Category Columns

I’m back for another season of skiing memories, history, nostalgia and trivia.  One thing’s for certain, there may not be a lot of “nostalgia” associated with last year’s ski season!  Other than about a 10 day span around the first… Continue Reading →

I know it’s not ski season yet, but I had to come out of my summer hibernation to share some happenings that should be of interest to RetroSki-ers. When did the Vermont Ski Museum move to Stowe?  The museum opened… Continue Reading →

She was a promising young U.S. ski racer.  In 1954 at the age of 18 she won the United States Junior and Senior Slalom titles.  She was a bright hope for the U.S. looking forward to the 1956 Olympics. She… Continue Reading →

Earlier this season Stowe ski instructor Josey Furrer loaned me a copy of an article from the 1935 issue of the American Ski Annual. The article was simply titled An F.I.S. Story and was written by Roland Palmedo. Roland Palmedo… Continue Reading →

Skiing started in Europe long before the United States got into the act.  The early U.S. ski industry including ski areas relied heavily on transplanted Europeans.  There are still more than twice as many skiers in Europe than here in… Continue Reading →

Will RFID technology mean the extinction of the “Ticket Turkey”?  You know, the Ticket Turkey is that guy with every lift ticket he ever bought still attached to his parka.  And when the rest of us see him we say… Continue Reading →

This week’s column was supposed to begin: “Greetings from Whistler, British Columbia!”  But due to unfortunate circumstances our trip had to be delayed. Alta Lake was the original name for what we now call Whistler and it became a summer… Continue Reading →

U.S. Route 6 runs east-west across Colorado.  From the 1940s into the 1960s it was the main route for skiers going from Denver to Aspen, Vail, or other Colorado ski areas.  For many of us Easterners, Route 6 was our… Continue Reading →

I’m accelerating down the in-run of a natural terrain jump – a “kicker” in today’s parlance.  It’s in the sparse trees, skier’s right of the cliffs above Mid-Vail.  I’m nervous because I’ve never taken this jump before – hell, I’ve… Continue Reading →

If you’re a regular reader of this column, chances are you learned to ski based on the Arlberg technique.  Even if you didn’t get specific instruction from a ski instructor, the way you learned was still influenced by the technique…. Continue Reading →