Celebrate Winter An Olympian’s Stories of a Life in Nordic Skiing
By John Morton
A Middlebury College graduate and Vietnam War veteran, John Morton participated in seven Olympics, twice as an athlete for the U.S. Biathlon Team. He served as chief of course for Biathlon events at the Salt Lake City Olympics, and for 11 years was head coach for the Dartmouth College Ski Team. In 1989 he founded Morton Trails, designing cross-country trail systems.
Much of this book is taken from Morty’s radio broadcasts for Vermont Public Radio. The chapters cover a range of topics, elucidating the history of American Nordic skiing in the 1970s and ’80s. Celebrate Winter is an encyclopedia of sorts. Morty writes of his adventures coaching and acting as a team leader at Olympic Games and World Championships. Much of this stuff is hilarious, including “Victory in the Sauna” and “The Joys of Roller Skiing,” while other chapters convey key aspects of cross-country, such as the “The Art and Magic of Waxing Cross-Country Skis.”
Morty is at his best when he waxes philosophical. Few authors describe so well the benefits of international competition. He writes about his friendship with the top Russian biathlete, Alexander Tikhonov. Morty raised money from his athletes to buy a U.S. rifle (of all things!) for his Russian friend. I, too, was very friendly with the Russians on their XC and Nordic combined teams, and even helped them out with some waxing needs. I’m sure we were both criticized by our conservative friends, but Morty covers the idea of friendship among athletes from different countries.
It’s a wonder that U.S. skiers ever moved ahead in the results during these years. “Nordies” had no full-time paid staff. Coaches were assigned as needed at the Olympics or the World Championships, given a plane ticket and sent on their way. Most of the money went to Alpine. I was the cross-country coach for the U.S. Ski Team during this period, and I can corroborate or even expand on Morty’s text.
This is a must-read for skiers of any sort. And you can find out what Morty has been doing all this time. –John Caldwell
Celebrate Winter: An Olympian’s Stories of a Life in Nordic Skiing, by John Morton. Independently published. 6 x 9 inches, 260 pages. Paperback $14.95 (Kindle edition $2.99).
By Lowell Skoog
Written in the Snows Across Time on Skis in the Pacific Northwest
By Lowell Skoog
Written in the Snows is a comprehensive history of skiing—mainly of ski mountaineering—in the Northwest. Well-researched and sustained by a gripping narrative, the book takes the reader on an exhilarating ride as the backcountry skiing reaches ever higher elevations and levels of difficulties to the point where even the best practitioners are forced to recognize their limits.
Surmounted by Mt. Rainier, the high peaks of the Cascades trapped every drop of moisture brought by prevailing winds off the Gulf of Alaska. The profound snowfall was impassable in winter, until, in 1887, the Northern Pacific Railroad crossed Stampede Pass. The Great Northern crossed Stevens Pass in 1893, and the Milwaukee Railroad crossed Snoqualmie Pass in 1909. Seattle-area skiers, rich with Scandinavian immigrants, quickly pioneered ski trails branching off the rail lines, building small hotels and ski cabins in promising high meadows. In 1906, 151 women and men chartered The Mountaineers. The club has organized outings, winter and summer, ever since and served as a locus for jumping tournaments, racing, and exploratory expeditions.
Lowell Skoog, an ardent practitioner of high-altitude, self-propelled skiing, brings dozens of key events to vivid life, going so far as to replicate, on his own and with friends, some of the pioneering routes and early races. He explains how skiing has been shaped by larger social trends, including immigration, the Great Depression, war, economic growth, conservation and the media, and recounts the adventures of local characters like Milnor Roberts, Olga Bolstad, Hans Otto Giese, Bill Maxwell, Gretchen Kunigk, Don Fraser and John Woodward.
There are excellent photo illustrations throughout and a useful appendix covering ski mountaineering highlights, plus a very useful glossary, valuable listings of references and resources, and a superb index.
As a skier, climber, writer and photographer, Skoog has been a keen observer of Northwest mountaineering since the 1970s. He is the creator of the Alpenglow Gallery and founder of the Northwest Mountaineering Journal, websites that celebrate local mountain culture, and he was a key member of the team that launched the Washington State Ski and Snowboard Museum. Skoog is the chairman of The Mountaineers History and Library committee. He lives in Seattle.
This is the author’s second ISHA Award. He won the 2010 ISHA Cyber Award for alpenglow.org. –Seth Masia
Written in the Snows: Across Time on Skis in the Pacific Northwest, by Lowell Skoog. Mountaineers Books, 7 x 9 inches, 336 pages. Paperback $29.95 (Kindle edition $14.99)
Dan Egan & Eric Wilbur
Thirty Years in a White Haze Dan Egan’s Story of Worldwide Adventure and the Evolution of Extreme Skiing
By Dan Egan & Eric Wilbur
Dan Egan’s autobiography is a colorful inside look at the evolution of “extreme” skiing into what we now call big-mountain free-skiing. Dan was a multi-talented athlete with a good business head. Emerging from a large, devout yet unruly Catholic family, he found success in skiing, soccer and sailing. But sports, and the related party scenes, interfered with academics. It took a sporadically heroic effort of self-discipline to complete a college degree in marketing.
