A detailed biography of Mathias Zdarsky, who, beginning in 1905, invented the first alpine ski binding, created the first ski school in mainland Europe, and wrote the foundational book of ski instruction, Die Lilienfelder Skilauf-Technik.
Skade Awards
Presented for an outstanding work on regional ski history or for an outstanding work published in book form that is focused in part on ski history.
Chronicle of a Myth II: The Hahnenkamm Races (Chronik eines Mythos II: Veranstalter Hahnenkamm-Rennen) Kitzbüheler Ski Club (KSC) This is the expanded second edition of an exhaustive illustrated history of the Hahnenkamm races, first run in 1931. The first edition was published in 2002, in celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Kitzbüheler Ski Club. The new edition brings us up to date, including the races held from 2003 to 2015, covering 75 race meetings in all. It also expands details of race organization, technology and course development that were mentioned only briefly in the first edition.
Winter Park Resort: 75 Years of Imagining More
By Tim Nicklas & Winter Park Resort
Profusely illustrated, this is the detailed official history of the pioneering Colorado resort, conceived in the depths of the Depression as a project of Denver’s Department of Parks and Recreation.
Snowshoe Thompson: Jon Fra Tinn (Jon From Tinn) By Halvor Kleppen The prolific Norwegian author Halvor Kleppen brings us the most complete and thoroughly researched biography yet of skiing pioneer Jon Torsteinson Rue, who became a legendary mail carrier—nicknamed Snowshoe Thompson—across the Sierra in the pre-railroad era. Written in Norwegian.
Photo: Halvor Kleppen
Whistler/Blackcomb: 50 Years of Going Beyond Film with accompanying book Film produced and directed by Mike Douglas; book written and edited by Leslie Anthony and Penelope Buswell To celebrate its 50th birthday, Whistler/Blackcomb produced a 28-minute gem of a video, supported by a 116-page book of photos and biographies.
Photo: Mike Douglas
Honorable Mention (Skade Award)
Zorn, kyrkloppen och idrottsrörelsen (Zorn, Church Races and the Sports Movement) By Isak Lidström From 1907 to 1909, the well-known Swedish romantic-era painter Anders Zorn, in protest of organized skiing’s amateur rules, offered cash prizes to poor athletes who couldn’t afford to compete in sanctioned races. This is the story of how the church race series rose and was quickly banned.
Film Awards (Honorable Mention)
Jackson Hole Skiing Pioneers By Roger Brown and Garrett Edquist To celebrate its 50th anniversary, Jackson Hole Resort hired award-winning filmmaker Roger Cotton Brown (Summit Films)—who produced the resort’s first-ever film in 1964 with his business partner, the late Barry Corbet—to assemble a 26-minute video. Narrated by Brown, the film explores the early history of the resort, including pioneer Bill Briggs recounting his 1971 ski descent of the Grand Teton and dynamic shots of Hermann Gollner and Tom Leroy doing front flips into Corbet’s Couloir.
The International Skiing History Association The nonprofit International Skiing History Association (ISHA) was founded in 1991 by the late Mason Beekley of Connecticut, who amassed what is believed to be the world’s largest private collection of ski books and arts. More than 1,500 members belong to ISHA, including retired Olympians and World Cup racers from North America and Europe, Hall of Famers, ski industry leaders and lovers of ski history around the world. ISHA’s Presidential Circle includes the late Stein Eriksen, Jean-Claude Killy, Nancy Greene Raine, Penny Pitou and Bob Beattie, among others.
Six times a year, ISHA publishes Skiing History (formerly Skiing Heritage), a high-quality print magazine that features profiles of great champions and innovators who have shaped the sport, early technique and equipment, resorts and historic inns, and news from the ski world with an historical perspective. ISHA also operates the world’s largest Website devoted to skiing history, www.skiinghistory.org, with a digital archive of back issues for members and many free resources for ski historians, including authoritative articles, photos, timelines, bibliographies, and comprehensive indexes to various ski publications.
The Fall Line: How American Ski Racers Conquered a Sport on the Edge
By Nathaniel Vinton
Reviewed by Seth Masia
Followers of American ski racing should feel a bit dizzy at the prospect that the U.S. Ski Team goes into the 2015 Alpine World Championships with a baker’s dozen of racers who have achieved the podium in World Cup races, and six who have won gold medals in recent World Championships or Olympics. The team has never before had this kind of depth – even at the 1984 Sarajevo Olympics, when five Americans medaled, the team claimed only six or seven world class performers.
