Tag Archive for: Tread of Pioneers Museum

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Mystery Glimpse: Two Racers

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One Very Young, The Other A Successful Competitor.

Many thanks to the Tread Of Pioneers Museum, Steamboat Springs, for this photo. Visit their online collection by clicking here.

Last Week

This is George Lundeen’s bronze statue, The End of An Era,  circa 1960. Why is it significant? Here’s what Dana Mathios, Curator and Director of Collections, Colorado Snowsports Museum, has to say:

This sculpture depicts a sport poised at a turning point on the edge of change. Soon, metal and synthetics would become standard in ski construction in place of wood that had been in use for more than 4,000 years. Pioneering skiers used a single wooden pole. By the early 1900s, two poles were in fashion. The shafts were often made from bamboo until superior poles of a light metal alloy were developed. Higher, plastic ski boots featuring buckles marked the passing of lace-up leather boots.

Also depicted in the sculpture is an early version of a safety binding designed to release the toe of the boot in a fall. A leather thong anchored the heel to the ski. More advanced safety bindings that released both the toe and the heel of the boot followed.

Early in the development of Colorado’s ski industry, the Pikes Peak region offered a number of small ski areas. Nearby slopes at The Broadmoor Hotel and others on Pikes Peak at Glen Cove, Elk Park, and Holiday Hills were popular. The region also included Tenderfoot Hill at Cripple Creek and the Edlowe ski jumping hill at Divide. In time, large corporate-managed ski areas further to the West replaced the small, locally owned ski facilities in the region.

Many thanks to  curator Dana Mathios and the Colorado Snowsports Museum for their many contributions to SeniorsSkiing.com’s Mystery Glimpse feature. Visit the museum’s website to browse its collection and do consider making an audition.

mikemaginn

Mystery Glimpse: 1964 Racer

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Who Do We Have In The Tucked Position?

Lots of clues here. Who’s in the speed suit?

Thanks again to the Tread of Pioneers Museum, Steamboat Springs, CO, for contributing this picture from its archives.

Last Week

If you recall, Brodie Mt was nicknamed “The Irish Alps”, because on St. Paddy’s Day it was definitely the place for skiers to be. It was also the domain of a creative, ingenious, leprechaun-like operator who invented a why-didn’t-I-think-of-that machine.

This is the famous ice grinder designed and manufactured by Brodie Mt.’s Jim Kelly in 1970.  The Ashford, MA ski area operator was a true entrepreneur, inventor, and eternal optimist.  When the winter delivered scarce snowfalls that turned whatever hard pack was left to block solid ice, Jim Brodie figured out a way to keep people skiing.  It was simple: Grind it.  That resulted, said Brodie at the time, in what was good enough to call “powder”. We have a feeling there was a bit of the Blarney stone stuck out there in the Berkshires.

Jim Kelly with a working Hard Pak Pulverizer which made “powder” from ice, according to him.

Brodie built what he called a Hard Pak Pulverizer, based on a debarking machine used at this dad’s lumber company. The heart of the concept was a rotating cyclinder with projecting metal teeth. After several failures over three years of experiments, Kelly found that a 100-horsepower Deutz diesel could handle the torque needed to make the cylinder turn hard pack ice into a skiable surface.

Ever the inventor, Kelly even came up with a home-grown snowmaking idea. When it was really cold, his crew would shoot water on the slopes, wait for it to cool, and give it the once over with the pulverizer.

Jim Kelly marketed the Hard Pak Pulverizer to other ski resorts.  Ed Herte, the then owner-operator of Little Switzerland, Slinger, WI, bought one of Kelly’s devices.  His assessment: “The snow the machine makes is better than the best man-made snow I’ve ever seen.” Has someone else been kissing that magical stone?

Jim Kelly’s story of the Hard Pak Pulverizer was first reported in Skiing Area News, Winter, 1970.