Skiing Photo Archives - LIFE

Oh, To Be Young and in Aspen

Bill Syken — Tue, 05 Nov 2024 18:14:54 +0000

In 1971 LIFE reported from Aspen, where young people in search of adventure were moving to the Colorado resort town. What’s more, there was a demographic wrinkle—a majority (about 60 percent) of those new arrivals were women. That stat inspired a fun and feminine photo shoot from LIFE staff photographer John Dominis.

The stars of the shoot were all women in their 20s who had come to the mountains to live the ski life.

Of course, dreams are often tempered by reality. The story, headlined “A Very Nice Kind of Ski Bum,” neatly summed up both the allure and the pitfalls of a move to Aspen:

They consider a skier’s life not to be a parenthetical experience but a real alternative to urban existence, one free from frustration, noise and the frustration of having to choose between marriage and a less than satisfying job. The only problem with Aspen is finding a way to survive.

In 1971 Aspen was not quite the playground for the rich that it is today (that status really took root in the 1980s), but the transition was in process, and it was being felt by the town’s working class. “Housing is practically non-existent and prices are tourist-level high,” LIFE wrote. One of the women in the Dominis photo essay said that she needed to work so many hours as a hotel maid to support herself that she barely had time to ski. Still, overall, the story painted a romantic picture of the adventure they had embarked on: “The women figure, why wait until you’re 40 to have fun.”

One of Dominis’ photos shows four young women sharing a one-bedroom apartment. That apartment certainly wouldn’t make it into the kind of stories you can find today on Aspen’s luxury homes—but it is a certain kind a paradise. Sure, it’s a mess, and the quarters are cramped. But the women don’t seem to care. It can be that way when you are taking a stab at living your dream.

These four women shared a one-bedroon apartment in Aspen, Colo., 1971

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sue Smedstad, who had come to Aspen six years previous, received a free ski pass as one of the perks of her job as statistician for the Aspen Skiing Corp., 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sue Smedstad drover her friends in her jeep as they searched for good snow in Aspen, 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Women tubed in Snowmass Mountain, Aspen. Colo., 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lyn Carlson came to Aspen, Colo., from Lousville, Ky., and supported herself by working the doors at an apres-ski club, 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Gail Ramsey moved from Wisconsin to Aspen to sing in a nightclub, but after her band broke up she ended up tending bar, 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Lisa Brooks, 24, came to Aspen for the ski life, but she made so little in her job as a chambermaid that she couldn’t do much skiing, 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Leslie Smith, 25, came to Aspen and started her own store, the Birdog Trading Co., when she found that employment opportunities were scarce, 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Carolyn Zinke, came to Aspen from Wisconsin with a teaching degree and, after a few years in the resort town she was proficient enough to gain work as a ski instructor, 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From a 1971 story on the many young women who moved to Aspen, Colo., to live and work

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Phyllis Garrett, 21, lived in a one-room mountain cabin after following her sister to Aspen, Colo., 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Dawn Clark left a college study tour in Hong Kong to live the ski life in Aspen, 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Sandy Sollitt, 22, came to Aspen, Colorado from Chicago to enjoy the ski life, 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From a LIFE story on young women enjoying the ski life in Aspen, Colorado, 1971.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

From a 1971 story on the many young women who moved to Aspen, Colo., to live and work.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A 1971 LIFE story documented the influx of young women who had moved to Aspen, Colorado to live, work and ski.

John Dominis/Life Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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Skiing’s Early Days as a Popular American Pastime

Thu, 28 Jan 2016 08:00:04 +0000

Skiing is somewhere in the vicinity of 22,000 years old not as sport or recreation, but as a critical mode of transportation for early hunters. But skiing as Americans know it today, complete with high-speed chairlifts and cozy lodges selling overpriced French fries, only began to boom in the mid-1950s. With the advent of artificial snow and metal skis during that decade and plastic boots the next, more Americans took up the sport. Ski resorts, in turn, introduced new amenities to attract bigger crowds with each passing year.

