Ski Pioneers of Stowe, Vermont: The First Twenty-Five Years - Softcover

Haslam, Patricia L.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1491713313 ISBN 13: 9781491713310

Publisher: iUniverse, 2013

Synopsis

The history of the development of the ski industry on Mt. Mansfield in Stowe, VT, the Ski Capitol of the East. Details and anecdotes of the process are told by two of the major players, Sepp Ruschp and Charlie Lord, (in their own words). Each trail, each building and each lift are chronicled. Through these documents donated to the Stowe Historical Society, we learn how trails were cut by hand, men were carried by horse and wagon, buildings (dorms, ski huts, camps, shelters, etc.) were erected as the needs became obvious and how Austrian, Scandinavian, and local natives carved a place in the style of skiing and ski instruction in Stowe, and how safety on the mountain drove the development of the first ski patrol. This is a very compelling story of passion, creativity, engineering, employing state and federal programs available at the time and hard work by a lot of people who came to work and settle in Stowe. There are 35 mini biographies of people who were there. Each are fascinating, educational, and entertaining.

About this title

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

SKI PIONEERS OF STOWE, VERMONT

The First Twenty-Five Years

By Patricia L. Haslam, Charlie Lord, Sepp Ruschp

iUniverse LLC

Copyright © 2014 Stowe Historical Society
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-4917-1331-0

Contents

Foreword by Brian Lindner, ix, 
Author's Note, xi, 
Part I: The Physical Development of the Mountain Described in Essays by Charlie Lord from The Stowe Reporter, 1, 
Introduction to Charlie Lord (Haslam), 3, 
Early Days of Ski Development on Mt. Mansfield, 7, 
Ranch Camp Notes, 11, 
The History of Ranch Camp – (Part #1), 13, 
The History of Ranch Camp – (Part #2), 17, 
The History of Ranch Camp – (Part #3), 20, 
Ranch Camp News, 24, 
An Early Ski Expedition, 26, 
History of Stone Hut, Mt. Mansfield, 28, 
The Shaping of Stowe, 30, 
Early Ascents of Mt. Mansfield, 40, 
The First Sugar Slalom – 40 Years Ago, 43, 
Carving the Way Over Mt. Mansfield, 45, 
From Tent to Cabin to Mt. Top Hotel, 49, 
Skiers & Skiing ... a Stowe Tradition, 52, 
Ski Dates & Construction, 58, 
Part II: The Sepp Ruschp Memoir, 81, 
Introduction to Sepp Ruschp (Haslam), 82, 
Sepp Ruschp, 83, 
Foreword, 91, 
Biography, 93, 
The Early Years, 98, 
Stowe, 117, 
The Return, 145, 
The Starr Years, 167, 
Tributes, 174, 
Citation for Sepp Ruschp from University of Vermont, 174, 
Christi Ruschp Dickinson's Speech at the 2008 Vermont Ski Hall of Fame, 176, 
Hank Greenberg Letter, 179, 
Introduction to the WRFB Radio Interview of Sepp Ruschp by Brian Harwood, Oct. 16, 1977, 180, 
Part III: People Remembering People: Major Players and Other Participants during the Shaping the Ski Industry in Stowe, 201, 
People Remembering People, 203, 
Craig Burt, Sr., 205, 
Roland Palmedo, 211, 
Frank Griffin, 215, 
George W. Gale, 218, 
Abner Coleman, 221, 
Albert W. Gottlieb, 224, 
Perry H. Merrill, 227, 
Cornelius Vander Starr, 229, 
C. Minot "Minnie" Dole, 234, 
J. Negley "Cookie" Cooke, 239, 
Jacques Charmoz, 241, 
Gary Fisher, 243, 
Clem Curtis, 245, 
Gordon Lowe, 251, 
Priscilla Hess, 253, 
Helen "Maxie" (Murray) Ruschp, 255, 
Bill Riley, 259, 
Henry Simoneau, 263, 
Milton Teffner, 268, 
Bob Bourdon, 270, 
Mary (Mather) Bourdon, 274, 
Erwin S. Lindner, 276, 
Erling Strom, 280, 
Ann "Nose Dive Annie" (Cooke) Taylor, 286, 
Rita Buchanan, 289, 
The Gale Shaw, Sr. Family: Ann, Marilyn, Theresa, Barbara, And Gale Shaw, Jr., 292, 
Lena Gale Allen, 297, 
Anne (Morgan) (Simoneau) August, 301, 
George R., Jr. And Vera Fearing, 303, 
Norma (Magnus) (Walker) Bartol, 306, 
Acknowledgements, 309, 
Sources, 311, 
Index, 327, 

CHAPTER 1

PART I

The Physical Development of the Mountain as Described in Essays by Charlie Lord from The Stowe Reporter.

