Technology

Finally perfected after 30 years, the carving ski failed to gain a following in North America. In its place, we got a ski that has made resort slopes less safe.

(Photo above: Modern “shaped” skis were originally developed to help racers achieve the pure, carved turn—eliminating the braking effect of skidding. Ron LeMaster photo)

For most of modern skiing’s history, the execution of a perfect turn has been an unobtainable ideal. Leather boots and wooden skis weren’t able to initiate and sustain a continuous, seamless carve. In the January 1967 issue of SKI magazine, Olympic gold medalist and Jackson Hole ski-school director Pepi Stiegler described a teaching method of getting the skis on edge so “the skis are literally carving the turn for you.” He called it the “Moment of Truth on Skis.”

“To start the turn, the skier should have the feeling of his weight going forward on the uphill ski and twisting the skis downhill. The resulting sensation is of a drift in the direction of the turn. At some split second during this process, the skier senses a moment to apply the edges and start the skis carving.”

At the time, the invention of plastic boots and the use of metal and fiberglass in ski design had brought the grail of the carved turn within reach. Stiegler, who became the NASTAR national pacesetter, clearly saw the desirability of recreational skiers knowing how to carve a turn.

The year before he died, the incomparable Stein Eriksen sent ski historian John Fry a package that included several photos of Stein in his iconic reverse-shoulder stance, along with a letter in which Eriksen asked Fry whether he should be considered the inventor of the carvedturn. Ever the diplomat, Fry replied that he doubted an uninterrupted carve was possible on 1950s-era equipment, “but if anyone could do it, it would be you.”

Perhaps the best-known apostle of the carved turn was Burke Mountain Academy founder Warren Witherell, who explained in How the Racers Ski (1972) what constituted a perfect carve: “In the very best racing turns, the entire edge of the ski passes over the same spot in the snow. The tip initiates the turn, biting into the snow and setting a track or groove through which the remainder of the ski edge flows.”

While Witherell’s gospel found faithful adherents in the race community, it failed to ignite interest among recreational skiers—in part because carving on a long,

narrow ski was still a difficult skill to develop. While Witherell was preaching to the coaching choir, the public’s attention turned to the counter-culture phenomenon known as hotdog skiing, a.k.a. freestyle. Short skis would soon be all the rage, both as a means of abbreviating the learning curve and as a superior tool for moguls, aerials and ballet.

The concept of carving recaptured a toehold in the public’s consciousness with the advent of snowboarding and images of a steeply angled board sending up geysers of powder. The popularity of snowboarding and its short learning curve challenged ski designers to reconsider their assumptions about ski dimensions.

By 1995 there were just enough wasp-waisted models to muster a carving-ski category worthy of examination by Snow Country, where I oversaw the magazine’s testing. Over the next two seasons, deep-sidecut carving skis would render the relatively shapeless skis that preceded them obsolete. The universal acceptance of shaped skis appeared to augur a new world in which everyone would henceforth carve turns because every ski was a carving ski. The nirvana envisioned by Stiegler in the 1960s had been attained. (For the history of shaped skis, visit https://skiinghistory.org/history/evolution-ski-shape.) But...it didn’t happen.

The disruptive force that altered the path of ski design began innocently enough. When Atomic introduced the Powder Magic in 1988, its target audience was the heli-skiing patron who no longer would tire quickly in the bottomless snow, thanks to the new fat skis.

All the ski designer had to do to make the fat ski easier to steer was lift the tip and tail out of the snow, leaving a short foundation underfoot that could be swiveled side to side much more easily than it could be tilted on edge. The ski forebody, instead of seeking connection with the snow, now performed the same function as a Walmart greeter: It’s friendly but otherwise plays no part in what goes on behind it.

If Warren Witherell was the evangel of carving, the Pied Piper of the emerging fat ski was Shane McConkey. McConkey wanted a better tool for attacking bottomless snow in extreme terrain. He persuaded his sponsor, Volant, to create the Spatula. The Spatula was the embodiment of the anti-carver, with a reverse sidecut and reverse camber. It inspired an explosion in the wide, rockered, all-terrain ski designs that currently dominate the U.S. market.

In the European Alpine countries where skiing has always had a broader base of participation, the notion that carving was a teachable skill found fertile soil. To this day, carving perfect turns on prepared slopes is central to the European ski experience.

Carving never caught on in America. A carved turn is best practiced on groomed terrain. Americans were more attracted to the versatility afforded by an all-mountain ski. By definition, “all-terrain” includes powder, and proficiency in deep snow depends on width. The appeal of skiing the entire mountain, and being properly equipped for the rare powder day, outweighed the allure of making a perfect turn every day.

Americans were enticed away from carving skis by fat skis that enabled skiers to easily swivel their way downhill. Lower-skill skiers can access ungroomed terrain they didn’t have the confidence to try before. But on regular groomed terrain at high speed, fat skis with limited edge contact don’t make for better or safer skiers. Quite the opposite. I’ll bet there aren’t ten people reading this who either haven’t been involved in a skiing collision, had a close call or knows someone who has been hit. The bottom line: Skis with waists from 75-90 millimeters would better serve the vast majority of skiers rather than models that are 100 millimeters and above. The wide platform of fatter skis does provide stability, but the trade-off in loss of quickness and edge control is not worth the price.

In a recent member survey, seniorsskiing.com found out-of-control, fast and reckless skiers and snowboarders to be the number-one grievance about the resort experience. “A few jerks skiing dangerously” and “risk-takers who don’t turn on groomers” far surpassed complaints about lift ticket prices, cafeteria food quality, and long walks to and from parking lots.