After joining his older brother John as a star of Eric Perlman and Warren Miller films, Egan’s talent for marketing enabled him to line up lucrative sponsorships. He seized on emerging VCR technology to become a video-distribution mogul as president of Egan Entertainment Network. Twenty-five years later, after digital technology made VCR distribution obsolete, Dan had to reinvent himself. He went on to careers in ski resort management and marketing; coaching skiing; soccer and sailing; journalism; and consulting on a wide range of video and sponsorship projects in skiing and sailing.
Sibling rivalry was brought to a crisis in 1990, after Dan survived a fatal 38-hour storm high on 18,500-foot Mt. Elbrus in the Russian Caucasus. The brothers went on to collaborate on many more projects, including their X-Treme ski clinics held across North America, and in Chamonix, Val d’Isère and other European destinations. Dan and John Egan were elected to the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame in 2016.
Co-author Eric Wilbur is a journalist who has been covering the New England sports, travel and skiing scenes for nearly three decades. His written work has appeared in the Boston Globe, New England Ski Journal, Boston.com, Boston Metro, and various other publications. He fell in love with skiing at an early age, a dedication to the sport that only increased upon moving to Vermont during his college years. He lives with his wife and three children in the Boston area. This is his first book. –SM
Thirty Years in a White Haze: Dan Egan’s Story of Worldwide Adventure and the Evolution of Extreme Skiing, by Dan Egan & Eric Wilbur. Degan Media, Inc., 6 x 9”, 418 pages, paperback. $39.95 (Kindle edition $9.99)
By John Lundin
Ski Jumping in Washington State A Nordic Tradition
By John W. Lundin
Ski jumping, once Washington’s most popular winter sport, was introduced by Norwegian immigrants in the early 20th century. In the Pacific Northwest, competitive jumping began at Rossland, British Columbia, in 1898. The sport migrated to Spokane’s Browne’s Mountain in 1913 and Seattle’s Queen Anne Hill in 1916, moved to midsummer tournaments on Mount Rainier in 1917 and expanded statewide as new ski clubs formed. Washington tournaments attracted the world’s best jumpers—Birger and Sigmund Ruud, Alf Engen, Sigurd Ulland and Reidar Andersen, among others. In 1941, Torger Tokle set two national distance records there in just three weeks. Regional ski areas hosted national and international championships as well as Olympic tryouts, entertaining spectators until Leavenworth’s last tournament in 1978.
Big-hill ski jumping in the Northwest suffered a major blow when the Milwaukee Road Ski Bowl at Hyak burned down in 1949 and was not rebuilt. By the 1970s, public interest had faded and the Northwest’s historic facilities were all dismantled. Leavenworth’s really big jump was the last to go. Unsustainable maintenance and insurance costs contributed to the demise.
Seattle-based lawyer, historian and award-winning author John W. Lundin re-creates the excitement of this nearly forgotten ski jumping heritage. The book was written in conjunction with an exhibit put together by the National Nordic Museum and the Washington State Ski and Snowboard Museum. This is the author’s third ISHA Skade Award: He was honored in 2018 for Early Skiing on Snoqualmie Pass and in 2021 for Skiing Sun Valley: From the Union Pacific to the Holdings. –SM
Ski Jumping in Washington State: A Nordic Tradition by John W. Lundin, History Press, 226 pages. $32.99 hardbound, $23.99 softcover.
The November–December 2021 issue’s “Whatever Happened To” explored the ruade technique, developed in France in the 1940s and introduced to the U.S. by Emile Allais. There is an interesting story about Allais, ruade and Sun Valley.
(Photo above: Emile Allais (second from left) at Squaw Valley, 1949, with instructors Dodie Post, Warren Miller, Charlie Cole and Alfred Hauser. Courtesy Palisades Tahoe.)
In 1947, Otto Lang became head of the Sun Valley Ski School. In his autobiography, A Bird of Passage, Lang said it was time to revitalize the ski school and it needed “a celebrity with the charisma of a superior ski racer who could also teach.” In 1948, he brought in four-time world champion and Olympic medalist Allais, famous for devising the French direct-to-parallel teaching technique, in opposition to the stem-based Arlberg system that was the mainstay of the Sun Valley school. Hannes Schneider, godfather of Arlberg, approved the hire, since “only time will tell which of the techniques deserved to last.” Allais worked out well and was a popular instructor.
Lang described ruade as “a christiania with the skis held parallel, and in order to initiate the change of direction, one lifted the tail ends of both skis off the snow and started the turn in midair to head the skis in the opposite direction.” He found it “a physically taxing maneuver, but very useful under certain conditions, such as a crusted or deeply rutted snow surface. The sight of a bunch of skiers doing the ruade reminded me of a flock of bunny rabbits hopping around and frolicking in the snow.”