(These articles have been retyped for this publication. The words and writing style have not been changed. Most of the pictures that appear in each article are the photos which appeared in the original publication.)

CHARLIE LORD (1902 - 1997)

"Perry Merrill, State Forester, basically gave Charlie a bunch of men and work to do, and that's how the first trails got started ... Charlie had a true love of the outdoors." John P. Lord, son of Charlie.

&

"Unbeknownst to me- we were cutting the trail which is now known as the Lord Trail—Perry gave it that name. I said to myself, I'll get even with him. When we cut a new trail, I somehow got that trail named the Perry Merrill." Charlie Lord, 1992, as related to Earline V. Marsh

Everyone loved Charlie and Charlie loved everyone. A self-effacing, likable guy about whom most people in town knew had much to do with early ski development days, but was better known in recent years as the Town Historian. He wrote many articles in periodicals, primarily in The Stowe Reporter and the Newsletter of the Mt. Mansfield Ski Club. The essays that pertain to early ski development are reprinted here with permission of Biddle Duke, publisher of the, now, Stowe Reporter, and by Charlie's son, John P. Lord, now residing in Groton, VT, Charlie's birthplace.

He will be remembered for another large body of work published in The Stowe Reporter whereby he researched and wrote about other local history subjects such as the district schools, place names (Edson Hill, Brownsville, and other settlement areas), but in particular the development of skiing since 1933. Most of his articles appeared in print in the 1970's and 1980's, accompanied by images from his own extensive collection. Much of his collection is scanned and now held in the archives of the Stowe Historical Society. An inventory of his published works can be found at the Society, and copies of The Stowe Reporter are on microfilm, soon to be located at the Historical Society where a reader-printer will be available.

Luckily for Stowe, and for the fledgling ski industry, Charlie was laid off from the Vermont Highway Department in June 1933, during the height of the Depression. A graduate of the University of Vermont, he was a Civil Engineer in Montpelier, and later moved to Stowe. It was in March of that year that the Civilian Conservation Corps was established by President Franklin D Roosevelt. Charlie signed on as a trail engineer with the CCC with best buddy Abner Coleman, and Charlie surveyed and mapped the Bruce Trail from Ranch Valley to what became the Nose Dive, the first racing trail.

Charlie remembers a different ski life-style back in the `40's and 50's: "There were no ski bums back then, just bums. We'd drive all over Vermont in search of the best skiing ... We were called The Mountain Men. It was a good group: Bish McGill, Huntley Palmer, Art Goodrich, Warren Warner, Art Heitmann, Abner Coleman, George Wesson, Dave Burt, Lindy Lindner, Harry Jerome, Chet Judge, Lanou Hudson, Bob Cochran, and Luther Booth. We'd climb to the Stone Hut before the lifts were built, spend the night and ski down in the morning."

He worked at the Mountain until 1974 after designing and cutting trails, managing lifts, leading the Mt. Mansfield Ski Club, and performing many jobs for the various entities that eventually became the Mt. Mansfield Company. Charlie's knowledge and trail and lift design were also used at the first chairlift at Mad River, and he designed the first gondola at Sugarbush. Charlie contributed frequent articles to the newsletters of the Mt. Mansfield Ski Club,

At first, Charlie was a single pole skier. In a Mt. Mansfield Ski Club Bulletin of December 12, 1938 Abner Coleman states that, "In 1926 Charlie was an exponent of the Zardsky technique, and the way he could switch down a steep slope with his single staff would have made your eyes jump right out ... Now he is an unforgiving purist, and the sight of a stick rider would quake him to the teeth." Later the ski technique became more balanced with two poles. Photographs of him surveying and working outdoors show him smoking a pipe, but it is unknown whether he smoked it while skiing. Probably not.

Part of his resume included community memberships and service as well as Mystic Lodge F & AM, Vermont Historical Society, Society of Engineers, Lamoille County Development Association, and Mountain Men of Mansfield, and he was elected a Paul Harris Fellow by Stowe Rotary Club and was awarded for outstanding service to the community.

Charlie was one of the six primary local men who were the core group of promoters of commercial skiing in town in the 1930's and 40's. For this, Stowe is grateful.