Carving skis offered a means of enabling skiers to control their speed and trajectory. The proliferation of highly specialized powder skis being used as everyday skis has had exactly the opposite effect. Not only are these skiers personally at risk, but everyone who shares our crowded slopes with them is also potentially in harm’s way.

Jackson Hogen is the editor of Realskiers.com, which tests and evaluates ski equipment. He is past General Secretary of the ASTM Committee on Ski Safety, and past Chairman of SIA’s Skiing Safety Committee. 

FIS calls for a ban on all fluorinated waxes for next season. By Greg Ditrinco

The International Ski Federation (FIS) surprised some ski-race insiders by calling for a ban on the use of all fluorinated ski waxes for next season. The announcement, made at the Federation’s annual fall meeting in Constance, Germany, will catalyze changes in race ski-prep procedures and technology.  

“The use of fluorinated ski waxes, which have been shown to have a negative environmental and health impact, were banned for all FIS disciplines from the 2020–2021 season,” according to a FIS press statement released in November 2019. A working group will be formed to establish the new regulations.

The ban originated from the Committee for Competition Equipment, a panel that defines the technical specifications used across the FIS snow sports spectrum: alpine, cross-country skiing, nordic combined, ski jumping, snowboard, freestyle and freeski. The new working group has a rugged road ahead to unite a diverse array of nations and competitive disciplines to agree upon compliance standards.

The Norwegian Ski Federation banned the use of “fluoros” for all racers U16 and under last season, which was used as a test case by FIS to determine if a widespread ban was feasible, according to Ski Racing. Apparently, the answer was yes.  

Fluorinated waxes significantly decrease friction and increase glide, and can be used across all ski and snowboard disciplines. As with all bans involving athletic performance or equipment, the success of a prohibition greatly depends on the ability to enforce the ban in the field and reliably test for non-compliance. 

The waxes contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively known as PFAS, which have been linked to a growing list of health concerns. The chemicals are found in drinking water and persistently remain in the food chain. Sometimes called “forever chemicals,” PFAS are resistant to moisture and extremely slow to break down. These are the same qualities that make them so effective in ski waxes. 

From pine tar to fluorocarbons, waxing to win has been a constant in ski competitions. Ski waxing, however, long predates alpine skiing. It arose in the early days of Scandinavian ski-sport, from the coincidence that waterproofing wood also helps it to glide on snow. Whether you’re building a ship or a ski, you need to apply a preservative to wood. The earliest known preservative was pine tar, often called pitch.

Waxing evolved along with ski gear. Cross country racer Peter Østbye, born near Lillehammer in 1888, patented Østbyes Klister in 1913. By 1940, a rub-on alpine wax called 1-3-5 was sold under the brand Toko. In 1946, a company was founded under the name of Swix, a blend of the words ski and wax. Swix offered hard and soft waxes to cover a range of snow conditions, providing both glide and durability. Beginning in 1986, Terry Hertel in California and Swix chemists in Norway independently discovered that adding fluorocarbon to wax increased glide by two percent, which can determine the margin of victory in a race. Hertel introduced a commercial version in 1986; Swix followed in 1990, with a fluorocarbon powder that sold for $100 for three grams.

The growing use of fluorinated waxes came with increased scrutiny. Recent studies and subsequent publicity apparently accelerated the push for the ban. In 2016 Congress amended the Toxic Substances Control Act, requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to control chemicals deemed harmful to human health. As one result, starting in early 2018 the EPA notified all companies using fluorocarbons in their products to document the specific chemicals and amounts used. For ski wax manufacturers and importers this would mean reporting all chemicals – dyes, scents, waxes, hardeners and fluorines, retroactively. Most wax companies couldn’t afford the complex procedures and many immediately stopped selling and making fluorowaxes. Besides, the most common fluorines will be banned in the EU starting in July 2020. It was in this context that FIS imposed the new ban. 

For more information on the history of ski wax, see “Grip and Glide” by Seth Masia in the June 2010 issue of Skiing History, or read a variation of his article online:  skiinghistory.org/
history/grip-and-glide-short-history-ski-wax

FIS Bans Fluorinated Waxes

By Greg DiTrinco

The FIS ban on fluorinated waxes for the 2020–2021 season applies to all ski and snowboard disciplines, but will be especially relevant in nordic competitions, such as the American Birkebeiner. Racers can shave off minutes in a typical 50k race with the advanced wax.

The International Ski Federation (FIS) surprised some ski-race insiders by calling for a ban on the use of all fluorinated ski waxes for next season. The announcement, made at the Federation’s annual fall meeting in Constance, Germany, will catalyze changes in race ski-prep procedures and technology.

“The use of fluorinated ski waxes, which have been shown to have a negative environmental and health impact, were banned for all FIS disciplines from the 2020–2021 season,” according to a FIS press statement released in November 2019. A working group will be formed to establish the new regulations.

The ban originated from the Committee for Competition Equipment, a panel that defines the technical specifications used across the FIS snow sports spectrum: alpine, cross-country skiing, nordic combined, ski jumping, snowboard, freestyle and freeski. The new working group has a rugged road ahead to unite a diverse array of nations and competitive disciplines to agree upon compliance standards.

The Norwegian Ski Federation banned the use of “fluoros” for all racers U16 and under last season, which was used as a test case by FIS to determine if a widespread ban was feasible, according to Ski Racing. Apparently, the answer was yes.

