Resorts

Just a few miles from glitzy St. Moritz, the cultural heart of this Swiss ski region beats quietly in Pontresina. 

The history of the Swiss resort town of Pontresina is inextricably linked to its glamorous neighbor, St. Moritz, which lies five miles away. Pontresina has always played second fiddle to St. Moritz, which was the cradle of winter sports in Switzerland and hosted the Winter Olympics in 1928 and 1948. 

Today, St. Moritz is closer in spirit to Monaco, an outpost of the uber rich. But take a 10-minute drive along the Val Bernina, the high-altitude valley that branches off the Upper Engadin Valley, and you’ll discover the cultural heart of the region in Pontresina. Much smaller than its glamorous sibling, the town lies at 5,822 feet elevation and is laid out on a long ridge on the south-facing shelf of Alp Languard mountain. It is subtly elegant, and redolent of the Belle Epoque with its cobblestone streets and pastel-colored stucco houses. 

Many of these quaint buildings, which date back to the 17th century, are decked out in s’graffito, the stenciled plaster designs that are hallmarks of the region. The word itself is the origin of the term “graffiti” and the designs are of striking geometric patterns, fish, stars and whimsical beasts, along with sundials etched onto the sides of the homes. 

The locals greet each other not with “Gruezi,” the Swiss German greeting, but “Allegra,” which is how one says hello in Romansch, the Latin-based mountain language. Less than 70,000 people still speak Switzerland’s fourth language (after German, French and Italian) and Pontresina is a bastion of Romansch. If you paid attention in 10th grade Latin class, you will be amazed at how much you can decipher.

Pontresina offers astonishing panoramic views of nearby mountains, the Roseg Glacier and the pistes of Corviglia and Corvatsch that rise up behind St. Moritz. Surrounding this genteel, well-heeled town are pine and larch forests. It’s an alpine landscape that was be

loved by Italian-Swiss artist Giovanni Segantini, who spent much of his life painting it.

 The main ski areas of Pontresina are Lagalb and Diavolezza, the latter resembling a giant, undulating meringue and offering glacier skiing as early as October and running as late as May. Closer to Pontresina is the Morterasch Glacier, the largest glacier by area in the Bernina Range of the Bündner Alps. There’s a 10km route along the glacier from Diavolezza, the longest glacier ski in Switzerland. So famed was the glacier that it was painted in the 19th century by Albert Bierstadt and drawn by John Singer Sargent. But what once was an attraction for Victorian visitors is now a poster child for vanishing glaciers. It has retreated nearly two miles since the late 19th century and in the past few years, the Swiss have enlisted snow guns to try and save the glacier from melting further...

For six decades, West Mountain in upstate New York has been bringing skiers—and racers—into the sport. 

By Paul Post

Spencer and Sara Montgomery moved east to West Mountain, where they’re pursuing the adventure of a lifetime in his hometown of Queensbury, New York. They’ve given the Southern Adirondacks
resort a $17 million makeover since purchasing it in 2013, including three new chairlifts, 40,000 feet of snowmaking pipeline, 200 new snow guns, four groomers and a 500-foot lift for the tubing park. 

It’s quite a change for a couple who met on the Chicago trading floor and spent 10 years in Colorado, skiing at some of the world’s most famous resorts. 

West Mountain has been a family-oriented resort since the founding Brandt clan opened it on Christmas Day 1962. By installing lights for night skiing, they quickly attracted local curiosity seekers and developed a strong customer base throughout the region. The
Adirondack Northway (Interstate 87) opened in the early 1960s, providing a direct link from the Albany area, about an hour away. While small in size, with a 1,000-foot vertical drop, the center has made a big contribution to the sport.

“It’s a feeder mountain,” Spencer said. “I’m willing to bet that West Mountain has taught more people how to ski and is one of the top training mountains in the United States. We have 1,600 kids in after-school programs. That’s our history and our future.”

The site’s steep trails have hosted competitive racing since 1966, when Tom Jacobs and Isadore “Izzy” Ture founded the program (see “Remembering,” page 33). With on-mountain upgrades complete, the Montgomerys are now turning their attention to developing a full-time ski racing academy. One of their first moves was to hire Steve Lathrop, a former five-year World Cup competitor on the U.S. “A” Ski Team, who previously worked at Stratton Mountain School in southern Vermont. Lathrop is starting his third year as West Mountain’s alpine race director. 

A New Hampshire native, Lathrop learned how to ski on a rope tow built by his father, who served with the 10th Mountain Division during World War II. At one point, Lathrop was ranked 16th in the world in slalom. If not for injury, he would have gone to the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo, Japan, so he knows what a good racing program needs and believes West Mountain has all the key elements.

In January 2020—prior to the COVID-19 shutdown—West Mountain hosted a four-day FIS event including two huge U-16 and U-19 races, with 225 racers each day from all over the East. A full slate of high school, masters and New York State Racing Association competition is on tap for the 2020–2021 season.