That spring, Allais was hired to launch the Squaw Valley Ski School. When Lang saw Allais years later, he asked “What about ruade?” Allais replied, “Extinct as the dodo bird.”
John W. Lundin
Seattle, Washington
Cover Blurb Blunder
Ingrid Christophersen has delivered a valuable anthology to the international skiing community with To Heaven’s Heights. She deserves the recognition of ISHA’s Ullr Award for her extensive research and translation achievement and this addition to the skiing literature canon.
Readers of Skiing History also should know that the back cover of the volume highlights an entry by Leni Riefenstahl, the German filmmaker best known for glorifying Hitler and the Nazi regime. The 438-page volume contains entries from 100-plus authors. Singling out Riefenstahl for the back cover suggests a naivety or tone-deafness, especially during this time of growing anti-Semitism and neo-Nazism. To the author’s and publisher’s credit, the Riefenstahl reference, included in the book’s early publicity materials, was removed from subsequent promotional materials when the issue was brought to their attention. It remains on the back cover.
Jon Weisberg
SeniorsSkiing.com
Salt Lake City, Utah
Correction
Due to an editing error, on page 20 of “The Legacy of Spider Sabich” (March-April 2022), the site of Spider’s first WPS race—and victory—was misidentified. The race was held at Buffalo, New York, not Hunter Mountain. A caption on page 22 misidentified the woman in the photo. It’s Missy Greis, Spider’s daughter, not her mother Dede Brinkman.
Ties That Bind: The Origin Story of Sport Obermeyer
When I saw the photo of Friedl Pfeifer, Walter Paepcke, Herbert Bayer and Gary Cooper in the November-December issue all wearing my Koogie pom-pom ties (“Heavy Lifting: Aspen Under Construction,”) I thought I would tell the story.
As a young boy in Bavaria in the early 20’s, skiing was a formal sport. People wore shirts and ties and wool overcoats. The tie for skiing was called the ‘koogie pom–pom’. Koogie in the Bavarian dialect is the German word for Kugel which means ball. The ties were made of yarn. I remember men would come to our house wearing the Koogie tie on their way to go skiing. I asked my mother to make one for me, which she did. Then my friends wanted one, too. So my mother taught me how to make them.
I arrived in Aspen in 1947 to teach for Friedl Pfeifer. The following spring, as there was no work in Aspen, I bought a Ford car for $350 and headed back to Sun Valley. I bought some yarn in Hailey and made some samples of the koogie pom-pom ties. Pete Lane’s Ski Shop ordered three dozen. The retail price was $1.75 each. I gave him a 10 percent cash discount because I had spent all my money on yarn. He paid me in silver dollars. A few days later he ordered 6 dozen more!
Averell Harriman gave some to the employees.
In Aspen in the fall of 1947, there were just seven instructors. Because the ski business was often slow, I played chess with Walter Paepcke, sometimes all night. Gary Cooper liked coming to Aspen. One day he said to me, “Klaus, I hear you started a business selling pom-pom ties. Maybe it would help your business if I wore one.”
“I would be happy to give you one Gary,” I said.
“No, I will pay retail” he insisted.
That was the first Sport Obermeyer product and the beginning of our company.
Klaus Obermeyer
Aspen, Colorado
Cover Story
The cover of the magazine’s November-December 2020 issue shows my old ski school director Luggi Foeger, who I worked for from 1947-1952 at Badger Pass Ski Area in Yosemite, California. The cover, from a photograph, shows him making a turn at Ostrander, near Badger Pass. It was a favorite place to show students the perfect position while making a turn. You came down a fairly steep hill and near the bottom there was a drop off so the skier had to move his upper half of his body forward to keep proper balance. So it showed him quite forward in his turn. This was vogue at the time. Several ski instructors and me were working on a film in 1950 or 51 and the filmmaker chose that spot.
Jim McConkey
Denman Island, British Columbia
Skiing with Stein
When the November-December 2021 issue arrived, the first thing I saw was the Jantzen ad on the back cover with Stein Eriksen’s photo and the history of Stein and his brother Marius’s sweaters knitted by their mother.
I was reminded of that memorable time in April 1989, when I traveled with Stein to Norway, as a writer for SKI. Other journalists and I skied with Stein in Hemsedal, and it was there that Stein gave me a red, white and blue sweater knitted by his mother. I also met his brother Marius.
I dared not wear the gifted sweater, because it seemed too precious. A couple of years ago, however, I gave it to a relative. An avid skier, she loves it and wears it with pride.
Laurel Lippert
Truckee, California
Legacy of the Kokanee Camps
Regarding the story about the birth of the Canadian National Ski Team (January-February issue): The Canadian Ski Team program at Notre Dame University beginning in 1964 was a success but the academic calendar was a bad fit with the World Cup tour (1967), so the program ended in 1969. It did inspire the creation of high-school level ski academies across North America.