Fluorinated waxes significantly decrease friction and increase glide, and can be used across all ski and snowboard disciplines. As with all bans involving athletic performance or equipment, the success of a prohibition greatly depends on the ability to enforce the ban in the field and reliably test for non-compliance.

The waxes contain perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, collectively known as PFAS, which have been linked to a growing list of health concerns. The chemicals are found in drinking water and persistently remain in the food chain. Sometimes called “forever chemicals,” PFAS are resistant to moisture and extremely slow to break down. These are the same qualities that make them so effective in ski waxes.

From pine tar to fluorocarbons, waxing to win has been a constant in ski competitions. Ski waxing, however, long predates alpine skiing. It arose in the early days of Scandinavian ski-sport, from the coincidence that waterproofing wood also helps it to glide on snow. Whether you’re building a ship or a ski, you need to apply a preservative to wood. The earliest known preservative was pine tar, often called pitch.

Waxing evolved along with ski gear. Cross country racer Peter Østbye, born near Lillehammer in 1888, patented Østbyes Klister in 1913. By 1940, a rub-on alpine wax called 1-3-5 was sold under the brand Toko. In 1946, a company was founded under the name of Swix, a blend of the words ski and wax. Swix offered hard and soft waxes to cover a range of snow conditions, providing both glide and durability. Beginning in 1986, Terry Hertel in California and Swix chemists in Norway independently discovered that adding fluorocarbon to wax increased glide by two percent, which can determine the margin of victory in a race. Hertel introduced a commercial version in 1986; Swix followed in 1990, with a fluorocarbon powder that sold for $100 for three grams.

The growing use of fluorinated waxes came with increased scrutiny. Recent studies and subsequent publicity apparently accelerated the push for the ban. In 2016 Congress amended the Toxic Substances Control Act, requiring the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to control chemicals deemed harmful to human health. As one result, starting in early 2018 the EPA notified all companies using fluorocarbons in their products to document the specific chemicals and amounts used. For ski wax manufacturers and importers this would mean reporting all chemicals – dyes, scents, waxes, hardeners and fluorines, retroactively. Most wax companies couldn’t afford the complex procedures and many immediately stopped selling and making fluorowaxes. Besides, the most common fluorines will be banned in the EU starting in July 2020. It was in this context that FIS imposed the new ban.

For more information on the history of ski wax, see “Grip and Glide” by Seth Masia in the June 2010 issue of Skiing History, or read a variation of his article online: skiinghistory.org/
history/grip-and-glide-short-history-ski-wax

Alf Engen’s Idaho Roots

Alf Engen was one of the best—and best known—skiers in the United States during the 1930s and 1940s, and won more championships, awards and honors than any other competitor in both nordic and alpine disciplines. Though he is closely associated with Utah, he played a significant role at Sun Valley in the resort’s early years.

Alf’s first connection with Sun Valley was in early 1936, when he met Count Felix Schaffgotsch, who was sent by Averell Harriman to find the perfect location for Union Pacific’s new ski resort. Alf was the U.S. Forest Service Recreational Supervisor in Salt Lake City, in charge of locating and planning winter sports areas in Utah, Idaho, Nevada and Wyoming, at a time when New Deal programs were providing substantial assistance to the fledgling ski industry. Engen took Schaffgotsch to inspect Alta and Brighton. Schaffgotsch toured six states in six weeks, rejecting many areas that later become successful ski resorts—either their snow conditions or locations were unacceptable—before concluding the area around Ketchum, Idaho, had the perfect combination of snow, weather and hills.

The Forest Service sent Alf to visit Ketchum in winter 1936, when Sun Valley was being built. He met Harriman, who gave him a tour of the area, beginning a long friendship. In spring 1937, Alf and Sigmund Ruud located a site for and designed a ski jump at Sun Valley so Harriman could hold four-way competitions, and Ruud Mountain became the center for ski jumping and slalom events. Alf and Evelyn spent their honeymoon at Sun Valley in December 1937, at Harriman’s invitation.

Harriman hired Engen as a sports consultant and Superintendent of Recreational Facilities at Sun Valley, which included representing Sun Valley in skiing competitions, a role that brought substantial publicity to the resort. In 1938, Alf directed CCC crews that cut a downhill course on Bald Mountain, designed for the Harriman Cup by Dick Durrance. In 1939, his crews cut ski runs on Baldy and chairlifts were installed there for the 1939–1940 season.

Alf competed for Sun Valley virtually his entire amateur career, from 1937 to 1948. He battled fellow Norwegians in widely publicized jumping tournaments all over the country, including Birger and Sigmund Ruud, Torger Tokle, Reidar Andersen, and Olav and Sigurd Ulland, winning honors and setting several national distance records. Alf perfected his alpine skiing at Sun Valley, and led the country’s transition from nordic to alpine skiing, becoming the national four-way and open slalom-downhill combined champion.

Alf helped to coach the U.S. women’s national ski team at Sun Valley in 1939, who were training for the 1940 F.I.S. and Olympic Games (that were cancelled). U.S. Alpine teams for the 1948 Olympic Games at St. Moritz, Switzerland, were selected at Sun Valley. Alf coached prospective Olympians from the Sun Valley Ski Club before the tryouts, and he and Walter Prager, Dartmouth College’s famous coach from Switzerland, were co-coaches of the 1948 U.S. Olympic Team. Alf assisted Gretchen Fraser in her dominating performance at the 1948 Games, where she won gold and silver medals, the first American to win any Olympic skiing medal.