The Stowe Reporter Jan. 18, 1972

Early Days of Ski Development on Mt. Mansfield

by Charles D. Lord

Just when the first ski tracks were made in Stowe and Mansfield is not recorded, but surely by 1910 someone had ventured cross-country on skis. Around 1912 and for several years there were three Scandinavian families located in Stowe, one on West Hill, one on Edson Hill and one on Shaw Hill. They traveled back and forth on cross-country or touring skis. They couldn't speak very good English but they sure knew how to ski.

The first recorded ascent of Mt. Mansfield on skis was made in February 1914 by the then Dartmouth College librarian. About this time and perhaps somewhat earlier a local lumberman, Craig Burt, Sr., obtained a pair of skis which he used in getting from one lumbering operation to another. In March 1924, an organized group from Morrisville climbed the Toll Road using skis. Also in February 1926 a group of Stowites did the same. In February 1927, the first recorded overnight party on skis climbed to Taft Lodge where they spent the night and the next day climbed the Profanity Trail, then along the Ridge to the Summit House and then down the Toll Road. These trips required prodigious amounts of energy for the tail was unbroken, the equipment and technique crude when compared to the present day standards.

In February 1921 Stowe held its first winter carnival. A jump and toboggan slide were built on Marshall Hill (where the school Poma Lift now is). In the evening there was a minstrel show by local talent. During the day there were obstacle races, ski joring, exhibition jumping, toboggan rides and snowshoe and ski trips to Mt. Mansfield. Stowe High took over the winter activities and held annual meets at Jefferson High School for years. The meets alternated between Stowe and Jeffersonville and usually various groups would ski through The Notch to participate and spend the night in the town where the meet was held.

Presumably in between the winter of 1927 and 1932, there were other groups who toiled up the Toll Road and slid back down that way. The roads were not plowed and maintained like today and under ideal conditions the foot of Harlow Hill was as far as one could get in a car. Beginning with the winter of 1931-32, more frequent trips were made up the mountain and during the winter of 1932-133, Ranch Camp was opened on an informal basis to local skiers and several old logging roads in that area were brushed out and used.

For a few years previous to 1933, several of us, Abner Coleman, J.F. (Bondy) Bond, Eddie Flanagan, Jimmie Pine, Charlie Slayton, Babe Buxton, Nelson Griggs, to name a few, (all Highway Dept. employees) had gotten interested in skiing. Coleman had been exposed to skiing at McGill in Montreal and Bondy at Dartmouth to early skiing. We had made several trips to the mountains—to those places that were accessible and where there was a road or some kind of a trail to the summit, such as Camel's Hump, Burke Mt., Bolton, Spruce Mt. in Plainfield and Mt. Mansfield. We decided that Mt. Mansfield had the greatest potentialities in that it was the most accessible, had a good summer road to the top, good snow cover and offered excellent vertical drop. At that time, we had no idea that this sport would mushroom into present day size. We were quite content to make these weekly pilgrimages to the mountains and were quite happy with existing conditions. With the advent of the C.C.C. in June of 1933, word filtered down to us that if we marked and laid out a trail it might be constructed by the C.C.C. During the winter of 1932-33, I recall standing on the Toll Road and looking down towards what was to become the first turn on the Nose Dive and thinking that would be a good place to commence our trail—Abner concurred with me.

So with that impetus we (Ab and I) laid out the Nose Dive during the summer of 1933. We spent many days on this project—there was no old logging road that we could use as a base, except at the very bottom. We originally planned for it to terminate at Barnes Camp and call it the Barnes trail in honor of Willis Barnes who lumbered in this region for many years. However, with the construction of the C.C.C. side camp (now, State Ski Dorm) and activity in the area of the present Mansfield Base House (State Shelter) parking area, the terminus was changed to its present one. The name was also changed to Nose Dive by Perry Merrill, who was the State Forester and directed the activities of the C.C.C.. Construction of the Nose Dive was not started until the summer of 1934 and the trail was given its final smoothing and finishing during the summer of 1935, so that it was actually opened the winter of 1935-1936. To get back to our meandering during this period will say that numerous conferences, meetings, telephone calls and field trips took place. Everything was new—we literally had to feel our way along and were encouraged by the support and interest shown by local and state personalities.

