Short Swings!
World War II produced many heroes. One of Norway’s best known died earlier this week. Joachim Ronneberg led the ski-assisted raid that destroyed the facility where Nazis were producing “heavy water,” a component they would have used to produce an atomic bomb.
He was 23 when, according to his obituary in the The New York Times, he and eight other “…Norwegian saboteurs skied across the Telemark pine forest in winter whites, phantom apparitions gliding across moonlit snow. . They halted at a steep river gorge and gazed down at a humming hydroelectric power plant where Nazi scientists had developed a mysterious, top-secret project… Hours later, in one of the most celebrated commando raids of World War II, Lieutenant Ronneberg and his demolition team sneaked past guards and a barracks full of German troops, stole into the plant, set explosive charges and blew up Hitler’s hopes for a critical ingredient to create the first atomic bomb.” Ronneberg was 99. The complete Times obituary provides a brief history lesson on the epic event.
Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris starred in “The Heroes of Telemark,” a 1965 British film based on the raid. The most definitive book on the raid, “The Winter Fortress: The Epic Mission to Sabotage Hitler’s Atomic Bomb” (2016) was written by Neal Bascomb. Click here for “X-C Skiing Saves the World,” SeniorsSkiing.com’s 2016 book review.
RSVP for SeniorsSkiing.com’s 5th Birthday Party!
Help celebrate our Fifth Anniversary, 5:30 – 8:00 PM, Wednesday, November 14, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Meet other metro area senior skiers. Win Apex Ski Boots, a trip to Okemo in Vermont, Orsden ski parkas, a season of ski insurance from Safe Descents, The Bootster device to help get boots on, the DeBooter device to get them off, discounts on Masterfit boot products, etc. Lots of SWAG from areas all over the country. Meet a representative of Alpskitours based in Italy’s Aosta Valley. All free except for cash bar. RSVP, jon@seniorsskiing.com.
Buying Boots? Use a Professional Bootfitter.
If you’re considering buying boots, PLEASE, use a professional bootfitter. It is one way to assure the positive outcome of your 
purchase. We highly recommend using the services of bootfitters who have gone through training with Masterfit’s America’s Best Bootfitter (ABB) program. To find one near you visit: https://www.bootfitters.com/find-shop.
New England Areas Get a Head Start
Sunday River, Maine, opened last weekend. Mt Snow will open this weekend, the resort’s earliest opening in its 64- year history.
Mind-Boggling Ski Videos
These feats are not to practiced on your home hill.
Skiing East Face of Matterhorn: The six-minute video starts with the climb up Mt Cervin (aka Matterhorn). The skiers unrope themselves from bolts in a rock face and ski — ever so cautiously — a steep, rocky face, until they let loose on saner terrain.
Line of Winter: This three-minute selfie from GoPro shows Nicholas Falquet skiing what appear to be high elevation vertical walls covered in deep powder. Can’t tell if he has a cable attached to his back. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.
Caught in a Crevasse: This one is 17 minutes and shows a skier falling into and being rescued from a deep crevasse. Lesson here is to avoid crevasses and if you’re in those conditions, to ski with others with rescue skills and equipment.
Park City’s BIG SHOT!
Sunrise Rotary Club in Park City (I was a member during my Park City years) set a world record on Saturday, October 13 with its 3rd annual Shot Ski Event. If you’re not familiar with shot skis, they’re skis affixed with shot glasses. For competitions — or just for fun — the glasses are filled with booze (in this case from Park City’s High West Distillery). The entire ski is hoisted and the contents guzzled by the participants. To reclaim the record from Breckenridge, 1275 Parkites showed up to lift 508 skis (2570 feet long) off Main Street. Congratulations, Sunrise Rotary for raising almost $30,000 from the event!
Axe Throwing and New Pod Hotel at Whistler
Among other new developments at Whistler this year are the Pangea Pod Hotel and 
apres ski axe-throwing. Two more reasons to visit Whistler Blackcomb, one of North America’s largest and most fascinating resorts. It has an added benefit for seniors — its relatively low elevation (long vertical, nonetheless) makes it easier on the lungs.
Peace of Mind: Simplified and Inexpensive Ski/Board Insurance
Safe Descents provides ski and snowboard evacuation insurance in an uncomplicated manner and at very attractive prices. I just purchased coverage for the entire season for $56.99.
For that amount, Safe Descents covers any ambulance or air evacuation services if I’m injured in-bounds at any ski resort in the United States. That’s in addition to other coverage like sending a loved one to the hospital and/or getting me back home following my hospital stay. These and other benefits have a maximum of $25,000. The company’s policies are underwritten by the global Starr Indemnity and Liability Company. Safe Descents recently started to advertise with SeniorsSkiing.com.
