Ski Ballet: Polka Anyone?
Kinda Catchy.
Anyone know where this was filmed and when?
Those Blanket Days
Long-Time Ski Patroller Remembers How Lift Blankets Made Mischief.
There was a time lift blankets and fur coats kept you warm on chilly days. Here Mad River GM Ken Quakenbush checks tickets on the single chair, circa 1953.
Credit: Mad River Glen
Remember the good old days when we did not have high tech fabrics, boot heaters, hand warmers, and lots of layers to keep us warm as we rode up the single chair lift in our wooden skis with screwed on steel edges and Dovre safety bindings. The lift could be a very cold, one-mile long ride.
At Mad River Glen and other resorts (I remember Stowe), we would pick up a wool poncho type blanket off the rack, slip it over our head, and try to not get it twisted as we loaded the lift. The blankets are no longer there, but the single chair is.
We would then hide under it on the way up the lift. And for a small kid, we also had to worry about not tripping on it when we got off.
I joined the patrol at Mad River in 1962 and still remember those blankets being in use. The lifties at the top would bundle up three or four and try to slam them across the arm of the chair so they would stay there until they were removed at the bottom. On windy days, the occasional bundle would be lifted off the chair, separate into individual blankets and gracefully descend onto the trail below. And, if it was particularly gusty, one or more would end up in a tree anywhere from 10 to 30 feet off the ground.
One of the duties of the patrol was to regularly to ski the lift line and pick up the blankets that had blown off the chairs on the trip down the hill.
This was in the days before the entire lift line was designated trails. On the top of the lift line above mid-station (remember the old 1/3 tickets they gave out if you got off there), picking up blankets on the Chute was relatively straight-forward. We would pick up two or three, roll them into a bundle, and heave them underhanded up to some willing customer in a chair. Of course, this provided great entertainment to the other customers on the lift as many of the throws and catches were not major league quality.
And, if we were in an area that was too high to toss them, we would end up wearing them, sometimes up to five or six. We looked and skied like a gray version of the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
Much of the lift line from mid-station down was not legitimately skiable terrain. So only the hardy patrollers ventured into that territory to retrieve blankets. And as the lift was rather high off of the ground, this usually entailed wearing them down over the cliffs and through the underbrush, again to provide entertainment for the customers. There are great stories of tumbles down the steep faces, and blankets getting tangled up and tripping the patroller.
Former GM Ken Quakenbush takes the last ride up the single chair at Mad River before it was restored in 2007. Credit: Mad River Glen
Rediscovering John Jerome: Looking Closely At Everyday Things
Leafing Through An Old Magazine Reminds Us Of A Great Writer
Back in the early 70s, as assistant editor at SKIING Magazine, then located at One Park Avenue in New York, we would occasionally watch a typescript from John Jerome arrive in the mail and work its way through the editorial process. After reading a couple of paragraphs, it became clear that these words were not the usual ski article patter. John was a skilled observer, first requirement of an essayist extraordinaire, and was able to tell stories and administer advice about simple things in a way that revealed a writer was at work.
John Jerome was a polymath; he started in automotive journalism (he was editor at Car and Driver), became a skiing savant (he was editor at SKIING), re-located from the “city, working for magazines, wrestling with words and paper in tall buildings under fluorescent lights” to New England. There, as a freelance, he wrote books and many articles about running, building stone walls, becoming an aging athlete, mountains, the value of stretching, and, yes, skiing. And the halo of subjects around skiing, like cars and winter. Here’s an excerpt we just re-discovered by glancing through a November, 1969, SKIING article, “Car and Skier”. He’s talking about one of the two main problems of winter driving he learned by living in cold-winter New Hampshire, getting unstuck:
“Getting unstuck, or not getting stuck, is a much more diffuse problem, against which logical, ordered stops are not so effective. I hate and despise snow tires, but I put ‘em on, and they saved me a lot of grief. My prejudice was based on their noisiness and feel at highway speeds; what I didn’t realize is that a large part of the process of not getting stuck is a kind of metaphorical shifting of gears that takes place when you are a severe-winter resident. You simply slow down. When winter closes in, you bank your metabolism and your frustrations, and settle down into a calm and bumping 25-mile-per hour way of life. It does wonders for keeping you out of snow banks, and it also overcomes a lot of prejudices about snow tires. You can spot winter tourists by how fast they drive more quickly than by their plates. So can the cops.”