Ranch Camp, an old lumber camp belonging to the Burt Lumber Co., had been used as a focal point the winter of 1932-33, by the Stowe Ski Club. A few old lumber roads had brushed out and some skiing done on these. The trail now known as the Bruce had been laid out during the summer of 1933 by Craig Burt, Sr. and the writer. Seeing as how a work program was already evolved in the Ranch Valley it was decided to commence there.

Consequently on Nov. 1, 1933 about 20 C.C.C. boys and the writer moved into Ranch Camp where we stayed for about 2 months, in which time we cut the Bruce through to the junction with the Toll Road near where the present Nose Dive crosses the Toll Road. We also cut a touring type trail to Luce Hill and Slayton pasture and brushed out several old log roads, including the Conway and Bouyea trails. We moved out of Ranch Camp shortly before Jan. 1, 1934.

So that phase of skiing as we know it today here on Mansfield really began with the construction of the first truly downhill ski trail in 1933. Economic conditions throughout the country were at a low ebb. To move people off the streets and get the situation off dead center numerous government efforts were made to improve the situation. Among these was the formation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, which organized young men in a semi-military force at the disposal of State and local officials to work on recreational, forestry and environmental problems of the day. Several factors were a decisive force in the early development of Stowe. There was already considerable local interest in that there had been winter carnivals, etc., plus the activities of the Stowe Ski Club. Mt. Mansfield and the Toll Road were fairly accessible and the favorable topographic features of the mountain proved to be attractive. Most of the land was owned either by the State Forestry Dept. or the Burt Lumber Company, both of which were highly sympathetic to the growing movement. In addition, there were many individuals whose combined efforts got the ball rolling—so to speak.

The Stowe Reporter Feb. 1972

Ranch Camp Notes

By Charles D. Lord

Some of the workers during the George Campbell era:

Alton Holbrook
Freddie White
Neil Robinson and team
Harold Page and team
Dick Davis and son, Ralph
Art Hamel
Leonard Preston
Merton Pike
Wilfred Vanasse
Orlo Gibbs
Kenneth Holbrook
Tracy Mansfield
David Burt
Dwight Wiltshire
Orvilla Vanasse and Team

Inside the cook house there was a wooden barrel into which water continuously ran and from which drinking, cooking and washing water was obtained. One day, a lady skier inquired if she could have a drink of water—Holbrook, as he was called, a kindly soul, but given to rough speech and a loud voice said, "J___ C___, help yourself ... there's a whole G___ D___ barrel of it over there in the corner."

Once I was watching George making some pies (apricots were his specialty) ... he was talking, as usual, but finishing off the pies at the same time. After he had placed the top crust, he stepped over to the water barrel, and proceeded to pour water over the completed piecrust. I thought he had flipped, but later on, eating the baked product, I realized that this was one of George's cooking secrets. The crust was brown and flaky— just right.

Another time, as related by Art Hamel, it being Xmas time, a bit of hard liquor had been consumed by the help. George had prepared 3 pots of beans for the evening meal and on his first trip from the stove to the table he, being a bit unsteady, tripped and fell, spilling the beans all over the floor. However, as none of the guests were present, they scrapped the beans off the floor, back into the pot and served them to the unsuspecting guests—just as if nothing had happened.

The food at Ranch Camp was simple, but well prepared. All meals were served family style—people sat at long oil cloth covered tables and the food brought to the table in large platters, bowls, pitchers, etc. No one ever went away from the table hungry. It seems that baked beans were ever present—although this may be slightly exaggerated. The main meal consisted of beans, boiled potatoes, a roast, either of beef or pork, white and brown bread and pie, generally apricot and all you could eat ... many a time, I staggered up from the table only to plop into a comfortable chair or nearby bunk. Cooking was done on a wood fired stove or stoves such as were found at that period in lumber camps. The facilities were crude judged by modern standards, but a capable cook, such as George, could turn out wonderfully hearty meals.

The first winter (1933-34), there was only the cook house, which had bunks in one end. Succeeding years saw additional building so that the bunk section of the original cook house was eliminated. It took quite a bit of wood to keep all the fires going. Neil Robinson, Harold Page, and Orvilla Vanasse used their teams to haul wood in from the place of cutting (on Burt land) to the wood shed.

(Continues...)

Excerpted from SKI PIONEERS OF STOWE, VERMONT by Patricia L. Haslam, Charlie Lord, Sepp Ruschp. Copyright © 2014 Stowe Historical Society. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse LLC.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Edition details

• Publisher: iUniverse
• Publication date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1491713313
• ISBN 13: 9781491713310
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 356