Alf, Evelyn and their son Alan moved to Utah after the Olympics, where he took over the Alta Ski School from his brother Sverre in 1949, directing it until 1989. Alf was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 1959, joined by his brothers Sverre (1971), Karre (Corey) (1973), and his son Alan (2004), becoming the only family with four members in the Hall.

Alf loved Sun Valley, calling it in his 1986 oral history a “great mountain … difficult to beat.” —John Lundin

On March 25, John Lundin will deliver the first John Fry Legacy Lecture following ISHA’s opening reception during Skiing History Week 2020. The topic is “Sun Valley’s Early Days: Union Pacific, Averell Harriman and Alf Engen.”

Skiing History Day: Mad River Glen

On February 28, we woke up to a foot of new snow at historic Mad River Glen, Vermont — a perfect way to welcome guests to Skiing History Day 2020. A collaboration between the resort and the International Skiing History Association (ISHA), the event drew more than 100 people for skiing, history talks and artifacts, contests and camaraderie.

The day kicked off with a presentation on Vermont ski pioneer Roland Palmedo and the 1948 founding of Mad River Glen by Rick Moulton (ski historian and filmmaker), Dr. John Allen (Skiing History contributor, author and New England Ski Museum board member), and John Schultz (longtime Mad River Glen skier and a founder of the Green Mountain Valley ski academy). Austrian ski legend Dixi Nohl (see article, page 16) entertained the crowd with memories from the ‘70s, when he ran Mad River’s ski school for some 10 years, joined by several of his instructors.

Trail guides led group mountain tours throughout the day, and all skiers who successfully completed the resurrected “No Stop, No Fall” challenge—a non-stop, no-wipeout descent from the summit—received an elegant antique pin. Rick Hopkins and Luke Prescott, Mad River patrollers for the last 40 decades, skied alongside to verify the successful “No Stop, No Fall” run. Meanwhile, winners of the vintage skiwear contest were awarded a free one-year membership to the Vermont Ski Museum.

Attendees included ISHA director Rick Moulton and his wife, Melinda (event co-producers); representatives from the Vermont Ski Museum and New England Ski Museum; and dozens of ISHA members and Mad River Glen stalwarts. One of the day’s highlights was the revelation that ISHA member Christopher Sweet of North Attleboro, Massachusetts had not skied Mad River in fifty years—he was eleven years old the last time he went up its iconic single chair. Sweet returned for this event and had a stellar day in the deep natural snow, promising to be back soon. —Melinda Moulton (photos by Melinda Moulton and Kim Holtan)

Sun Valley Skier Shares Rare Bibliographic Find

In 1979, 18-year-old Marc Corney did his best to become a Sun Valley ski bum. He left his Southern California home of Glendora with high hopes of joblessness, raucous nightlife, and endless days of skiing Baldy Mountain. He had some early success but eventually succumbed to responsibility and regular employment. He even went back to school, became an architect, and now has a family. Though a failed ski bum, Marc still skis more than 60 days a year and works as a guest services supervisor. Over the years, he’s developed an appreciation for Sun Valley history and its traditions of mountain camaraderie.

In a Vermont bookshop, Marc came across something unique. The Sun Valley Ski Book, a 1939 pictorial ski instruction tome by Friedl Pfeifer, is not uncommon among collectors and aficionados, but this copy had buried treasure. Along with Pfeifer’s step-by-step instruction and mountain lifestyle photos, there are hand-written captions from photo subjects and a four-page signature spread. Also tucked in are a few vintage newspaper clippings and a song lyric by poet Christopher La Farge, a friend of Ernest Hemingway.

Marc snapped up the souvenir and with his wife, Jill, put the probable story together. The book most likely belonged to Pfeifer and his wife, and was passed around at parties around the time of their wedding in the spring of 1940. The captions are directed to the Pfeifers and the signatures are those of the inner circle of accomplished skiers in Sun Valley’s magical formative years. Every time Marc and Jill open the book, they know they are holding traces of ski heroes in their hands, and they are pleased to share a look with Skiing History readers. We’ll be posting images at our website soon, for ISHA members only, at skiinghistory.org. —David Butterfield

Snapshots in Time

1924 A PRIZE OF DUBIOUS VALUE

Thor Groswold borrowed money for a train ticket and traveled to Dillon, Colorado to compete in a meet. The jumpers had to be sure to clear the knoll and get onto the landing hill, as they had never removed the stumps and rocks below the takeoff. It was very windy during the meet, and both Thor and then-national champion Lars Haugen were blown over and fell. At the Sunday evening banquet, he was given his prize—a crate of eggs. When he questioned the prize, he was told to stop by the general store, where they bought back the eggs for enough money to pay his train fare home. —Jerry Groswold, “Thor Groswold: One of Skiing’s First Great Salesmen” (Collected Papers of the
International Ski History Congress, 2002)

1936 HEY, SISSIES! YOU’RE SCARING THE MOTHERS!

The first death on the slopes shook up the small skiing fraternity of the day. An emergency meeting was called by the New York Amateur Ski Club, whose founder, Roland Palmedo, appointed Minot “Minnie” Dole chair of a committee to inquire into the causes and handling of ski accidents. The results of their questionnaires were disappointing. Only a hundred replies dribbled in. Of these, roughly half accused the committee of being “sissies, spoilsports, and frighteners of mothers.” —Gretchen Rous Besser, “Samaritans of the Snow” (Collected Papers of the International Ski History Congress, 2002)