Many of the program’s athletes became successful professionals. We learned resilience and determination by overcoming injuries or defeat. We forged a lifelong bond of friendship. That was a gift over and above all the medals and success stories.
I would like to honor Emily Ringham-Beauchamp, who kept the Nelson group in contact for years by organizing reunions and gatherings. She annually hosted an event to support the Ernie Gare athletic scholarships, named to honor one of program’s founders. For the 50th ski team reunion in 2005, she organized a nostalgic trip up to Kokanee glacier to visit the beautiful new Alpine Club cabin and check out our carved names on the walls of the old Kokanee cabin. Emily passed away in 2018, before our most recent reunion.
Eva Kuchar, PhD
Pointe-Clair, Quebec
Correction
In “Aspen Under Construction” (November-December 2021 issue), an editorial error misstated the name of Greg
Poschman’s Swiss-born grandfather, who designed some of the Lift 1 components. His name was Paul Purchard, and he was an engineer and patent attorney. We regret the error.
ISHA Awards
The best works of skiing history published during 2021.
Awards Banquet March 24, 2022
Lifetime Achievement Award
Jeff Leich, executive director, New England Ski Museum, for Research, Writing and Museum Stewardship
Ullr Book Awards
Celebrate Winter: An Olympian’s Stories of a Life in Nordic Skiing by John Morton (Independently published)
30 Years in a White Haze: Dan Egan’s Story of Worldwide Adventure and the Evolution of Extreme Skiing by Dan Egan & Eric Wilbur (Degan Media)
Skiing: In the Eye of the Artist by E. John B. Allen (Egoth)
To Heaven’s Heights: An Anthology of Skiing in Literature, compiled by Ingrid Christophersen, MBE (Unicorn)
Skade Book Awards
Best Backcountry Skiing in the Northeast: 50 Classic Ski and Snowboard Tours in New England and New York by David Goodman (Appalachian Mountain Club Books).
Ski Jumping in Washington State: A Nordic Tradition by John W. Lundin (Arcadia Publishing)
Written in the Snows: Across Time on Skis in the Pacific Northwest by Lowell Skoog (Mountaineers Books)
Harris Hill Ski Jump: The First 100 Years by Kevin O’Conner and the 100th Anniversary Book Committee (Harris Hill Ski Jump Inc.)
Mount Assiniboine, The Story by Chic Scott (Assiniboine Publishing) – John Fry Award for Excellence
Baldur Book Award
Way Out West: The Skiing Years by Paul G. Ryan (Cape Cod Cinema)
Film Awards
Spider Lives. Executive Producers: Christin Cooper, Mike Hundert, Mark Taché, Edith Thys Morgan, Hayden Scott
120 Years Ski Club Arlberg. Blue Danube Media: Alessandra Ravanelli and Hadmar Charlie Mayer, Markus Knaus
In Pursuit of Soul. A TGR Film. Director: Jeremy Grant. Producer: Drew Holt
Dear Rider: The Jake Burton Story. An HBO Documentary. Director: Fernando Villena. Producer: Ben Bryan. For Burton: Abby Young, Mike Cox.
Honorable Mentions
La Grande Histoire du Ski (film)
Skiing in New Mexico by Daniel Gibson and Jay Blackwood
Three years in the making, museum unveils a dramatic facelift and new exhibits.
This past December, after three years of fundraising and design work, the Alf Engen Ski Museum completed its latest renovation, featuring ten brand-new or redesigned exhibits.
On display are interactive tributes to Utah’s most celebrated Norwegians, Alf Engen and Stein Eriksen. The Engen exhibit includes a vast trophy case containing around 100 of Engen’s trophies and plaques, plus innumerable medals.
A new exhibit about avalanches and the history of avalanche-control work is built around the interior of a ski patrol shack, circa 1940. It includes the story of Monty Atwater’s research center in Alta, and an early M20 recoilless rifle is on display.
A series of display cases highlights the evolution of snowsport equipment, including dedicated installations for snowboards, freestyle skis, cross country skis, and various flavors of Alpine skis, all with their corresponding boots.
The 10th Mountain Division is an important part of this area’s ski history. This exhibit features World War II artifacts, including camouflage jackets, pants and skis, “trigger finger” gloves, snowshoes, a hat and goggles.
Interactive electronics drive two key exhibits. First is the spectacular three-dimensional topo map of the Wasatch Range, showing the locations of each of the Salt Lake area’s ski resorts. The map features an integrated touch screen which allows museum visitors to learn about any topic related to skiing in Utah, from resort statistics to weather conditions and historic events and people. Ski areas and backcountry access points are projection mapped directly onto the scale model’s surface.
The second electronic marvel is the greenscreen photo booth. Visitors pose for a camera and can choose from a variety of projected scenic or action-oriented backgrounds for their souvenir photo, which is then texted to their mobile device to share with family and friends.