The first problem of winter driving, if you’re wondering, is getting started. Solution: Bring car battery into house at night.
John Jerome, prolific writer, observer, athlete, contemplator of things.
Good writers see connections between things in the world that others either don’t see, or don’t see until the writer points them out. John Jerome was good at that. Here—in this excerpt from his book Stone Work— he makes a link between the rhythm of placing stones on a wall and making linked turns in skiing. On finishing the placement of a stone—the last step of the cycle: start, the move, the finish—he says:
“Sometimes, there is more difficulty in finishing moves than in starting them. I first ran across this principle in downhill skiing, where great instructional emphasis is placed on completing one turn in order to get the next one started right. This didn’t make a whole lot of sense to me: you have to stop turning in one direction if you’re going to start turning in the other, don’t you? I flailed and flummoxed my way through a lot of awkward moments before the significance of the advice sank in. Finishing is a positive act. A ski turn carried to its logical physical conclusion ends with an edge-set that make a stable platform from which to start the next turn. ‘Finished’ means your weight is in the right place, your body and skis prepared for whatever comes next. Without it, you’re in trouble. You have no ‘timing’.’
John Jerome was contemplative writer who wrote in a way that made you feel you were talking with a very interesting friend over a very good drink.
His books are still available on Amazon.com. Have you read Truck, Staying With It, or Staying Supple?
1964: Was It Really So Simple Back Then?
From a 1964 SKI magazine, a skier poses with his attitude.
Illustrator: Jerome Snyder
No-Shows For Late Season Skiing?
Many Years Ago, Alta Stayed Open Late And Guess Who Showed Up?
With so many late, unexpected and unusual snowfalls this late spring, we wondered if people were still showing up. After all, it is almost boating season. Yet, a report last week from Faithful Subscriber Paul Remillard showed us that there are die-hards out there. It was not always thus, apparently.
We discovered this article from an archive copy of SKIING AREA NEWS, Winter 1970. An article by Mike Korologos describes an attempt by Alta to stretch the season by two weeks. Unfortunately, no one showed up. “Staying open didn’t pay,” said the then area manager Chick Morton. And that’s after spending more on promotions for those two weeks than any other comparable period during the “real” season.
Morton said he blamed the lack of spring skiing crowds to skiing patterns. The article states that “When May Day arrives, the cry is ‘Head for the links,’ regardless of how good ski conditions are.”
That was 45 years ago. Is it still the same today?
From Skiing Area News, Winter 1970.
The Last Loop: Snow Leaves The Field, Enter Spring
A final ski tour at Appleton Farms reveals winter letting go.
1970 Washington Birthday Race start. Everyone goes at once. Credit: Lewis R. Brown via CardCow.com
It is that special interim period here in New England between the end of winter and the start of spring. Last week, we headed out across the corn snow at Appleton Farms in Ipswich, MA., in the bright, and, yes, warm sunlight. We recalled the first time we skied around the edges of farm fields, way back in 1970 when we stayed at the Whetstone Inn in Marlboro, VT. We were there for the Great Washington Birthday Race, an annual “people’s race” at the Putney School started and run by the legendary cross-country racer and coach John Caldwell. In those days, hundreds of skiers came to Vermont for what must have been the defining event of Nordic skiing in the United States. Modeled after the famous Vassaloppet race in Sweden, the massive starting line stretched across a hay field and, when the gun sounded, it was off you went. We remember skiing along with the then-movie critic of the New York Post, an older chap who said he skied around the field behind his house in Westchester every morning before heading into work. We also remember struggling in dead last in that race along with a couple of other members from the then-staff of SKIING magazine, our wax long worn off, but still laughing at our disastrous first-time-ever trying cross-country skis.
Snow is hanging on this year, melting slowly but inevitably, starting with the trees.
Credit: Mike Maginn
These thoughts came back as we went around that big field at Appleton’s. For a long time, we favored wooden skis, woolen sweaters and wax potions; these days, we go waxless and polypropylene. But the pleasure of being in the sun, noticing the melt around the edges, and the rhythm of planting pole, gliding, planting was the same as ever. As the snow rolls back and the sun comes in and out, Robert Frost’s Two Tramps In Mud Time came to us. This verse hits home:
The sun was warm, but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still, you’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak, a cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak, and you’re two months back in the middle of March.