This era of heady success had its first flowering in Vancouver, in 2010, when Americans won eight alpine medals – five of them by the outsize personalities Bode Miller and Lindsey Vonn. These two athletes, dramatically different in temperament, have piled up World Cup championships while winning in all disciplines. Nathaniel Vinton, who has followed both racers closely for Ski Racing, the New York Times and the New York Daily News, has produced a classic study of the way Miller and Vonn came their separate ways to the top of the sport.
The book is a dual biography, following Miller and Vonn from early childhood, but diving deep into their recoveries from the disappointments of Torino, to triumph at Whistler. Both athletes skied and won while hurt, and both showed fierce determination in recovering after injury, scoring their greatest triumphs in come-backs after surgery.
Miller and Vonn are natural talents, but in Vinton’s account they emerge as wildly different in character. While Vonn is a study in focused, disciplined ambition, Miller seems chiefly fascinated by the ways he can move through space. Vonn’s family made extraordinary sacrifices to support her talent; Miller’s family, supremely at home in their environment, gave him the freedom to expand in it. The young Miller trained himself by the running the smooth round rocks of the Carrabassett River and speeding, unsupervised, across the ice at Cannon Mountain; the young Lindsey Kildow grew up skiing endless runs of slalom at Buck Hill and Golden Peak. Miller can be said to have supervised his own development, to the extent of splitting off from the U.S. Ski Team for two years to hire his own support crew (he won the World Cup overall title as an independent); Vonn relied on the support of expert coaches, from Erich Sailer and Chip Woods to husband/mentor/manager Thomas Vonn. Vonn is savvy and polished in dealing with the press; Miller’s indifference to appearances has often led reporters into undignified frenzies of gossip-mongering.
Vinton tells a complex story involving dozens of racers, coaches, technicians, sponsors and family members. In a year-long competition like the World Cup circuit, the decisions and accidents of any single racer can have a cascade of consequences through the entire shifting hierarchy. His turn-by-turn descriptions of the ways skiers win – or crash – in significant races are among the best you’ll find in the literature. The Fall Line is a must-read for ski racing fans. Official publication date is February 2, which coincides with the opening event of the World Championships, the women’s Super G. You might want to read it while Vonn and Miller, plus Julia Mancuso, Ted Ligety, Mikaela Shiffrin and their international rivals, make new history at Beaver Creek.
On Oct. 6, ISHA's Board of Directors, meeting in New York City, named Seth Masia to succeed John Fry as president of the organization. Fry will assume the role of chairman of the board, while Masia takes on responsibility for day-to-day operations.
Longtime readers of Skiing History are familiar with Masia's work for the magazine. He's also been running the skiinghistory.org website for more than a decade, since taking it over from editor emeritus Mort Lund. Masia joined the staff of SKI Magazine in 1974, and held a variety of editorial positions there for the next two decades, including technical and group editor of SKI, editor of SKI Business and managing editor of Cross Country SKI. In his new job, Masia will put to use the skills he acquired as executive director of the nonprofit American Solar Energy Society and editor of its magazine, Solar Today. He will continue to teach skiing, part time, in Vail.
"ISHA is a smaller and more collegial enterprise," Masia says. "It's small enough that I recognize the names of most members, and can realistically expect to meet them while skiing or at ski industry functions. ISHA is, in one sense, a publisher of historical scholarship and reminiscence -- but it also functions as a fraternity/sorority for veteran skiers and snowboarders, keeping us in touch with friends and colleagues over the decades. I'm intensely proud to be part of it."
ISHA Benefits: New digital subscriptions and discounts
The board outlined clear goals for the next few years: ISHA needs new members. With the active support of the marketing committee, Masia hopes to recruit at least 1,000 new subscriber-members.
As a first step, ISHA has posted back issues of the magazine, and the current issue, in digital format, on the skiinghistory.org website. The digital issues are now available to members worldwide, in text-searchable format, to enable efficient research.
Publishing in digital format (in addition to the traditional print magazine) means that ISHA can now offer a digital-only subscription to members who would like to forgo the print edition.
ISHA saves money on digital subscriptions, which incur no costs for printing and mailing. So digital subscriptions can be sold at a significant discount off the regular subscription price.
"It's a great deal for students and especially for our non-U.S. members, who won't have to pay foreign postage rates or wait weeks to receive the magazine by snail-mail," Masia says. "I'm confident that the digital archive will help to build international participation for ISHA."