Celebrating its twentieth anniversary in May, the museum is located at Utah Olympic Park in Park City, Utah, and educates more than 500,000 visitors annually. The museum’s building began life as the press center for the 2002 Winter Olympics, and today houses not only the Alf Engen Ski Museum, but also includes the Eccles 2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum. Admission to both museums is free.
The 1,800 sq. ft. hall was designed and installed by Ogden-based Unrivaled, Inc., a digital and three-dimensional design agency and exhibit producer.
Connie Nelson has been executive director of the Alf Engen Museum since 2004 and is a former director of ISHA.
“What were you thinking in the starting gate?” If you’re annoyed every time you hear a reporter ask this of a skiing champion, read Lindsey Vonn’s memoir, Rise. It answers the question definitively.
The title has a double meaning. More confessional than autobiography, Rise recounts not only Vonn’s ascent to the top of the ski-racing food chain, but her career-long challenge to surmount depression, social anxiety and six or eight potentially career-ending surgeries. It records her psychological growth from a stubbornly determined nine-year-old to a sobered, self-aware 36-year-old.
Vonn has always been a mystery to her admirers. She appears to possess an obsessive-compulsive work ethic along with incredible physical courage. Rise reveals that the source of the work ethic is an overwhelming impulse to honor the sacrifices her family had made on behalf of her career—and a generalized compulsion to please people. On top of that, she lacks the instinct for self-preservation—a psychological quirk that led to skiing on the edge of the possible, especially when hurt. Time and again Vonn defied injuries to knees and self-esteem, and set a new standard of competition. She often had the support of people who loved her but just as often fell victim to the isolation of clinical depression—an imbalance of brain chemistry that seems to be her only physical flaw.
Rise doesn’t pretend to be a record of 434 starts, 148 podiums and 85 wins in World Cup, World Championship and Olympic events. Vonn recounts only the races she regards as turning points. There’s some nut-and-bolts stuff, too: her choice of men’s skis, finding speed in the fall line and the processes of rehab. Perhaps there’s another book to be written, with gate-by-gate accounts of her greatest races. But this one is a doozy. —Seth Masia
Rise, by Lindsey Vonn. Dey Street Books (2022), hardcover, 336 pages, $28.99 (Kindle edition $14.99)
Skade Award: New England’s Backcountry Trails
In The Best Backcountry Skiing in the Northeast: 50 Classic Ski and Snowboard Tours in New England and New York, David Goodman has created a comprehensive and timely guidebook for the renaissance of backcountry skiing. The book covers the premier ski tours in New Hampshire (detailing 21 of them), Maine (5), Vermont (18), New York (5) and Massachusetts (1). What impressed ISHA—and is key for the preservation of skiing’s roots—is Goodman’s inclusion of each locality’s skiing history.
Each of the 50 numbered tours begins with an overview, followed by trail statistics (elevations, distances, difficulty and how-to-get-there hints). An Appalachian Mountain Club topographical map for each region is included that’s overlaid with the color-coded ski trails, followed by the skiing history of that region. The tours are described in elegant and informative detail, most often accompanied by a beautiful color photograph of a skier or snowboarder enjoying a key feature of the route.
The layout and writing are engaging, and the author’s love for his sport is evident on every page: from the technicalities of Tuckerman’s Ravine to the beauty of Acadia National Park to the preservation challenges and deep powder on Big Jay. Even backcountry skiers who are not from the East will want to ski some of these tours after reading the book, and those who have let their backcountry involvement lapse will likely be enticed back. Backcountry skiing still represents the elemental roots of our sport, with its telemark turns, skins and untracked snow.
Goodman thought his first book, published in 1988, would sell 100 copies (95 of them to his friends). Four iterations later, and as Covid drives skiers away from crowds and into the backcountry, this edition seems to be the right book, at the right time. Goodman knows what he’s doing and he knows how to do it well. —Bob Soden
The Best Backcountry Skiing in the Northeast: 50 Classic Ski and Snowboard Tours in New England and New York, by David Goodman. From the Appalachian Mountain Club publishers (2020), softcover, 312 pages, $21.95
Ullr Award: 36 Artists
Skiing In the Eye of the Artist, the latest book from E. John B. Allen, the author of Skiing History’s Ski Art column (see page 9), is a gem. In a pocket-sized format, it gathers 43 paintings, posters and drawings from 36 19th- and 20th-century artists (plus a bonus cover). The selected images are charming, ranging from nationalistic to satirical, promotional to contemplative. Landscapes, magazine illustrations, cartoons and fine art are represented, from Scandinavia, the Alps, the Balkans and North America. The lively artist biographies facing each color plate constitute a short course in the history of ski art.