1959 IVY LEAGUE ANTI-STYLE

If Dartmouth or Harvard types are your heart’s desire, you must spurn current fashions like a plague. Requirements are a pair of well-worn dungarees (preferably patched and faded) pulled over a bulky union suit. This should be topped by an olive drab Army surplus parka, preferably of genuine Camp Hale vintage. Box-toed boots is overdoing it a little bit, but don’t hesitate to resort to them. —Eleanor Prager, “The Happy Hunting Ground: Ski Resorts Are Heaven for Women” (SKI, October 1959)

1967 NEW GIRL IN TOWN

The series of nestling alpine towns and ski runs that tycoon Bill Janss is going to put into the mountains behind Aspen, Colorado, will make Snowmass the biggest, most sought-after and possibly the most beautiful of all the ski complexes of this country. She will debut this year with only some of her envisioned charms available, but even at that, Snowmass will be the new place to ski this winter. Snowmass will have Stein Eriksen in the role of ski school hero, but the star will be the magnificent, marvelous, enchanting, rolling snowland — terrain previously only reachable by ski plane or over-snow vehicle. This winter, Snowmass will have five double chairs, 3,500 feet of vertical, and 50 miles of trails. —(SKI, September 1967)

1974 SKIER’S CODE OF ETHICS

It is immoral to ski unsafely, and unmannerly to ski impolitely. These two ideas shade into each other. The unmannerly skier is also likely to be the immoral skier who skis out of control. For example, too many skiers do not take seriously the duty of staying clear of skiers below. They feel they have the right to yell “Track!” and to whiz by. They do not have that right! We would like to see the Ski Patrol rescind the ticket of every skier who fails to stay clear or who skis so as to endanger the skier below him.  —Ski Safety and Courtesy (SKI Magazine Encyclopedia of Skiing)

1978 11 HOURS IN HELL

At 3:45 pm on April 15, 40 people caught the last tram of the day from High Camp at Squaw Valley. Less than 150 feet from Tower 2, something caused the car to derail from the outside cable, suddenly doubling the inside cable’s load. The tram dropped 75 feet and bounced like a yo-yo. When everything had stopped moving, the car had opened up like a burst tin can, hanging 80 feet in the air. Three were killed almost instantly, and most of the 37 survivors were injured, several seriously. —“11 Hours in Hell” by Dick Dorworth (SKI, September 1978)

1995 TEACH YOUR PARENTS WELL

I was unprepared when my son, Andrew, appeared at my shoulder one day of his eighth year. “Uh, Dad?” he said, scraping his thumbnail across the ski edges I’d just spent half an hour sharpening. “Do you think I could go snowboarding with Wyatt today?” “Snowboarding?” I repeated in a voice that betrayed my disgust. Andrew was born to be a skier! “No,” I said. “Why not?” he inquired. I quickly listed a dozen excellent reasons: Snowboarders have weird hair and pierced noses. They sport tattoos. They wear rude stickers. But after much debate, I gave in, certain that a dozen jarring falls would surely discourage him. They didn’t. —Andrew Slough (SKI, February 1995)

SIA Alumni Breakfast

About 30 ski business veterans turned out for the annual alumni breakfast during the annual Outdoor Retailer + Snow Show in Denver on January 31. Here, John Stahler (second from right, Head, Tecnica) entertains Denny Hanson (Hanson, Apex), David Ingemie (SIA, ISHA, U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame) and David Scott (Head, Chivers, Lacroix, Nevica). Seth Masia photo.

Ski History Calendar

April 16–26 World Ski and Snowboard Festival 2020
Whistler, B.C.

Claiming to be the largest celebration on snow, the World Ski and Snowboard Festival celebrates Whistler’s mountain culture with ten days of late-spring shenanigans. On the mountain, there are ski and snowboard competitions and demonstrations, including the 18th edition of the Saudan Couloir Ski Race Extreme. Named after the legendary Swiss “Skier of the Impossible” Sylvain Saudan, the competition is touted as the steepest ski race on the planet. Back on flat ground, art, filmmaking, photography, music and other events fill up the village for the festival’s raucous run.

May 4–7 NSAA National Convention and Tradeshow
Omni Amelia Island Plantation Resort, Florida

The National Ski Areas Association brings together the major influencers in the resort industry for its annual post-season convention and industry mixer. Keynote speakers include Afdhel Aziz, the author of Good is the New Cool: Market Like You Give a Damn, which explores how businesses can be a force for positive social impact and attract customers from the new generation of socially aware consumers. Educational sessions will address a wide range of topics, from the influence of digital lodging platforms, such as VRBO, to the growing importance of resort branding in today’s world of ski-area consolidation.

June 24–July 3 Aspen Ideas
Festival Aspen, Colorado

Featuring boldface names from around the world, the Aspen Ideas Festival is one of the nation’s premier public festivals featuring leaders, policy makers and business disruptors who explore ideas that both shape our lives and challenge our times. The festival is public and open to all. Topics have included Redefining Capitalism, Planet in Peril, Finding Beauty and the American Idea.

Seven decades ago, Roger Sylvand and Emile Allais invented a safer new way to get injured skiers off the mountain.

By Thomas Sylvand

During the summer of 2019, Bonneville, the ski-resort town in the French Alps, lost a landmark. The factory Traineau Sylvand (Sylvand Sleds) was torn down to make way for real estate development.

For six decades, beginning in 1947, that factory produced rescue sleds (traineaux de secours) for ski patrols across France and around the world. The inventor of that sled was my grandfather, Roger Sylvand. He created the prototype at the request of Emile Allais, the world champion skier who was the guiding light for French ski resort development in the post-war years.