Digital membership is a great way to invite younger snowsports devotees to join our organization. As we move into holiday season, please think about extending Skiing History, as a gift, to your favorite skiers and snowboarders. Go to skiinghistory.org/join for details.
Both forms of membership -- the new digital membership and the traditional print-and-digital form -- include a free historical DVD (new members only) and a subscription to SKI or Cross Country Skier. Membership in ISHA also includes membership in the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame, along with a discount at their bookstore.
A number of ski resorts now offer a 20% discounted membership in ISHA to season passholders. If you hold a season pass, check with the marketing department at your resort to see if they participate in the program (or would like to). Participating resorts range from Whistler/Blackcomb in British Columbia to Sun Valley in Idaho, Steamboat and Crested Butte in Colorado, and Okemo, Bromley and Mad River Glen in Vermont. Retailers Danzeisen & Quigley in New Jersey and Equipe Sport in Vermont also offer the discount to loyal customers.
If your ski area or club would be interested in joining the ISHA discount program, contact Wini Jones (wini at fearlessleaderinc.com).
New ISHA Officers
At the October board meeting, John McMurtry was elected vice president in recognition of his pivotal role in fundraising for ISHA. In professional life, McMurtry oversees the fund development and institutional relations program at Vail's Steadman Philippon Research Institute, but he's best known in the world of skiing as a U.S. Ski Team coach and alpine director, from 1976 to 1984 and from 1987 to 1990. His success in those roles was honored this year when McMurtry was elected to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.
Masia has invited Wini Jones, a tireless and enthusiastic member of the ISHA marketing committee, to join the executive committee. Jones, a Calgary native, grew up as a ski racer and instructor. She taught in Zermatt and Innsbruck while studying fashion design in Vienna, then worked at Roffe for 30 years as vice president for design and marketing.
The nonprofit International Skiing History Association (ISHA) raised $75,576 in 2013 unrestricted donations -- 22.9 percent higher than the previous record of $61,509 set in 2011.
The number of donors also set a record. Almost 400 history lovers made donations ranging in size from $10 to Jean-Claude Killy's $5,000. More than three-quarters of the gifts around from the associations's fall fundraising campaign.
Almost 50 companies aided ISHA with $39,329 in corporate sponsorship fees, also a new record. Their 2013 support was more than double the amount of sponsor funding just two years ago.
Donations and sponsorships literally make possible the publication of Skiing History Magazine and the operation of ISHA's website (skiinghistory.org), since dues of $49 annually per member cover only 26.4 percent of the association's needs.
ISHA is a 501(c)3 charitable organization, allowing donors to use their gifts to reduce U.S. income tax liability. --John Fry, ISHA Chairman
ISHA Pinnacle Club ($10,000 or more)
Chairman's Circle ($5,000 to $9,999)
Jean-Claude Killy
Super G(ivers) ($2,000 to $4,999)
Beekley Family
Anonymous
Jake Hoeschler, Saint Paul Foundation
Nicholas Paumgarten
Bernie Weichsel, BEWI Productions, Inc.
History Leader ($1,000 to $1,999)
Barbara Alley Simon
Robert Beattie
Albert $ Dr. Gretchen Rous Besser
John J. Byrne III
Dave & Renie Gorsuch, Gorsuch
Josef "Pepi" Gramshammer
P. Andrews & Linda McLane
Juliette McLennan
Stephanie McLennan
Dr. Donn & Janet Moser
Gustav Raaum
James Schaefer
Nicholas Skinner
Thomas Wilkins
Gold Medalist ($500 to $999)
Christin Cooper & Mark Taché
Sarah Faulkner
Charles Ferries
Bert Field
Peter Fischer
Victor & Karen Frohlich
John Fry
James & Barbara Gaddis
Luzius Hitz
Carol & Mike Hundert, NM Morris Family Foundation
Robert & Bill Irwin, The Baird Foundation
Kim Koehn, K2 Ventures
Natalie Bombard Leduc
Serge & Caroline Lussi
J. Howard Marshall
Debby McClenahan
Barry McLean, McLean-Fogg
David Moffett
Richard Pearce
Lee Perry, Jr.