Sunny day, springtime snow, skiing across the field at Appleton Farms, Ipswich.
Credit: Mike Maginn
Off-Season Strategy: Ski Without Snow
For Die-Hards, Here’s How To Keep Going.
Signs that the season is ending are starting to sprout along with the crocuses. In the East, many areas will be closing this weekend; there’s still lots of snow on the ground, but many lift lines are nearly empty even on the weekend. Many skiers have had enough. Out West, conditions have been marginal to miserable all season. There’s plenty of cross-country skiing though, even in urban areas in New England, and we’ve been out in the sunshine several times in the last week.
But, can you beat this video from the British Nordic Ski Team, circa 1957, picturing Dutch ski enthusiasts roller-skiing along? It is possible that for some the season never ends.
Roller-skiing is not a new idea. At least you don’t need long underwear.
Credit: British Nordic Ski Team
Ski Industry Remembers: Scenes From 60 Years Ago
A Blizzard Of Memories From Ski Industry Association Video.
SnowSports Industries America (SIA) is the ski trade association of suppliers to consumers. Think equipment manufacturers, clothing designers and providers, retailers, reps and media, everyone who gets the skier, boarder, X-Cer, backcountry adventurers and snowshoer out on the snow. SIA puts on global trade shows, publishes extraordinary research on market trends, advocates for the industry with government regulators and provides a platform for networking and Founded in May, 1954 as the National Ski Equipment and Apparel Association, the organization is proudly celebrating its 60th year. Here’s a tribute SIA produced with scenes from the by-gone snow sports of the 50s and 60s to present day. It’s an anniversary present from SIA to snow sport enthusiasts everywhere.
Remember this?
He isn’t falling. He’s demonstrating a ski technique from the 70s practiced by jet-setting ski racers. What is it called?
Qu’est-ce que c’est?
Long Time Between Runs
It is a sunny and cold Thursday morning in early February. There are a handful of other skiers on the mid-New Hampshire ski area lift. I decide to go right at the top. Trail is untouched, the corduroy grooming marks fresh and waiting. I turn, effortless. Ahhh. I turn again, making a big, wide arc. The feeling is like floating, my new skis carving and then, almost without a conscious notion, shifting to the other edge.
Hard to believe this is my first real run in thirty-five years. Okay, there was an expensive, uncomfortable holiday weekend on rental skis and boots in the 90s with cranky children, cheesy condo and unrelenting cold. It was an exception. I had left my real skiing behind long time ago.
I started in college, in the mid-60s. Back then, it was blue jeans and rice-paddy parkas with Moriarity hats, wooden skis, leather boots and Cubco bindings. In the early 70s, I lucked out and worked as an assistant editor at Skiing Magazine working and rubbing elbows with some of the greats. Now, that was fun.
I was Associate Editor in the early 70s
The next few decades had me running a business, flying here and there, finding and keeping clients. No time, no interest in skiing. Too cold, too time consuming. The closest I made it to the slopes was working on my laptop while watching my wife kids from the day lodge window.
Then I came back. With retirement came time. I looked at boots and skis in a ski shop one day and said to myself, “I can do this now.”
I find almost everything about skiing has changed for the better during my long hiatus. The skis are magical instruments, boots are comfortable, clothes are warmer, the lifts are faster, the trails well groomed and, because of my senior status, the lift tickets are relatively cheaper. And, there is no more need for speed. Instead, I relax into the slow turn, pressing down to feel the slice of the edge.
Parabolic skis rule! Turning has never been more easy or more fun.
Apparently, I’m not the only veteran coming back to skiing. Although we are still a small percent of the total, the number of skiers over 65 has doubled since the 1997-98 season, according to a National Ski Areas Association demographic study published in 2013. And we ski more often than younger skiers, too. We get in 9.5 skiing days per season compared to a national average of five days. We are using the gift of time that retirement has bestowed.
What does it take to get back? Fitness for starters. That’s a good idea, regardless. A good ski shop to fit you out with the proper equipment, maybe starting with decent rentals. A lesson might be helpful, too. A couple of friends to go with. A nice winter day in the middle of the week. More and more runs.
What’s your return-to-skiing advice?