The Sylvand family has lived in the high mountains for many generations. My great-grandfather Louis, wounded in World War I, moved his young family to Praz-sur-Arly, just outside Megève, in 1922, when Roger was 11 years old.

As my father, François, tells the story, Roger was greatly impressed by Robert Flaherty’s classic documentary Nanook of the North, and especially fascinated with the dogsleds. He built his own sled, from barrel staves, and tested it with his infant brother André as passenger. Naturally, the sled came to pieces on a curbstone. Fortunately, André was wrapped in layers and layers of swaddling, and came to no harm. Roger suffered a severe scolding.

The family lived in a hillside cottage. Like the neighbors, in winter they hauled groceries and firewood on sleds and sledges, and throughout the 1920s witnessed the rapid growth of alpine skiing (Megève was the first of the French lift-served resorts). As a teenager, Roger helped to set up the first ski-tows, on land owned by cousins, and drove buses hauling skiers uphill. He became an inventive mechanic, rigging up a rack-and-pinion system to simultaneously operate all the window-shutters on one side of the cottage. In the years leading up to World War II, he served in the mountain artillery and was tasked with devising over-the-snow transport solutions. He got to build more sleds.

Hilaire Evrard, a maternal uncle, owned a hardware store in Megève and an up-to-date factory in Bonneville that produced steel cable and elevator machinery, plus skis sold under the Brévent, Buet and La Para brands, and the Swiss-designed “Luge de Megève.” Evrard died suddenly in 1946. The family split up the businesses—the Evrards took over the hardware store and Roger Sylvand managed the factory, gradually buying ownership. He dropped the cable and elevator operations to focus on wood products: skis and sleds.

Roger set to work modernizing the carpentry operations. After a loose router bit nearly killed him, he focused on safety issues, ventilating sawdust to the basement to reduce fire hazard, installing an elaborate fire-alarm system he designed himself, and even setting up a system to stop the machinery automatically whenever a stranger came through the door.

It was an era of rapid innovation in ski resort management. Emile Allais returned from the Americas, where he had designed new trail systems and set up new ski schools. He brought with him Howard Head’s new metal skis, and a lot of great ideas about mechanical slope grooming and ski patrol operations.

In consultation with Allais, in 1947 Roger Sylvand came up with a great improvement for ski patrol rescue sleds—a simple and robust braking system that would allow a single patroller to bring the sled down safely on most pistes. Very simply, he put the meter-long steering handles on hinges, and when the steering skier pressed the handles down, they levered a pair of steel claws into the snow (or ice), slowing the rig efficiently. The claws were spring-loaded so as to retract when pressure was released on the handles. He applied for a patent in 1950, and it was granted in 1952. Allais helped to sell the system to other European ski patrols. In 1954, Allais demonstrated the new sled at a convention in Davos, and it won a gold medal. 

Photo top of page: Roger Sylvand encourages his son François to demonstrate how little muscle it took to operate the rescue-sled prototype.

The sled, made of hardwood, aluminum and steel, with a thin canvas-covered mattress, was light and tough enough to be handled by one “pisteur” in most skiable terrain. It sold well, and kept the factory operating long after wooden skis and luges went defunct.

Even after retiring, my grandfather kept a close eye on the factory until his death in 1995, and it continued to produce sleds until closing in 2008. Recently the village of Praz-sur-Arly opened a new medical clinic, Chalet Sylvand, named in his honor.

ISHA president Seth Masia translated this story from its original French version and added editorial notes and clarifications.

A Short History of Rescue Sleds

The first patent for a sled with a braking system was issued in 1869 to Constantine de Bodisco, of St. Petersburg, Russia, who created a heavy iron contraption for coasting down icy hillsides. A spring-loaded steel plunger was mounted on the steel runners on either side. A rider would press down on the knob at the top of the plunger to engage the bottom end into the ice. Thus could a gentleman calm the nerves of his lady passenger.

The need for rescue sleds became evident during World War I, especially for use in the bloody alpine battles between Italy and Austria. Beginning in 1914, dozens of patents were issued for devices to mount a canvas stretcher onto a pair of skis, presumably the skis belonging to the evacuee. The inventors were Swiss, Austrian, Canadian, Norwegian, American and French. None of these systems addressed braking. On a schuss, ski-borne operators had to control speed by wedging or side-slipping. As alpine skiing developed in North America during the 1930s, early ski patrollers rigged toboggans with a variety of steering-handles and dragging-chain braking systems.

Also during the 1930s, Finnish skiers used newly available aluminum sheeting to bang together a lightweight trough-shaped sled they called an akja. It was designed to float boat-like in deep snow, and with steel runners it could be safely handled on ice. With a skier at each end, it could haul munitions cross-country, and was so used during the Winter War with Russia in 1938. The German Army took note and stamped out akjas for its own mountain troops, going so far as to mount machine guns on some. Thus came the akja to Austria, where it is still manufactured, thousands per year, for ski patrols around the world. Austrian mountaineer Kurt Beam, who emigrated to Seattle in 1941 and became a fixture in ski patrolling, introduced the akja to North America in time for the 1960 Squaw Valley Olympics.

In 1940, soldiers of the nascent 10th Mountain Division came up with their own rescue-and-cargo toboggans. Lieutenant Colonel Avery Cochran, who had begun working with dogsleds in Alaska in 1939, in 1943 was issued a patent on behalf of the 10th’s Mountain’s rescue sled—a toboggan equipped with a light steel framework at each end, attached via quick-linking rods to belts worn by skiers in front and in back. Thus the troopers had their arms free for the use of poles in cross-country skiing.