Penny Pitou
William Polleys
Charles Sanders
Snow Summit Ski Corporation
Barry & Carol Stone, in memory of Jeff Stone
Einar Sunde
Laurie Tisch, in honor of Bernie Weichsel
Silver Medalist ($100 to $499)
Sabin Abell
Thomas Adams
Mark Addison
Adaline & Osvaldo Ancinas
Graham Anderson
Thomas Andrews
Becky Arnold
David Arnold
Gordon Arwine
Alan Baker
Sallie Baldwin
William Barrier
Joan Bauer
Allan Beck
Cal Beisswanger
John Benson
Stephen Berry
Nicholas Besobrasov
Michael Bing
Tom Blair
Spencer Bocks
Richard Bohr
Andrew & Carola Boisselle
Bill Borman
Scott Bradley
James Briggs
Aaron Brody
T. Anthony & Linda L. Brooks
The Brooks Foundation
Frank Brown
Buck Hill, Inc.
Joan Burdge
Margreth Butterworth
Michael Calderone
California Ski Industry Association
Doug Campbell
Harvey & Reserl Chalker
Alpine Sports
Jaycee Clark
Norm’s Ski & Bike Shop
Blaise Colt
Julie Conn
Samuel Connery
Phil Cooke
Thomas Corcoran
Jay Cowan
Robert Cram
Robert Craven
Jeff Crowley
Andrew & Lucinda Daly
Peggy Dean
Michael Dederer
Christopher Diamond
Thomas Dillon
Richard Donahue
John Douglas
John Drucker
James Duke
Paul & Marilyn Duncan
Nick Dyslin
William Eastham
D. Trowbridge Elliman
Thomas Engelman
Tania & Tom Evans
James Fain
Elaine Filzer Bennett
Mitchell Fleisher
John Flender
Curtis Fong
TGFT Productions
Serge Gagarin
Ken Gallard
John Garnsey
Caleb Gates, Jr.
Hans & Roberta Geier
Peter Gibson
R. Joseph Gore
James Graves
Gerald Groswold
Susan Hagemeister
Thomas Halloran, Jr.
Michael Halstead
Curtis Hammond
Hugh Harley
Dawn Hazelett
Ronald & Shirley Heck
Brett Heineman
C.J. Helm
James Henderson
Gary Hohl
Helm of Sun Valley
David Holton
James Hunter
Joe Irwin
John Jacobs
William Jensen
Philip Johnson
Greg Jones
Peter Kidd
Leroy Kingland
Fred Kinsley, Jr.
Gary Klein
James Klein
Willi Klein
George Kohn
Alain Lazard
Walter Levering
Peter MacDonald
Nancy Macy
Richard Maider
Thomas Malmgren
Robert & Trudy Matarese
Jean Mayer
Sloan McBurney
William McCollom
James McConkey
John McMurtry
Robert McNeill
Christine McRoy
Renee & Marvin Melville
John Meyer
Danny Minogue
Minogue Medical
Peter Monk
Kenneth Moore
Alex Morley
Stan Morse
Rick Moulton
Allen & Lyn Mundt
Paul Naeseth
Jack Nantz
National Ski Areas Association
Michael Neal
Dennis Nefeldt
Robert Orbacz
Tom Parrott
Fred Passmore
James Pech, Jr.
John & Alice Pepper
Tom Pierce & Lu Ann Dillon
William Prime
Dorothy Pomagalski-Preus &
George Fox
Michael Purcell
Thomas Putnam
Roland Puton
Resort Industry Marketing, Inc.
Jean Richmond & Horst Essl
Alex Riddell
Tom Rider
Lutsen Mountain Corporation
David Rodgers
Rodgers Ski & Sport
G. Joseph Rogers
H.W. Roosli
Albert Rosenblatt
Renee & Howard Rubin
Roland Sabourin
Mike Sanford
Mary Sargent
E. William Scott
John Shearer
Lowell Skoog
Ernest “Skip” Smith III
Howard Smith
Preston Leete Smith
Robert Soden
Ronald Steele
Stephen Storey
Barry Stott
John Stout
Samuel Stout
Malan Strong
Jean Stueber
Bill & Carolyn Stutt
Carwill Foundation
William Stratton
John & Sarah Sullivan
East Coast Alpine, Inc.
Summit Ski & Cycle
Vernon Taylor, Jr.
Ruth & Vernon Taylor Foundation
Vernon Taylor III
Ed & Christina Thys
John Twomey
Charles Upson
A.D. Vail
John Valentine
Jon Vegard Lunde
Stephen Waterhouse
Raymond Watkins
Peter Weaver
Raymond Weisbond
Tom West
Pete Wither
Bronze Medalist (up to $99)
Roger & Cynthia Adams
Alf Engen Ski Museum
Donald Allen
Mirage North America, Inc.