This fall, West Mountain also opened a brand-new ski racing academy that allows student-athletes to train 

full time. Those from outside the area, a half-dozen from western New York and New York City, take classes remotely through Queensbury High School or their own home school. Next year, plans call for having a full-fledged lodging component as well.

“The academy is for older kids who are able to live on their own and handle their studies and ski training,” Sara Montgomery says. “A lot of kids at that U-19 level drop out of ski racing because it becomes unaffordable for their families, with all of the travel and the high cost of equipment. This gives them the opportunity to continue racing at a competitive level at a more affordable rate.”

With good coaching and top-notch facilities, it might just be a matter of time before a West Mountain racer achieves international success. “I really believe this mountain has everything needed to develop world-class ski racers,” Lathrop says. 

(photo: Architects Charlotte Perriand, Pierre Facheux and Jean Prouve at Les Arcs, fifty years ago.)

When Les Arcs closed down last spring, senior managers reflected on the very purpose of ski resorts.  “The current crisis . . . made us take more time to rethink our new projects,” said press officer Cecile Romualdo. “What actual purpose does a ski resort serve? What is its use for society?”

Managers revisited the rationale for building the four modern high-alpine villages. The first of these, Arc 1600, opened in 1968. According to Romualdo, “We re-read the documents left by those who created the resort from nothing, . . . building a resort on virgin land. We discovered that they asked themselves all the same questions.”

The original architectural team, led by Charlotte Perriand, was inspired by Le Corbusier’s city-planning philosophy, emphasizing human-scale but concentrated development in order to leave open space for recreation within walking distance. In the resort context, Romualdo said, “A holiday in the mountains should be an opportunity to leave behind one’s social habits and mingle with other circles. The mountain environment, outdoor activities and holiday atmosphere offer the context to facilitate this.”

Today the complex is served by 171 lifts and until the Covid19 shut-down hosted 2.3 million skier visits each winter. Going forward, social distancing dictates that the crowds not be forced indoors. Based on the original philosophy, Les Arcs now hopes to bring people together in the wide-open space of the mountains. --Patrick Thorne

When it opened in 1930, the Seigniory Club was the largest ski resort in Canada...and possibly in North America.

By Joseph Graham and Pierre Dumas

The historic Le Château Montebello, 50 miles east of Ottawa in the Outaouais region of western Quebec, claims to be the largest log structure in the world. That may or may not be true.  But while the architecture is impressive, the almost-forgotten ski history of the
hotel is legendary. 

Extensive research by the late Pierre Dumas, a retired engineer who won an ISHA Award for his work in identifying and cataloging every ski area and jump in the history of Quebec (Skiing History, July-August 2017), has revealed that when it opened in 1930 the Seigniory Club, as the complex was then called, was the largest ski and winter sports resort in Canada...and possibly in North America...

When it opened in 1930, the Seigniory Club was the largest ski resort in Canada...and possibly in North America. 

Photo above: Aerial photo of the Fairmont Le Château Montebello resort, on the north bank of the St. Lawrence River in western Quebec, highlighting the Log Château (main lodge) near the waterfront. Though it’s no longer a premier ski destination, winter guests at the luxury resort can still enjoy an extensive network of cross-country trails, snowshoeing, skating, tubing and sleigh rides.

The historic Le Château Montebello, 50 miles east of Ottawa in the Outaouais region of western Quebec, claims to be the largest log structure in the world. That may or may not be true. But while the architecture is impressive, the almost-forgotten ski history of the
hotel is legendary.

Extensive research by the late Pierre Dumas, a retired engineer who won an ISHA Award for his work in identifying and cataloging every ski area and jump in the history of Quebec (Skiing History, July-August 2017), has revealed that when it opened in 1930 the Seigniory Club, as the complex was then called, was the largest ski and winter sports resort in Canada...and possibly in North America.

First, a bit of background. In 1929, a Swiss-American businessman, Harold M. Saddlemire, met the auction price and bought the rural property—a seigneurial estate originally granted in 1674—near the village of Montebello on the Ottawa River. Saddlemire, a bold man with a vision, had already created Lucerne-in-Maine, an early resort conceived as a rustic holiday destination for wealthy Americans.

In Montebello, he thought bigger, approaching three major bank presidents, the premier of Quebec and the president of Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). All endorsed his plans to acquire an additional 100 square miles and build Lucerne-in-Quebec, a year-round resort on a grand scale. For the construction, and the convenience of future guests, CPR built a special 3,700-foot spur line to its doorstep. In the book Building The Chateau Montebello, by Allan and Doris Muir, it’s reported that by 1930 the project had passed out of Saddlemire’s hands and plans had shifted to create the private, prestigious Seigniory Club. (The resort was owned by the CPR and leased to the Seigniory Club until 1970, when it was converted into a public resort by Canadian Pacific Hotels and renamed the Château Montebello.)