Then, in 1946, 10th Mountain veteran Nelson Bennett returned to his job as ski patrol director at Sun Valley and began working on his own sled design. Introduced in 1948, the Bennett sled used a wooden toboggan stabilized with a couple of steel skegs at the back corners, a detachable wire-mesh Stokes litter, and folding or removable steering steering arms. Braking was aided by a drag chain under the nose of the sled, controlled by the pilot with a rope. Not only could it be piloted by a single patroller, it could be uploaded on a single chair by the same patroller. It became a standard item of equipment at North American resorts.  —Seth Masia

From the January 2019 issue of Skiing History magazine

As life returned to normal after World War II, skiers on both sides of the Atlantic wanted to replace their pre-war equipment. The first order of business was to dump the old leg-breaking Kandahar bindings, with their solid toe irons and long-thong wraps designed to support the ankle and prevent heel release. In 1948 the French sporting goods manufacturer Jean Beyl introduced a pivoting plate meant to prevent spiral fractures of the tibia. It didn’t release from the ski but could pivot 360 degrees in a twisting fall. By 1950 he had talked a number of French racers into using the “Antifracture” plate.

In the afterglow of liberation, the French still referred to U.S. soldiers as “Amis” (“friends”). American products had a reputation for quality and were in high demand. French companies sent production engineers to visit U.S. factories for guidance on rebuilding their own industries. Beyl wanted to give his new ski binding an American-sounding name. Besides, North America might become a healthy export market someday.

Beyl noticed that American soldiers got weekly magazines with punchy names like Time, Life and Look. He chose Look as the corporate name, after the large-format photo magazine. And he replaced the boot-length plate with an easier-to mount high-elasticity toe unit paired with a cable heel system. He called the new toe Nevada, another word evoking America despite its Spanish origin (it means “snowy mountain”).

As a product name, Look Nevada had a spectacular run. Its next redesign, in 1962, became the Nevada II and paired with the step-in Grand Prix turntable heel. That combination campaigned into the 1980s.

Beyl wasn’t finished with American magazines. In 1983 he designed Look’s releasing-clip bicycle pedal. After leaving the company, in 1987 he created an improved pedal, and called it Time. –Seth Masia

In a region of Norway rich with military history, skiers can ride a NATO train through a tunnel to the top of the mighty Gaustatoppen. BY JIMMY PETTERSON

A few odd ski areas exist in a time warp—living tributes to a bygone era of skiing, before the advent of snowguns to make the snow and fleets of snowcats to flatten it to perfection. These mountains are dedicated to freeriders, with few or no groomed pistes. La Grave in France was one of the first. Austria has the Krippenstein, and in the French Pyrenees, the cable car hauls freeriders up the Pic du Midi.

Norway has its own exclusive off-piste mountain—Gaustatoppen, near the village of Rjukan—with a lift that must rank among the strangest of all time. And the region has a fascinating backstory... 

Who needs powder? A Minnesota resort goes to the mat for its future.  By Greg DiTrinco

There is an annoyingly capricious component of the sport of skiing. It’s called snow. Both skiers and resort operators alike have to deal with the seasonal limits of their passion—and their business model. So what if you removed the unpredictability of snow from the sport?

Buck Hill, Minnesota, aims to find out. This mighty mite of a ski area, tucked in a few miles south of the Twin Cities, is perhaps the biggest supporter of a small, but growing segment of the industry: four-season skiing. The resort has installed an all-year skiing surface to create—in theory—an endless winter. Now a few seasons into the radical experiment, “It took a while, but I’m pleased with where we are,” says Dave Solner, Buck Hill’s CEO and co-owner...

Installed at a small New York ski area, the world’s original high-speed detachable quad had the right idea with the wrong execution. BY JEREMY DAVIS

The opening of the Doppelmayr Quicksilver SuperChair at Breckenridge, Colorado in 1981 is often cited as the first operation of a high-speed, detachable quad chairlift. While this lift is certainly the world’s first successful detachable four-seater chairlift, an earlier prototype operated approximately a decade earlier in the most unlikely of places—a community ski area in Utica, New York.

In the mid 1960s, the Val Bialas Ski Center at the Parkway was modest, with a few trails and slopes served by a T-bar and rope tow. In 1968—with the popularity of skiing on the rise nationwide—the city council voted to spend $100,000 on upgrades.

A local manufacturer, Mohawk International, bid $114,000 and was awarded a contract to build a four-person detachable chairlift with stationary loading. Skiers would be taken up the mountain sideways, at a speed of 600 feet per minute. A 2,500-per-hour capacity was planned, which would far exceed any other lift’s capacity at the time. Sue Baum, the local Parks and Recreation Commissioner, envisioned the lift running year-round, with summer rides to a summit observation and picnic area.

This project would be Mohawk’s first foray into the ski lift business...

 Swiss reader Luzi Hitz recently sent us a collection of photos of snow rollers used to groom pistes in Switzerland and France during the 1950s and 1960s. The picture at right, for instance, was apparently taken above the St. Bernard Pass in 1950 (but it may be as late as 1964). This raises the question whether any of these devices predate Steve Bradley's packer-grader, first used at Winter Park in 1950.