Allen is a retired professor of history and a member of the Skiing History editorial board. He has written for this magazine since time immemorial, and this book is his fourth to win an ISHA award. In addition, in 2009 Allen received ISHA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
I received Eye of the Artist as a Christmas gift and gobbled it right up. It would fit in a stocking. —Seth Masia
Skiing in the Eye of the Artist by E. John B. Allen. Egoth Verlag, hardbound, 86 pages, 8 x 5 inches, $18.41
Skade Award: Harris Hill Jump
Harris Hill Ski Jump: The First 100 Years provides a faithful and detailed account of the origins and history of this iconic ski jump in Brattleboro, Vermont. A storied venue, now an Olympic sized, 90-meter ski jump—and the only one in New England—Harris Hill has hosted 18 U.S. national and regional championships since its inauguration.
The book is the product of a nonprofit group effort, the 100th Anniversary Committee: Mel Martin (creative director), Kevin O’Connor (writer), Dana Sprague (historian), Lynn Barrett, Pat Howell, Sally Seymour, Heidi Humphrey (designer) and Kelly Fletcher (photo editor).
Fred Harris, founder of the Dartmouth Outing Club in 1910, launched the Brattleboro Outing Club in 1922 and immediately led a fund-raising drive to build the jump. With $2,200 and a few helpers, Harris built the initial structure. He also designed the first Winged Ski Trophy, crafted by Cartier. The hill was officially named after its creator in 1951.
Though the jump was upgraded and extended continuously over the years, in 2005 the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association decreed the antiquated wooden tower unsafe for competitions. A new community funding effort was launched to raise the estimated $1 million required to restore it. By 2007 the town had raised only $250,000; then the Morton Foundation of New York sailed in to the rescue with a check for $130,000 and assurances that more would be available when required. The re-engineered jump opened on Valentine’s Day in 2009, at a final cost of $600,000.
Many ski jumping luminaries have taken flight in Brattleboro over the years, including Birger Ruud, Torger and Art Tokle, Art Devlin and Hugh Barber. Harris Hill has been open to women jumpers since 1948; the Olympics would not follow suit until 2014.
This book is lavishly illustrated with archival images and documents (thanks in part to the collaboration of Jeff Leich at the New England Ski Museum) and more current color photographs. It also catalogues the winners over the jump’s 100-year run, the names of those who retired six of the winged trophies and a detailed timeline. —Bob Soden
Harris Hill Ski Jump: The First 100 Years by the 100th Anniversary Committee. Harris Hill Ski Jump, Inc. (2021), softcover, 120 pages, $28.95
A new and improved bidding process might give Utah the edge.
Salt Lake City, which hosted the Winter Olympics in 2002, has begun a bid process to bring back the Games as early as 2030, according to Susanne Lyons, chair of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee (USOPC).
“We are already in dialogue with the IOC–not yet for a specific year,” Lyons said at the USOPC’s press conference in Beijing, per Reuters press coverage. “Depending on what the needs of the overall Olympic movement are, that could happen as early as 2030 or it could happen after that.” Park City officials held a public meeting on February 15 to hear proposals from the Utah Olympic Legacy Foundation.
After criticism of its bidding process, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) is working to streamline the process. With costs soaring and public support waning, the IOC now prefers previous host cities with venues already in place. This gives Salt Lake an edge, Lyons indicated.
The freestyle venue at Deer Valley.
Vancouver, which hosted the 2010 Winter Games, has also expressed interest, as has 1972 host Sapporo. Public opinion in both cities appears split over proposed budgets around $2.5 billion. The Barcelona-Pyrenees region has also prepared a bid.
Host-city hesitance became evident with the 2024 Summer Games: Of five initial bids, only Paris and Los Angeles stuck it out. With no alternatives, the IOC gave Paris the 2024 event and L.A. got 2028. Only one city bid for the 2032 Summer Games: Brisbane, Australia got the IOC nod by default.
By the numbers, the 2022 Beijing Games hosted 2,900 athletes over 109 competitions. While reusing some venues from the 2008 Summer Games, Beijing still reported costs of $4 billion for Olympic-specific necessities. That doesn’t include new permanent infrastructure, such as the $9 billion high-speed rail line linking Beijing to the two Olympic-venue ski resorts. After the athletes leave, the high-speed train remains. Will tourist traffic make it pay? No one knows.
Approving 10-figure budgets is a tough sell these days for host cities, especially with reports of chronic corruption tainting the awarding process. Oslo, Norway, reported a 55 percent voter opposition to hosting the 2022 Winter Games, and pulled out of the bidding process.
In order to attract more host cities, the IOC no longer requires elaborate bid proposals costing millions of dollars. Instead of holding multiple votes to thin the candidates, the IOC now works to identify a “preferred bidder” and positions itself as a partner in the process.
IOC’s new focus on cities with existing venues appears to be working. The Paris 2024 Summer Olympics, per press reports, will be 95 percent staged in venues that already exist. More than 90 percent of the events for the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Games will be held at venues already in place.
As Lyons noted, the USOPC hopes that gives Salt Lake a leg up—both with the IOC and with the local community. “Salt Lake City has made it very clear to our partners at the IOC that they are ready and able to go as soon as we are needed,” Lyons said. –Greg Ditrinco
Dave Ryding, meet Mouse Cleaver
When, on January 22, Dave Ryding aced the Hahnenkamm slalom to become the first British skier to win a World Cup race, he joined an exclusive club. Ninety-one years ago, another Brit, Gordon “Mouse” Cleaver, won the very first Hahnenkamm combined trophy.