The owners engaged Montreal architect Harold Lawson and dreamed of building the largest log structure ever. They decided to open to the public on Dominion Day—July 1, 1930—just a few months away. Canadian Pacific built a spur line to reach the site, thousands of cedar logs were ordered from western Canada, and the project broke ground in late February.

The Crash of 1929 and the ensuing Depression had hit Canada hard, but the Château Montebello visionaries created a Canadian version of the American New Deal for the 3,500 workers they hired. Many were Scandinavian and Russian log craftsmen who worked with hand tools. Victor Nymark, a Finnish immigrant and master log builder, oversaw teams that worked around the clock in shifts to finish the project in less than four months, using 10,000 Western red cedars from British Columbia (40 miles laid end-to-end).

The grand 211-room resort hotel featured a snowflake-shaped floor plan and was, at the time, the largest log cabin in the world. It had the world’s tallest ski jump, a world-class bobsled run, cross-country and alpine slopes, a curling rink, a skating rink, a billiards room, a ballroom, a heated indoor swimming pool, fine dining, and a massive four-story, six-sided fireplace.

Three days after the grand opening on July 1, the Governor General of Canada attended a glittering costume ball at the club. For its first 40 years, the Seigniory Club remained an exclusive private retreat, attracting such luminaries as Prince Rainier and Princess Grace of Monaco, U.S. President Harry Truman, and entertainers Bing Crosby, Perry Como, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford. Today, it’s a luxury resort owned by the Fairmont chain, where wintertime guests can still enjoy an extensive cross-country trail network, snowshoeing, tubing, sleigh rides, dogsledding and ice skating.

In January 2015, I received an email from my friend, the late Pierre Dumas. He had attached a picture showing Patricia Paré at the finish line of the 1939 Women’s Dominion Ski Championships at the Seigniory Club in Montebello. He asked if this was my mother. Yes, I laughed. Looking at the photo, I could see that what she’d always told us kids was true: A downhill and giant slalom champion in the 1930s and the first professional female ski instructor in Canada, she always claimed she didn’t know how to ski as a young and daring racer. Her graceful style in later years made this seem unlikely. But while she won the race, one glance at the young woman in the picture proved her point: My mom just pointed her skis straight down the hill, and often said she either crashed or won.

Over the following years, I followed with fascination as Dumas unearthed and identified an extensive record of downhill skiing, jumping and bobsledding at Montebello. Working with other amateur historians, he found clues in old aerial photographs and other pictures, pored through mountains of old documents, and even located mortared rock mounds in the forest—the remaining foundations of the ski jumps and other installations.

In the pictures that accompany this article, you can see the scale of the venture, with its bobsled course designed by world-class German engineer Stanislaus Zentzytzki, and a ski jump designed by Norwegian engineer and renowned Canadian cross-country ski pioneer Herman “Jackrabbit” Smith-Johannsen. The builders spared no expense and hired top-ranking professionals to undertake each project.

Throughout the 1930s, the Seigniory Club was an important center for the development and promotion of skiing, ski jumping, bobsledding and other winter sports. It hosted important races and served as a training location for overseas teams competing at the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid. Its jumping and bobsledding facilities were comparable to Lake Placid, and it had excellent ski slopes and trails. The one thing it didn’t have—and never installed—was a rope tow or lift, thus fixing it forever to an era in which races began with competitors trekking uphill.

Rhoda Wurtele, who with her late twin sister Rhona was a Canadian ski champion in the 1940s and 1950s, remembers running up the hills at the Seigniory on seven-foot-long skis to race down, as documented in Penguin Club scrapbooks. With its gentle hills, open fields and reliable snow, Montebello was particularly good for that kind of skiing, called “ski running.” This was a familiar term in the 1920s and 1930s, particularly in Canada, during an era in which skiing involved a lot of walking or running up the slopes in order to ski down.

By the 1930s, ski trains were bringing as many as 10,000 people to the Laurentians every weekend to destinations like Émile Cochand’s Chalet Cochand. Statistics for 1938 show that 10,000 Americans came to the area for the Christmas holidays alone. Montebello’s builders determined to make it the most important ski center in the region. With over a hundred square miles of land at their disposal and solid financial backing, they could easily pull it off. All through the 1930s, the Seigniory Club was a favored location for ski runners. Clubs challenged each other every winter, including the Montreal Ski Club, the McGill Red Birds, the Penguins, clubs from Ottawa and Toronto, and even a club that regularly came up from New York.

The club that took the overall prize did so by having the highest total points across all disciplines. For the women those were downhill, slalom and giant slalom, while the men included jumping. The year of my own mother’s victory, 1939, she won the downhill for the Penguins. It was part of a four-year run that saw the Penguins defend the title as overall winners at the Seigniory Club, until McGill beat them in 1941. In 1942 the Penguins came back with a new team and the Wurtele twins tied for first place in the downhill during a day of races held during a fierce blizzard. They took the title back for the Penguins.