Well, yes and no. In both Europe and the United States, the process of rolling snow to achieve a smooth surface long predates the development of ski lifts and trails. Snowy roads were commonly packed out hard by hauling heavy agricultural rollers behind teams of horses. The purpose was to provide easy gliding for sleighs and sledges, and solid footing for the horses pulling them (horseshoes were often equipped with caulks to give them traction on hard and icy surfaces). In the American Ski Annual for 1945-46, Phil Robertson, manager of Mt. Cranmore, described using an agricultural roller in the fall of 1939 to pack down the early season snow so it would freeze

to the ground and make a solid base for later snowfalls. The resort used a small Caterpiller tractor to haul the roller. European snowsports operators had the same idea in the prewar years, but by November of 1939 they had more pressing issues to worry about. 

Repeated rolling did nothing to break up the icy surface that developed under heavy skier traffic, or after a melt-freeze cycle. Robertson wrote “We remedy this condition by scarifying late in the day, creating a powder surface which freezes during the night to the harder snow below. This operation is carried on with our invention called the Magic Carpet, a network of chains and caulks 10 by 14 feet, weighing 1200 pounds, which is hauled over the slopes with a tractor.” Find photos of this device in action accompanying Jeff Leich’s article on early snowmaking and grooming in the Spring 2002 newsletter of the New England Ski Museum.

After the war, new resorts used pre-war grooming methods. Despite the development of early snowmobiles (and the 10th Mountain Division’s Weasel), no over-the-snow vehicles yet existed with the power to drag rollers through the deep soft snow found in the Western states, and bulldozers were too heavy – they sank out of sight.

In the United States we generally credit Steve Bradley as the father of snow grooming. Bradley assumed management of Winter Park in June of 1950 and immediately began working with Ed Taylor on ideas for stabilizing and smoothing the snow surface. Taylor, a member of the Winter Park board of directors, was a former chairman of the National Ski Patrol and had a special interest in snow physics, based on his work controlling avalanches.

Bradley and Taylor appear to be the first experimenters to focus on the problem of smoothing out moguls. At the time Winter Park was smoothing out moguls manually, by sending out teams of men with shovels. According to Jerry Groswold, who watched Bradley and Taylor at work, they tried a number of devices to automate the process, beginning with their own version of Cranmore’s Magic Carpet, a six-foot length of chain-link fencing they pulled down the slope while skiing.
 

By the close of the year Bradley had designed and built a roller design, but with a difference: First, it was a “slat roller,” which had the effect of packing half the snow and “powdering” the rest for a soft, skiable surface. Then, in front of the roller he put an adjustable steel blade, spring-loaded to shave the tops off moguls. It worked like a road grader and steamroller ganged together. It wasn’t just a packer-and-smoother: it was the Bradley Packer-Grader. The January 15, 1951 issue of the National Newspaper of Skiing reported on the successful use of the Bradley XPG-1 -- X for experimental, PG-1 for the first packer-grader.

The gravity-powered Packer-Grader weighed about 700 lb and was steered by a skier. The technique: go straight down the fall line, depending on the blade for speed control. At Winter Park, Bradley sent teams of “pilots” down the mogul fields in V-formation, like a squadron of fighter planes. According to Groswold, they earned 25 cents an hour “combat pay” over and above the trail crew wage. Rig and pilot returned to the top of the hill via T-bar. Jim Lillstrom, who was one of the pilots, believes that their crew were the first skiers to use the newly-invented Bell fiberglass helmet. (Video link: See a formation of XPG-1 in action at Winter Park)

Bradley filed for a patent on the packer-grader in December 1951. By 1952, Fred Pabst was using his new Tucker Sno-Cats to pull slat rollers up and down the Bromley slopes.

Patent number 2,786,283 was issued to Bradley in March, 1957, covering “Apparatus for grading and packing snow.” That year Bradley mounted a Packer-Grader behind one of the new Kristi snowcats just going into production in Arvada, Colo., rigging a hydraulic cylinder to control blade height in place of the original steel spring. Thiokol Corp., then beginning snowcat production in Utah, licensed the Packer-Grader technology and modern powered snow grooming was born.
 

Returning to the St. Bernard photo: Note that this is a slat roller machine without a grading blade, and that the skier behind the roller controls the speed by sideslipping or snowplowing. A note on the French website http://www.skistory.com/F/domaines/B32.html suggests that more sophisticated powered grooming machinery was introduced by Emile Allais, who arrived at Courchevel in 1954 after having worked in North and South America since the opening of Squaw Valley in 1948. He brought American and Canadian ideas with him.

The sport underwent a revolution more than a century ago, when skiers gradually shifted from a single shaft to holding a pair of poles.

By Luzi Hitz with Seth Masia

At a military cross country race in Chamonix, in 1908, the French and Italian squads showed up each with a single long pole, as they’d been taught by their Norwegian instructors. But the Scandinavians pulled a fast one: All their racers pushed off with two poles and sprinted away in a modern diagonal stride. The northern platoons took the first eight places out of 30 finishers. A couple of the locals were so disgusted at being passed that they threw away their “grands batons” and raced pole-free, finishing ninth and 13th. It marked the end of the single-pole era, at least for ski competition.

Double-poling was not new. Right from the beginning, hunters on skis used a spear for balance and propulsion. But if need arose, a hunter could use his bow as a second pole. Dating from 5,000 years ago, rock art in northernmost Karelia (Russia) shows ski tracks with pole plants on either side. Saami (Laplander) reindeer herders traditionally used two poles (see the Moses Pitt woodcut from 1680, and a better-known drawing in Per Högström’s 1747 description of the Saami.)...