Before making my purchase, I googled “snow skier’s insurance” and clicked on a few of the options that popped up. Without getting too far into the details, what I found was confusing, exclusionary, and expensive. The websites were complicated. In one case, after filling in all the details, the site informed me that it doesn’t insure people 70 and older. In another case, insurance for a one-week ski trip in the US was quoted at $319. Granted, these appear to be general travel insurance plans tweaked to include a skier’s emergency evacuation needs, but it still was pricey.
The Safe Descents coverage is strictly for ski and snowboard evacuation insurance. The company’s website is in plain
language and easy to read. (Click on the adjacent Safe Descents ad to reach the website. It rotates with the Ski Mojo ad.) The online enrollment process is simple and to the point. At present, two products are offered: The one I purchased is for the entire season and costs $56.99. The other offering is for a day of skiing/boarding and costs $4.75.
Last year, at Copper Mountain, I sat in the base lodge, while members of the ski patrol, a fireman and a policeman tried to convince a man who had hurt himself to use the waiting ambulance to go to the hospital. He refused because his insurance would not cover the cost. He planned to wait to see if his injury got worse and if it did, drive there himself.
I know that some healthcare plans provide a portion or all of necessary ambulance and/or air evacuation services. But those services add-up quickly. The coverage offered by Safe Descents will cover the difference. A season’s coverage for $56.99 — at Vail or Aspen, the cost of a few burgers and beers — simply makes sense. It’s good value for peace-of-mind.
My Search For Stein’s Studebaker
Having A Studebaker In Common With A Legend Prompts A Sherlockian Pursuit.
The Kircher Studebaker dealership in Detroit in the early 1950s. The car on the left is clearly a ’50 or ’51 bullet nose model, even though only the back of the car shows here. Those are the only years this model was made.
Stein Eriksen bought a new Studebaker in April 1953. That much is certain. I’d like to know which model Stein bought, what happened to it, and if there is a photo of Stein with the car.
Why? Because my father-in-law bought a Studebaker that same spring, and my wife Judy and I have had it restored. Is it possible that we own a close match to Stein’s Studebaker?
Stein bought his in Detroit from the dealership owned by Everett Kircher, founder of Michigan’s Boyne Mountain ski resort. Judy’s dad bought his from a dealer in Benton Harbor on the other side of the state. Studebakers, seniors may recall, were manufactured in South Bend, Indiana. The company folded in 1966.
Car salesman Don Thomas, also a weekend ski patroller at Boyne, met Stein through mutual Norwegian friends when he attended the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics. When Stein came through Detroit en route from Sun Valley where he had been training. Thomas invited him to dinner and introduced him to his boss.
Everett Kircher offered Stein a job at Boyne, but Stein wanted to compete in the 1954 FIS World Championships before turning pro. He took the job the next year and spent two seasons at Boyne before moving on, ending up at Deer Valley. But he did buy that Studebaker in 1953.
Various sources describe the car as a “sports car,” a “sports coupe“ and a “graceful 1953 Studebaker coupe.” These ’53’s were a sleek breakthrough concept by the Raymond Loewy design team at Studebaker, coming between the “bullet nose” models and the later Hawk series.
A 1953 model might be the hardtop “Starliner” version or the “Starlight” coupe (our car) which has a pillar supporting the roof. Either version came as either a 6-cylinder “Champion” or a V8 “Commander.”
In an interview, Don Thomas described the car as a “five-passenger coupe,” which could fit either model, although it seems likely a salesman would refer to a hardtop by its proper term.
Once at Deer Valley, I was able to ask Stein about his Studebaker. I was in the singles line at the Northside quad when Stein approached the lift with a couple of celebrity guests. He gestured for me to join them.
I had met Stein a couple of times before, so I used the typical Norwegian greeting for acquaintances, “Goddag, og takk for sist.” Then I asked him about his Studebaker. “Ja,” said Stein, “that was the one that looked like an Italian sports car. I took it with me to Oslo and sold it.”
That’s all I learned straight from the source. But Stein remarked as we got off the lift, “Brunvand, you should speak better Norwegian!”
Since then. I have queried Stein’s son Bjorn, Kircher’s daughter-in-law Molly Clark Kircher, and a Norwegian Studebaker club member, hoping to unearth more information.
The closest I’ve come is finding a 1950’s-era photo of Kircher Motors in the Boyne archive at the Bentley Historical Library in Ann Arbor. Oh, how I wish someone had posed Stein there with his new car for another picture.
Likely Stein’s Studebaker was eventually junked, but it’s barely possible that someone somewhere has the car, perhaps unaware of its past connection with skiing royalty. I plan to keep on searching.
Correspondent Jan Brunvand with his 1953 Studebaker Starlight coupe. In the background, early snow on the Wasatch mountains. Credit: Jan Brunvand
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