When Cochand arrived from Switzerland in 1911, his first surprise was the diminutive size of the Laurentian hills. Races in the Alps could involve climbing mountain glaciers to take a downhill run covering 5,000 feet of elevation. Cochand quickly embraced the ski runner style and helped to develop it. But when the American Joe Ryan and other investors began to build lifts at resorts like Mont Tremblant in 1939, skiers opted for Alpine-style schusses and larger, steeper hills.

Montebello could not compete. It no longer hosted competitive winter sports, leaving the jump and bobsleigh track to fall into disuse. Through the decades, the resort has continued to maintain its cross-country ski trails, along with sleigh rides, skating and curling.

From a gathering spot for the people of the Petite Nation, to the land-grant estate belonging to Canada’s first bishop, to the building of the largest log structure in the world, Chateau Montebello has many stories to tell. Its one-time dominance as Canada’s largest ski resort is just one of them. Thanks to the diligent work of a team of heritage experts, we can begin to tell it. 

Joseph Graham is an historian and the son of Canadian ski pioneer Patricia Paré. The late Pierre Dumas won a 2017 ISHA Award for his work to document Quebec’s ski areas and jumps; for his obituary, see page 30. This article was funded by a grant from the Chawkers Foundation through a partnership with ISHA, the Canadian Ski Hall of Fame and Museum, and the Canadian Ski History Writers Project (https://skiinghistory.org/resources/canadian-ski-history-writers-project).

seigniory floor plan: Building the Chateau Montebello (allan and doris muir)

Inspiration for Sun Valley?

There is no evidence that the Seigniory Club provided the inspiration for W. Averell Harriman when he built his dream resort of Sun Valley in the mountains of Idaho in 1936. But the similarities between these two ground-breaking winter destination resorts does raise the question.

Sun Valley would also be built during the Depression, at the end of a Union Pacific railroad line, and in a hurry (seven months rather than four). Its 220-room resort hotel (versus 211) also featured a snowflake floor plan (though modified) and was built using rough lumber forms to leave wood-grain impressions in the concrete, which was acid-stained brown. It too had a heated pool, a skating rink, a ballroom, fine dining, and billiards were planned. Like Seigniory, Sun Valley drew the biggest names, including Hollywood stars, and was also featured in films.

The big difference? Alpine events were added to the Olympics in 1936, so Sun Valley’s emphasis, unlike Seigniory, was on downhill skiing. It had serious alpine slopes nearby and built the world’s first chairlift.

Sun Valley became the largest modern ski resort in North America, while Seigniory faded out of the alpine picture, though certainly not from world view. In 1981, the Canadian resort hosted the seventh G7 summit, and in 1983, it hosted NATO’s Nuclear Planning Group. —Bob Soden

The Winter Park Express ski train, which has hauled Denver skiers through the Moffat Tunnel on and off since 1940, takes another hiatus for the 2020-21 winter season.

According to a Winter Park press release dated September 30, " Amtrak has been reducing the number of seats sold on each train to enable distancing, a best-practice that will likely continue into the upcoming winter season. Amtrak and Winter Park Resort evaluated seating options on the Winter Park Express and agreed that with social distancing requirements, it was not possible to operate the train successfully this season. The resort and Amtrak thank our customers and look forward to welcoming them back again in the 2022 season."

For more, see Ski Trains: A History, and Amtrak revives Winter Park Ski Train.

Japan’s skiing history is rich and varied. People had long used simple homemade skis to get around, but then in the 1930s the great pioneer Hannes Schneider arrived from the Arlberg to introduce his downhill technique.

From then on, as in Europe and North America, skiing grew as a popular sport. Hundreds of ski areas opened. By the 1980s there may have been more ski areas in Japan than anywhere else -- at least 700, some open 24 hours a day.

During the recession that followed the 1989 collapse of Japan’s real estate bubble, skier visits dropped from over 20 million to nearer five million and hundreds of Japanese ski areas closed, many quickly overgrown by bamboo forests.

Now Andrew Lea, creator of Japan’s largest ski-oriented website SnowJapan.com, has launched http://SnowJapanHistory.com. The new site documents all these lost Japanese ski areas.

Andrew is meticulously cataloguing the former ski areas, making personal visits, taking current pictures and adding aerial images. The work in progress so far has more than 110 former ski areas and almost 1,000 pictures.

Among the listings are Goshiki in Yamagata, which opened in 1911 when the Austrian Egon Edler von Kratzer skied there, and closed in 1998. Nanamaki, located less than 3km (2 miles) from Nozawa Onsen (home to the world-famous Japan Ski Museum) operated only 15 years, to 1982. Dedicated skiers walked a kilometer from the rail station, crossing a river on a cable-pulled ferry to reach the slopes. —Patrick Thorne

Photo: Goshiki Onsen (Hot Springs) today. From Wikimedia.