Dave Ryding celebrates his first World
Cup victory, at age 35. ESPN photo
At the time (March, 1931), Austrian skiers were astonished that they’d been bested by an Englishman who wasn’t even a member of the British team (they assumed he hadn’t qualified, and that the “team” skiers must be even better.). That “team” consisted of members of the Kandahar and Downhill-Only Ski Clubs from Mürren and Wengen. Cleaver’s combined victory was based on finishing ninth in the downhill and second on a slalom course set by Bill Bracken, winner of the first-ever Lauberhorn slalom and combined held in February 1930.
No British subject topped a podium again in a premier race until Ryding’s victory. Konrad Bartelski came close, with a second-place finish in the 1981 Val Gardena downhill. The Scot Alain Baxter claimed bronze in slalom at the 2002 Salt Lake Olympics—only to have his medal revoked after a still-controversial drug test.
Mouse Cleaver joined the RAF in 1937 and became an ace, flying Hurricanes in France and in the Battle of Britain. In August 1940, his canopy was shattered by gunfire, sending plastic shards into his face and eyes. Near blind, he bailed out. He never flew again. While Cleaver lost the right eye entirely, and most of the sight in his left, an ophthalmologist noted that the plastic fragments didn’t inflame his eyes. This insight led to the invention of plastic lens implants. –Seth Masia
Snapshots in Time
1952 Heaven on Earth
When warm winds and spring sunshine put an end to skiing in the rest of the U.S., the season is just beginning at New Hampshire’s Tuckerman Ravine. Although there are none of the usual comforts available to skiers, such as warming huts and ski towns, Tuckerman skiers have other compensations. As the sun gets warmer in the valley, it turns the icy crust to crumbly “corn” snow, and skiing on “corn” is considered by fanatics as close to heaven as they will get on earth. — “Spring Skiing,” Life Magazine (March 10, 1952)
1968 Dial a Run
A new 24-hour telephone service for the latest ski reports is in operation. By dialing LY 4-7500 skiers can obtain information on snow conditions in the East, including New York, New Jersey, Vermont, New Hampshire and Massachusetts. The service is supported by the New York-New Jersey American Motors Dealers Association. — “24-Hour Phone Service Offers Latest Ski Reports” (New York Times, December 24, 1968)
1975 Biting Commentary
As a dentist living and practicing in a ski-oriented community, I treat hundreds of adolescents who are ski enthusiasts. For many years I have had SKI and Skiing magazines in my waiting room for my young patients to read. Your February article “The American Pros” is so electrifying with bar-room language, however, that I had to cut out most of the pages. — David R. Williams, Boulder, Colorado, “Take the Teeth Out of It” (Letters, SKI Magazine, September 1975)
1980 Redford’s One Run Too Many
I always make the mistake of skiing past what I should in terms of my fatigue. I’ll take a run right after the run that’s been so perfect, but the legs just won’t hold up and you won’t be quite as quick. Then you get mad so you go back and do it again to prove you can do it and you’re worse yet. —Robert Redford, “Who is that Guy?” (Powder Magazine,
November 1980)
1990 Easiest Way to Improve
Probably the single most common mistake skiers make is believing that their skis don’t need to be waxed. Properly waxing your skis is the easiest way to improve their performance on the slopes. New skis are normally iron waxed at the shop where they were purchased. If not, you can wax them at home. —Jim Deines, “Tuning Tips” (Skiing Magazine, February 1990)
1996 The Revolution Starts Now
Promises are cheap, but are they believable? Well, this time it’s true. The Shaped Ski Revolution is here and it will make skiing more fun. It’s a revolution that will free thousands of skiers from the drudgery of the skidded turn, and thousands more will ski longer, stronger and faster. —Jackson Hogen, “Revolution” (Snow Country, October 1996)
Can Vail Resorts improve employee and customer relations? Efficient operations, and market share, may depend on it.
Overcrowding and staff shortages at ski resorts first attracted the attention of local and online media at the end of 2021, then in January spread to traditional outlets like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, statewide papers like the Denver Post and Seattle Times, and special interest magazines such as Outside.
To be fair, resorts faced the same issues as businesses in general: namely labor shortages and slow delivery of inventory. When a shortage-afflicted business takes payment up front, fulfillment and customer services deteriorate. Late delivery angers customers.
