Volume 33 No 5 September-October 2021

The keystone of skiing for decades, it’s largely been replaced by terrain-unweighting. 

Photos above: Fred Iselin demonstrates “lift and swing” in a stem christiania. From Invitation to Skiing, F. Iselin and A. C. Spectorsky, 1947.

The Laurentian Ski Museum finds a new home. 

If you are fortunate enough to be traveling through the mountainous region north of Montreal, make a point of visiting the beautiful Laurentian Ski Museum, which celebrates its 40th anniversary in 2022.

Photo above: Organized in thematic zones, the permanent exhibits constitute a stroll through history. LSM photo.

At the FIS meeting in Oslo in 1930, the Norwegians finally voted to include Alpine skiing into the FIS championship program, and they would soon reap dividends. A number of youngsters living in the Holmenkollen area quickly took advantage of the steep slopes on the west side of the mountain. This biography focuses on one of them, the exceptionally talented Alpine skiing champion Andreas Wyller.

Aspen Highlands’ bruising—and short-lived—no-rules race.

By Jay Cowan

Aspen Highlands founder Whip Jones had a knack for publicity stunts. His 1960s Bash for Cash, anything-goes citizen downhill also had a knack for mayhem and injuries. But the race did result in a popular poster of that era.

Is it too late to start working out for the ski season? It depends.

This is the time of year when any health club worth its mortgage is advertising: “Tune Up Your Body for the Ski Season, Enroll Now!” Most people who belong to a health club are in such good shape that they don’t need that extra tuning up just to drive three hours to stand in a lift line. And for those of you who don’t belong to a health club, it’s already too late to join to get in shape for this season.

Vermont’s first chairlift opened at Mt. Mansfield on November 17, 1940. Management claimed it was the longest in the world, at 6,330 feet, rising 2,033 vertical feet. It delivered 200 skiers per hour to the summit after a painfully slow (and freezing) half-hour ride. Riders on the single chair huddled under woolen blankets, with no one to talk to or cuddle with. As early as 1943, skiers complained of waiting in two-hour lift lines. Across the road on Spruce Peak, a faster double chair arrived in 1954, carrying 500 skiers per hour, but that didn’t solve the Mt. Mansfield waits.