Built by architect Ralph Erskine, the Borgafjäll Hotel in Swedish Lapland is an enduring outpost of ski culture and solitude.

Not long ago, my friend Axel Persson and I embarked on a ski journey that took us north to Lapland—and back in time. Our destination was Borgafjäll, a remote mountain village in Swedish Lapland that’s home to Sami reindeer herders, a small lift-served ski area, extensive backcountry terrain, and a unique hotel and spa with an interesting history.

Above: Erskine built the hotel roof to be a ski slope, with a railing on three sides to prevent skiers from falling off. It opened in 1955.

Swedish Lapland, in the northernmost portion of the country, covers roughly 110,000 square kilometers and is home to only 94,000 people. That calculates to a population density below one person per square kilometer. It’s a place where skiers can still find a bit of elbow room while connecting with the sport’s heritage, which is rooted in solitude.

Our trip began in the city of Gothenburg on April 27, a lovely spring day in western Sweden. The forest near my home was a blanket of white, and the wood anemones were in full bloom. The girls that parade under those stately trees, walking daily along Gothenburg’s main avenue, had exchanged their winter wardrobes of black clothes and long overcoats for short dresses in spring pastels. When we arrived at our remote destination, the Lapland wilderness was also covered by white … but it was snow.

After taking the train to Stockholm, a local propeller plane flew us to Wilhelmina, a small settlement of 4,000 people in the province of Västerbotten. About 1,000 air kilometers north of our original Gothenburg starting point, the small aircraft touched down in a little clearing in the woods that they call an airport. From there, we borrowed a friend’s car and drove 112 kilometers northwest. Ninety minutes and a couple of reindeer herds later, we arrived at the Borgafjäll Hotel.

Here in southern Lapland, the pace of life is slow, small is good, and skiing never has been and never will be an “industry.” They say the Sami people have 100 different words to describe snow. I suspect they need no word for crowd, as the phenomenon does not exist.

A remote but enduring outpost of ski civilization, Borgafjäll has a unique history. Its tale begins in 1939, when architect Ralph Erskine was visiting Sweden from his native England. When World War II broke out during his stay, the pacifist Quaker decided to remain in neutral Sweden rather than return to the United Kingdom. Hence, Erskine’s early work was done primarily in his newly adopted homeland.

One of Erskine’s first significant achievements was the Hotel Borgafjäll, a fascinating piece of architecture that today still stands out as an iconic remnant of 1950s culture. Like the great Frank Lloyd Wright, Erskine sought to create harmony between his buildings and the surrounding environment. Not only did he build the hotel primarily from local materials, but he also built the roof to be a ski slope, with a railing on three sides to prevent skiers from falling off. Inside, sections of the hotel are connected by walkways that resemble ship’s gangways, while idiosyncratic fireplaces warm the lobby and dining room. The rooms are quirky, too: Many are laid out on three levels. The double room, for example, accommodates up to four people, with two single beds on the top level, sofa bed and TV on the central level, and bathroom below. A detached ski lodge has bunks and showers for budget-minded skiers.

Drawn by the hotel’s quirky reputation, skiers started to find their way to this remote Lapland outpost in the late 1950s. The pace picked up starting in 1962, when Erskine’s friend Arne Isaksson invested in a Weasel — a tracked military vehicle designed during World War II to move quickly over snowy terrain. For skiing purposes, it was the predecessor of the snow cat, and Arne used his Weasel to drag skiers up the slopes around the hotel.

Now 82, Arne is still around, and he reminisced with me about those pioneer days.

Skiing was growing in popularity in the early 1960s, and within a few years, he owned five Weasels, each driven by one of his brothers. Each Weasel could carry six passengers and haul an additional 25, each holding on for dear life to one of three ropes tied to the back.

Meanwhile, his wife was also active in this budding ski enterprise, serving waffles, sandwiches, sausages, coffee and soft drinks at a small hut on the slopes. The first surface lift was installed in 1967. Because it only took beginners about 165 vertical feet up the nearest slope, it didn’t provide much competition for Arne’s Weasels, which transported skiers about 1,300 vertical feet up the local mountains. When the first long T-bar was built in 1973, Arne retired his fleet.

Perhaps the most interesting bit of trivia regarding Arne’s early days is the manner in which he purchased the Weasels. He bought them from the U.S. Army, which had no use for them after the war.

“A lumber company bought such old military equipment per square kilometer,” Arne told me.

“Sorry, Arne. I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I said. “How can one buy a Weasel by the square kilometer?”

“Well,” the old timer drawled, “the lumber company negotiated a price for whatever old army vehicles were situated on one square kilometer of land. Everything remaining on that chunk of earth was theirs for that price. Later, the lumber company sold some of the equipment to me and others.”