Coralue Anderson
Kendall Bacon
Karin H. Baker
Charles Banta
Kent Barnes
Barnes Bros. Creative
Skip Beitzel
Thomas Bennett, Jr.
Theodore Bense
Maren Berge
Peter Birkeland
Douglas Bombard
Junior & Maxine Bounous
Bernie & Vlasta Bovee
William Bradbury
Jack Brendlinger
Brendlinger Enterprises
Sally & Dave Brew
Colleen Brolin
Jan & Judith Brunvand
Norman Burton
Jack Calhoun
Ken Campbell
Guy Cantrell
Thomas Chapin
James Cherry
Marie Chilman
Joan Christensen
Ned Cochran
Andrew Cohen
Steve Cohen
Jane Cooke
Sven Coomer
Zip Fit LP
Drury Cooper
Harry Covington
George & Jean Davies
Michael Dawson
Creston Dorothy
Pro Print, Inc.
Dorothy Dyer
Christian Eitrem
H. Newcomb Eldredge
John Farley
Catherine & David Farnsworth
Gordon Ferguson
Ian Ferguson
Keith Fisher
Jim & Diane Fisher
Corey Fowler
Kira Gardner
Bob & Christana Gnehm-Boyle
Kenneth Goodman
David Gossard
Bob Grey
Debbie Grubb
Paul Grunland
Les Guilford
Steve Haber
Edson Hackett
Maurice Halladay
Evan Hansen
Theodore Heck
Thomas & Roberta Heinrich
Roger Hesseltine
Sandy Hogan
Robert Holland
Scott Holmer
John Howe
William Humes
Linda Irvin
Pennsylvania Ski Areas Association
Kevin Jordan
Hank Kaufmann
John Kirschner
Francis Klay
Jim Kauffman
Yvonne Kerby-Miller
Pamela Halle Konkal
Madi Kraus
Jan Kunczynski
Gary Lambert
Michael Lattyak
Andu Lauba
Jean-Claude Legras
Warren Lerude
John Lewis
Steve Linck
Richard Lind
John Lutz
Chris & Jim MacInnes
Dick Malmgren
James Mangan
Sebastian Marcussen
Sloan McBurney
John C. McCrillis
Anna McIntyre
Julie & Steve Meineke
Russill Morin
Robert Morse
Karla Mundt
Carolyn Nally
NASJA West
National Ski Patrol Systems, Inc.
Gary Neptune
Gary Nichols
Heinrich Nowak
Robert Parker
Tom & Sally Patterson
Ruthann Pederson
Chuck & Jann Perkins
Nancy Pesman
Gary Pestello
Lorna & Bert Petersen
Ann Petroni
Allison Pobrislo
Prance Corporation
Bob Presson
Jay Price
Thomas Quinn
Charles Reeves, Jr.
James Reilly
Haldor & Eugenia Reinholt
Wilbur Rice
Equipe Sports
Mark Rodenburg
Otto Ross
Jan Rozendaal
Jack Sanders
Barbara & Alden Sawyer
Fred Schaaff
Richard Schuck
Donald Schwamb
Eric & Renee Seaborg
Shawnee Ski Area
Morris Shepard
Bob Soden
Joan Stueber
Charles Sweningsen
Berkley Tague
Cherry Talbot
Bob & Marcy Tatge
Douglas Taylor
The Alpine Sport Shop
Robert & Sue Thibault
Sheila Threndyle
David Thurgood
W. Davis & Louise Van Winkle
Frank Vener
Nathaniel Vinton
John Warner
Deborah & Donald Welch
Katherine Westby
James Wick
Michael Williams
Marilyn Wilmerding
Sears Winslow
Alice Witchel
William Witte
Mike Wolcott
Pamela Woodman
Marjorie & Malcolm Wright
Henry Yaple
How can we know and really enjoy our sport if we don’t know who and what came before? It’s why I donate to ISHA.
At MAD, anything and everything was politically incorrect. For many years the magazine’s offices were located on Manhattan’s Madison Avenue, several blocks north of the SKI Magazine office at 380 Madison. While MAD lampooned the work of the ad agencies on the avenue, SKI was selling Mad Men on the wonders of placing advertising in its pages.
Broadcasting: Greg Lewis
