billski
Active member
"
Who would have thought the Colorado and California snow report in the middle of January would be, ‘No new snow on five- to seven-inch base.’
It has been a lot of years since I sat and looked at a ski hill with no snow on it and a restaurant at the base full of disgruntled people who had traveled a long way to carve turns on Averell Harriman’s pride and joy where the first chairlift in the world was built, Dollar Mountain at Sun Valley, Idaho.
...
Two weeks before this dismal afternoon of staring at sage brush that was 18 inches high covered here and there with an inch or two of snow, I had seen and filmed for the first time, Walt Stopa's latest deal at Wilmot, Wisconsin, called artificial snow. Today they call it man-made snow and it is the savior of many skier days that occur across the country for anyone who has the money to install the machinery.
...
The other night a friend said, "These bad winters with no snow follow some sort of a seven-year cycle.” I asked him to explain what caused the cycle of seven years and he said, “That’s what my Grandpa told me.” Unfortunately the source of the information is buried with his Grandpa somewhere in Vermont where he had died.
...
A winter or two after Walt Stopa’s breakthroughs on his 186 vertical foothill, someone leased Soldier Field in Chicago and filled the bleachers up with his wonderful invention, as well as several rope tows and a genuine Austrian ski school. By the time they got the bleachers filled up with snow every water pipe in the stadium was frozen solid.
..
By the time I showed the Soldier Field "ski resort" to my audiences the following year, the developer of the resort had filed for bankruptcy. The ski school operator was last seen at O’Hare field boarding a discount ski club charter flight for Bavaria, and the only survivor of this ski resort in the bleachers on man-made snow was the guy who ran the toboggan slide down between the goal posts and out into the end zone.
...
Maybe Sigi was right when he said, “They only needed these snow machines back East,” and Chicago just wasn’t far enough back East to have one that worked in Soldier Field. "
Who would have thought the Colorado and California snow report in the middle of January would be, ‘No new snow on five- to seven-inch base.’
It has been a lot of years since I sat and looked at a ski hill with no snow on it and a restaurant at the base full of disgruntled people who had traveled a long way to carve turns on Averell Harriman’s pride and joy where the first chairlift in the world was built, Dollar Mountain at Sun Valley, Idaho.
...
Two weeks before this dismal afternoon of staring at sage brush that was 18 inches high covered here and there with an inch or two of snow, I had seen and filmed for the first time, Walt Stopa's latest deal at Wilmot, Wisconsin, called artificial snow. Today they call it man-made snow and it is the savior of many skier days that occur across the country for anyone who has the money to install the machinery.
...
The other night a friend said, "These bad winters with no snow follow some sort of a seven-year cycle.” I asked him to explain what caused the cycle of seven years and he said, “That’s what my Grandpa told me.” Unfortunately the source of the information is buried with his Grandpa somewhere in Vermont where he had died.
...
A winter or two after Walt Stopa’s breakthroughs on his 186 vertical foothill, someone leased Soldier Field in Chicago and filled the bleachers up with his wonderful invention, as well as several rope tows and a genuine Austrian ski school. By the time they got the bleachers filled up with snow every water pipe in the stadium was frozen solid.
..
By the time I showed the Soldier Field "ski resort" to my audiences the following year, the developer of the resort had filed for bankruptcy. The ski school operator was last seen at O’Hare field boarding a discount ski club charter flight for Bavaria, and the only survivor of this ski resort in the bleachers on man-made snow was the guy who ran the toboggan slide down between the goal posts and out into the end zone.
...
Maybe Sigi was right when he said, “They only needed these snow machines back East,” and Chicago just wasn’t far enough back East to have one that worked in Soldier Field. "