While Ralph Erskine and Arne Isaksson have certainly left their legacy on the little ski area, an important person in today’s Borgafjäll is Magnus Nilsson. Magnus now owns the lifts and slopes, and at the time of my visit, he also ran a cat-skiing operation—a descendent of Arne’s Weasel business. Over the years, in addition to transporting skiers and boarders up the mountains with his snow cat, Magnus has also taken people off-piste with a chopper and guided them on touring skis.

When we arrived, the cat skiing had finished for the winter because the reindeer had begun to return to the mountains, but Magnus took some time to show Axel and me around. The ski area has two lifts. The longer and higher Borgalift, which serves a vertical drop of 950 vertical feet, is by far the more interesting. It has five pistes of differing gradients, all facing the picturesque Borga Lake and cliff-lined north face of Borgahällan (3,378 feet) on the opposite shore. The shorter Avasjö Lift and beginner lift on the east-facing side cater to families, but does access some nice off-piste tree skiing. After a trip to the sauna and four-star dinner of reindeer carpaccio and butter-fried whitefish, I slept like a baby.
 

The following day, we traveled by snowmobile with Magnus to the base of Klöverfjäll (4,273 feet), where we strapped skins to our skis and replaced the machines with manpower. As we skied, Magnus explained the long-running conflict between skiers and snowmobilers in Lapland. Nothing is more disturbing to a skier in search of solitude than a noisy machine cutting deep ruts through virgin snow. Meanwhile, snowmobilers want to race around the valleys without worrying about some errant skier who might end up as collateral damage. Magnus hoped his resort could be a melting pot where the two would coexist.

For the next few hours, we glided up through a moonscape of undulating white. The higher we skied, the farther the eye could see, and the panorama that unfolded as we approached the top was breathtaking.

Just under the summit, we paused for a short picnic. Near the peak, the wind had blasted the rocks with a coat of rime. It was early May, but the day was cold. Magnus had told us that the best time of day for corn snow would be between two and three o’clock in the afternoon, and he was right.

After our first few turns, the spring snow turned to the perfect texture. Little kernels riffled off our ski edges like a May hailstorm. Skiing corn is so effortless that one hardly requires a pause, and before we knew it, we were back at the snowmobiles, gazing up at our tracks that glistened in the sunshine. Later, sitting by the pool, I reflected on the common ground that skiers and snowmobilers share. Sure, snowmobiles are noisy and leave a trail of exhaust in the air that I can’t avoid breathing as I glide silently uphill to my destination. Both sports, however, share a love of speed, a sense of freedom, and a desire for communion with nature.

And then I remembered Ralph Erskine and the reindeer. They are the rightful rulers of this territory. They, too, want to roam freely in the mountains. Magnus had recently compromised his financial interests and shut down his snow cat operation for the season in deference to the return of the herds to higher ground. It was all about respect. 

American-born writer Jimmy Petterson has produced 15 ski films and written and photographed Skiing Around the World, Volumes 1 and 2. See www.skiingaroundtheworldbook.com.

When it snows, skiers ski, even amid calamity. That could change with Covid-19. By Andy Bigford

Skiers and the industry have confronted and overcome a variety of disasters—wars, gas shortages, recessions, and terrorism—none of which affected the sport more than the biggest annual influencer of all: the weather. This disaster is different. The novel coronavirus already has trimmed one-sixth of the prematurely closed 2019-20 season, an estimated 8 million skier days and $2 billion in revenue, according to the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA). Travel concerns, social distancing constraints, and the cratering economy could take a much bigger bite out of the upcoming 2020-21 season. Or not.

Just prior to the modern skiing age, World War II was the obvious exception to the weather rule. Many of the 60 or so “ski areas” operating in the U.S. closed during the conflict, as did countless community rope-tow hills, with resort improvements coming to a standstill. 

Stowe stayed open. With gas rationing in force, skiers commuted by train and bus, but the lifts spun just six hours a day. The sport supported the war effort in other ways. Stowe skier C. Minot “Minnie” Dole, who founded the National Ski Patrol in 1938, persuaded the U.S. State Department to create the 10th Mountain Division ski troops. At the 10th’s headquarters at Camp Hale in Leadville, Colorado, Ski Cooper was created and then opened to the public after the war...

Photo: The gas crisis of the early 1970s introduced skiers to gas rationing, prices tripling at the pump and gas-station lines longer than those at the ski lifts. Skiers "still came," noted a ski-resort executive. Photo: Dreamstime

A Short History of Catastrophes

When it snows, skiers ski, even amid calamity. That could change with Covid-19

Skiers and the industry have confronted and overcome a variety of disasters—wars, gas shortages, recessions, and terrorism—none of which affected the sport more than the biggest annual influencer of all: the weather. This disaster is different. The novel coronavirus already has trimmed one-sixth of the prematurely closed 2019-20 season, an estimated 8 million skier days and $2 billion in revenue, according to the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA). Travel concerns, social distancing constraints, and the cratering economy could take a much bigger bite out of the upcoming 2020-21 season. Or not.