That’s what happened at ski resorts this winter. Covid accelerated and exposed long-term trends, creating a perfect storm of employee and customer angst. A booming real estate market and an increase in Airbnb-type short-term rentals pushed the housing shortage from chronic to acute, which, combined with decades of static wages, forced employees into onerous commutes. Many employees simply declined to work that way, and when Covid put remaining employees in isolation, there weren’t enough bodies to shovel or make snow, drive groomers, maintain equipment, bump lifts, patrol and teach, flip burgers, make beds, punch cash registers, fit rental boots and provide childcare. At the same time, skiing seemed a Covid-safe outdoor activity, season passes were cheap, and skier visits on peak days soared. Ski retailers sold out early, highways and parking lots jammed up, and skiers stood in 40-minute lift queues. Skiers tolerate the late arrival of natural snow, but when the snow is great and the lifts don’t turn, they fume.
Vail Resorts was a particular target of consumer fury, incurring an organized protest movement and threats of class-action lawsuits, beginning at Stevens Pass, Washington. There, more than 44,000 skiers signed an online petition calling VR responsible for failure to open lifts and terrain, and about 300 complaints went to Washington’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson. By late January a new general manager, Tom Fortune, was turning the corner, solving some of his staff issues and opening popular backside access. The fixes were simple: more efficient use of available employee housing, increased employee shuttle service and new hiring. VR also offered the resort’s passholders deep discounts to sign up for next winter, and promised to extend the season through April. It’s worth noting that Vail very publicly bumped its minimum wage to $15 per hour in the key states of Colorado, Utah, California and Washington—but in the pre-Covid era VR’s average hourly wage for its roughly 47,000 seasonal employees was around $12 per hour. In mid-January VR offered a $2-an-hour bonus for employees who stay on until the end of the season.
In recent years, VR has set itself up for local disaster. The universal Epic Pass was a huge boon to average skiers, and a tonic to investors; it has transformed the resort industry with one simple, game-changing mantra: Skiing will now be purchased in advance. Meanwhile, VR took steps to bolster the bottom line for shareholders, such as slashing middle-management salaries by centralizing most corporate functions at its Broomfield, Colorado headquarters. The unintended consequence is a corporation slow to react to emerging local problems. Off-site marketing and finance personnel are blind to the nuances of local markets, and local issues. But the bridge too far was the cutback in local human-resources personnel, and the consequent loss of on-site expertise in local recruiting tactics, transportation and housing issues. Payroll functions were moved to an app that didn’t work.
As part of VR’s campaign to maximize margin in every segment, it built retail, lodging, food service and transportation enterprises that compete with local businesses. Building employee housing is always difficult, but alienating prominent locals doesn’t help.
VR cut the price by 20 percent and sold more than 2.1 million Epic Passes last summer, up 76 percent from pre-Covid 2019. According to its December 9 quarterly report, the company sailed into the season holding $1.5 billion in cash. It can well afford to spend what’s needed to fix local problems. Those problems now include settling class-action lawsuits by employees, meeting obligations under new collective bargaining agreements—and fixing housing and transportation issues. While they’re at it, they need affordable learn-to-ski packages for first-timers who get the itch in January, and improved access to free or cheap parking.
The original Vail Associates, from opening day in 1962, set the gold standard for American skiing. Vail offered the best slope grooming in the world. It recruited a top-ranked ski school. Vail’s managers, many of them veterans of the 10th Mountain Division, promoted skiing culture, for example by enlisting well-known skiers like Pepi Gramshammer and Dave and Renie Gorsuch to establish businesses in town, and later, under George Gillett, by bringing the World Championships to town. When the private equity firm Apollo Partners took VR public in 1997, they did what Wall Street always does: managed for shareholder value rather than customer and employee morale. To skiers, it now looks like VR has been cannibalizing VA’s good will.
According to annual reports, in fiscal year 2019 (the last pre-Covid year), VR’s mountain-operations revenue was $1.9 billion, and company-wide gross profit margin (EBITDA) was 36 percent. The National Ski Areas Association Economic Analysis shows the average large North American ski resort EBITDA then at about 26 percent. The difference was not only Vail’s success in selling season passes, but in strict cost control. To solve the employee crunch and relieve skier crowding, VR may have to give back some of that margin. With its 25 percent market share (in skier visits), the sport needs VR to succeed.
Will spending that money affect the stock price? Some 95 percent of VR stock is held by institutional investors, who may not care much about employee and skier morale. Closely held resorts have more freedom of action, and they’ve shown it this season to the benefit of their guests, employees and the communities they operate in. The other major resort conglomerate, Alterra of the Ikon Pass, has from day one taken the decentralized path, ceding control to its individual resorts. Aspen in mid-February gave a $3-an-hour raise to every employee in the company.
Rob Katz, the change-agent who created both the Epic Pass and VR’s 44-resort empire, stepped down as CEO in the fall and is now executive chairman of the board. His handpicked successor, veteran Kirsten Lynch, the data-driven marketer who has brainstormed the Epic Pass metrics, is now in the hot seat. “One of the hallmarks of our company is agility and change,” Lynch told the Wall Street Journal in its January 15 story “Steep Slope for a Ski Empire.” By the time you read this, in March, we’ll have seen how agile VR can be.
Image at top of page: Skiers on the hook, by Rudiger Fahrner