Just prior to the modern skiing age, World War II was the obvious exception to the weather rule. Many of the 60 or so “ski areas” operating in the U.S. closed during the conflict, as did countless community rope-tow hills, with resort improvements coming to a standstill.

Stowe stayed open. With gas rationing in force, skiers commuted by train and bus, but the lifts spun just six hours a day. The sport supported the war effort in other ways. Stowe skier C. Minot “Minnie” Dole, who founded the National Ski Patrol in 1938, persuaded the U.S. State Department to create the 10th Mountain Division ski troops. At the 10th’s headquarters at Camp Hale in Leadville, Colorado, Ski Cooper was created and then opened to the public after the war.

In Idaho, Sun Valley—the country’s first true destination ski resort—was transformed into a Navy recuperating hospital, and earlier it contributed the feel-good movie Sun Valley Serenade to the effort. Filmed at the resort and starring Sonja Henie, the Norwegian Olympic ice-skating champion, the movie’s release in 1941, just prior to Peal Harbor, fit the mood of the times and provided an entertaining escape. (The ski scenes were orchestrated by Sun Valley ski-school director Otto Lang; he and Gretchen Fraser, the first U.S. skier to win an Olympic Gold Medal, [Slalom, 1948, St. Moritz] filled in for Henie and her co-star, John Payne.) The experience led Lang to shoot a training film for the 10th, whose members would create the post-war modern North American ski industry by founding dozens of resorts and driving advances in every corner of the sport.

The war wreaked havoc on European ski resorts, and led to the cancellation of the 1940 and 1944 Olympics, set for Sapporo, Japan, and Cortina d’Ampezzo in the Dolomites. FIS held an Axis-only World Championships in 1941, at Cortina, where Germany and Italy won all 18 alpine and nordic medals. The results were invalidated after the war.

The Nazis called on their citizenry to donate skis for use on the Eastern Front; an astounding 1.5 million pairs were collected, according to research by Lorenz Pfeiffer (Collected Papers of the International Ski History Congress, 2002). This was testimony both to the iron grip of National Socialism and the popularity of the sport, especially considering there must have been another few hundred thousand pairs hidden away in attics. Most of the skis sent to Werhrmacht troops were cut up for firewood. When the Olympics resumed in 1948 at St. Moritz in Switzerland, Germany was not invited. Across the globe, the modern ski era, after a five-year pause, resumed its steady ascent.

EARLY 1970s: NO GAS, NO PROBLEM

The gas crisis and recession of 1973-74 came as the nation was fully embracing this growing sport and lifestyle. With gas prices tripling and availability both random and scarce, New Jersey skiers would strap five-gallon cans of fuel to the roofs of their station wagons and pile in for the long drive north to Killington. It wasn’t even a good snow year that season, with cycles of rain and sub-zero temps. “They still came,” recalls Chris Diamond, who was starting his resort career at Killington then and whose duties included overseeing the resort’s gas station. “Skiers are resilient.”

In the pages of SKI, editor-in-chief John Fry saw upside in the re-emergence of carpooling and ski buses with a shared ski-tribe vibe, which had been disappearing as cars replaced trains and sprawling condo complexes replaced cozy ski lodges. “One of the most immediate effects of the gas crisis is that it could bring skiers closer together again,” Fry wrote. The gas crisis and the resulting shared space of skiers didn’t last. The 2020-21 season promises unprecedented social distancing, but Fry’s overall point, that skiers and the industry need to evolve and innovate in times of catastrophe, still holds true.

IT’S THE WEATHER, STUPID

The oil crisis, inflation, recession, and the Iranian Revolution of the early 1980s illustrate the over-arching importance of weather—and the industry’s response. Even with unemployment rising to near 11 percent, the 1981-82 winter was busy, setting a six-year high. It was the previous season, 1980-81, when it truly failed to snow in the West, that skiers cut their visits by more than 20 percent. It was the worst result, by far, in the 40 seasons that skier visits have been recorded by the NSAA. That weather disaster led resorts to dramatically increase their water rights and expand snowmaking capabilities, setting the foundation for today’s resort business model.

Machine gun-toting military stalked the twin Austrian villages of Saalbach-Hinterglemm during the 1991 World Alpine Championships, held in the wake of the short and indecisive first Gulf War. Eleven suspected terrorists, believed to be planning an attack in the Zel am See region, had been detained. The U.S. Ski Team first ordered its racers to return stateside from the European circuit, then flew them back for the championships. Some skiers stayed home to monitor the Gulf War on TV while a recession tightened pocketbooks. Season visitation reached a low-water mark, the poorest showing in the past three decades. But the biggest culprit in a season-to-forget was scarce snowfall on both coasts.

In 2001 and 2002, the dot-com crash and 9/11 ended what was at the time the longest period of U.S. economic expansion. Skiers and resorts feared the worst that fall of 2001, as dust settled over the collapsed Twin Towers of the World Trade Center. The owner of a New Jersey ski shop located just 20 minutes away said that 250 of his customers were lost in the attack; these were not just clients but friends, ski buddies, neighbors. He expressed what has become the mantra through all catastrophes: “I’ve been really impressed by the spirit of skiers. They are going to go skiing, no matter what.” Security was tight at the Salt Lake Olympics in February, but the fear of flying eventually lapsed, and visitations dipped only slightly.

THE GREAT RECESSION AND BEYOND

The subprime-mortgage crash and subsequent Great Recession of 2007-09 arguably had the most significant impact of any financial event, and yet the U.S. as a whole enjoyed strong, even record, years for skier visits. The traditional Wall Street high-roller vacation in Vail, with private instructors, $3,000-a-night-condos, and catered dinners, screeched to a halt. Amid job losses, bankruptcies and home foreclosures, family ski trips to the West slowed, as did international visitation. Vail Resorts, which owned just five ski resorts back then, was down 13 percent in lodging and 9 percent in lift revenues for the 2008-09 season; the latter would have been much worse if not for the newly launched Epic Pass.

The recession ultimately proved fatal for real-estate-centric Intrawest, at the time the largest ski-resort operator in North America. The condos Intrawest owned in its villages became virtually worthless on the corporate balance sheet, and the company would eventually cease to exist. (Its last remnants were snatched up in the phoenix-like creation of Alterra Mountain Company in 2018.) One lasting outcome: Most ski resorts, both large and small, exited the real-estate development market, opting instead to find development partners to take the risk. Overall, capital expansion projects were put on hold for a few seasons. Meanwhile, many smaller, low-cost, drive-to resorts flourished across the country.

Season pass sales at Mt. Snow in Vermont increased by 10 percent for the 2008-09 season, and they remained stable through the country. Visitation dropped 5.5 percent overall, but it was still the fifth best season on record at the time, a respectable outcome. The reason? Abundant snowfall.

THE UNKNOWN SEASON AHEAD

The Great Recession provides some economic clues in forecasting the season ahead, but the unprecedented travel concerns and mandated social distancing driven by Covid-19 will play major roles. The high cost of skiing has long been lamented. Skiers boast a median household income of $134,000, well more than double the national average of $55,000. These are people who frequently can work from home and likely have kept their jobs during the pandemic, or have the resources to continue pursuing their passion. But they won’t be rushing to jump on planes. The Rocky Mountain ski region is by far the most accessed by air travel, with 65 percent of resort customers flying in. Particularly impacted may be remote resorts that have few direct flights or require connecting flights. Summer resort destinations are reporting that returning guests now favor more convenient social-distancing at Airbnb-type accommodations over traditional hotel lodging, so that already established ski trend will continue. The buzz of crowded après-ski haunts, restaurants, bars, concerts, festivals and retail shops will be scaled back.

Looking ahead, on-mountain occupancy restrictions to ensure social distancing, and lotteries to determine access, are a real possibility. This may be particularly true in Democratic-leaning “blue” ski states with tighter restrictions (one might expect, for instance, that New Hampshire and Wyoming state guidelines will be looser than those in Vermont and Colorado), but strict restrictions could be across-the-board during peak periods. The long lift lines experienced at popular mega-pass resorts during powder days last season could literally stretch halfway up the mountain with the application of six-foot social distancing. The handful of resorts that tested re-openings last spring severely limited customers, but it is hoped that with all resorts open, that can be largely avoided during all but the most popular holiday periods.

The Epic and Ikon season passes, enjoying unprecedented popularity pre-Covid as they raced toward a combined sales of 2 million, announced relatively generous credit and cancellation clauses for pass purchasers to protect against the unknowns of the coming 2020-21 season. Other ski areas, large and small, across North America did the same.

Disaster spurs innovation, so expect to see more self-directed transactions, including online purchases at home or other off-site locations and with ticket kiosks at your favorite resorts or ski towns. Austrian-based ticketing and gate management company AXESS even has a system that denies entry to skiers who aren’t wearing a mask. RFID and online ticketing is one of the business segments that has seen demand rise during the pandemic, along with backcountry gear—and the suddenly useful, mask-like, neck gaiters.

Skiing enters the 2020-21 winter with exponentially more uncertainty and potential downside than any season since World War II. Predictions range from near normalcy (driven by a miracle vaccine or other medical breakthroughs) to dark repercussions from a worsening second wave in the fall (following the seemingly never-ending first wave).

In the best of times, skiing thrives as one of the most social of sports, bringing together people from different backgrounds in a healthy, serene mountain environment. When required, it can adapt to social distancing, with crowds spread over hundreds and even thousands of acres. And there’s always this: Skiing is one of the few pursuits in which wearing a mask and gloves is de rigueur. 

Andy Bigford is the former editor-in-chief and publisher of SKI. He’s collaborated with Chris Diamond on two books, Ski Inc., and Ski Inc. 2020. A third Ski Inc.book is planned for release in October 2022.