LIFE photographer George Silk hit the slopes in 1957 to capture the building frenzy. A record 3.5 million skiers ad made their ways down America’s mountains the previous year, and several of the resorts he visited in Vermont—Stowe, Mount Snow, Mad River Glen—were host to ever more luxurious lodges, high-end apparel and, most of all, epic crowds. “As the peak late-February season approached,” LIFE declared, “the question was where all the skiers would find room to ski.”

The more skiers there were, the more the businesses rose to meet their demands. Mount Snow served up almost 20,000 hot dogs in a single weekend. Equipment rentals, previously unavailable, now came with free lessons. At Mad River Glen, skiers at the end of a long run could shed their gear and slip into a Catholic Mass. The only folks who weren’t pleased were the “old-line ski addicts,” who viewed new adopters of their sport as “a nuisance that crowds the slopes and inns they once had to themselves.”

But the newcomers were there to stay. Before long they would have snowboarders up on the mountains too.

Liz Ronk edited this gallery for LIFE.com. Follow her on Twitter @lizabethronk.

On Spruce Peak, VT., Harry Larsen climbs from her new lodge.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Skiers unload from a train at Stowe, Vermont, 1957.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Skiers board a chairlift at Mount Snow in Vermont, 1957.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Fashion on the slopes at Mt. Snow, Vermont, 1957.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Workers maintain the slopes at Stowe, Vermont, 1957.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A family before a run at Stowe.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Patty McMahon gets a push from her mother at Stowe.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The McMahon kids get comfortable on their skis, Mount Snow, Vermont, 1957.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Learning how to fall is an important part of the sport, 1957.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

A packed chairlift at Mount Snow in Vermont, 1957.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Hooded skiers shuffle slowly toward a chair life at Mt. Snow. Cloaks were provided by lift operators to keep skiers warm on windy ride up the mountain.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

The double-chair lift at Mt. Snow gave novices a luxury usually enjoyed only by crack skiers.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

Manufactured snow, blowing from nozzles, veils skiers in mists at Bousquet’s, near Pittsfield Mass. During a January thaw, Bousquet’s was jammed with skiers unable to ski elsewhere.

George Silk The LIFE Picture Collection/Shutterstock

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1952 U.S. Olympic Skiers: Stunning Images from Squaw Valley

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 12:53:35 +0000

In February 1952, when (as LIFE magazine phrased it) “a gay and gaudy invasion” of athletes descended on Norway’s capital, Oslo, to take part in the sixth Olympic Winter Games, “a select band of winter warriors paused there only long enough to catch their breath and another train.”

Leaving behind the main force of 1,200 athletes, this small group pushed on north to a sterner battleground. These were the true daredevils of winter sport the downhill ski racers. Their destination, 62 miles from Oslo, was Mount Norefjell, a snow-capped peak whose terrain is considered rugged enough for the most hazardous of all Olympic events. No sport on earth matches in danger the downhill race: the course at Norefjell drops a breathtaking 2,400 feet in a mile and half.

Among the men en route there this week, with less chance of winning a race than of losing a limb, was the underdog eight-man American team. All in their 20s and pink-faced from weeks of outdoor training, they included three college boys from New England, a lumberjack from the Pacific northwest, a ski-tow mechanic, a yeoman 2/c on leave from the U.S. Navy, an Air Force private and one fellow who had no other occupation than skiing for the fun of it. With them in the role of keeper was one middle-aged Frenchman named Emile Allais, their trainer and technical adviser.

Norefjell looks no more formidable than a dozen other mountains they have conquered: it is no tougher than the “rock garden” at Sun Valley or skiing down the side of the Empire State Building.

LIFE was right, in the end, in its estimation of the team’s chances in Norway or rather, LIFE was right about the men’s chances. No one on the American men’s ski team medaled in 1952. But a young native Vermonter on the women’s squad, 19-year-old Andrea Mead Lawrence (a future National Ski Hall of Fame inductee), made up for the dearth of laurels on the male side, winning gold in both the Slalom and Giant Slalom.

Here, LIFE.com presents photos of the men’s squad by George Silk as they trained for the ’52 Oslo games in Squaw Valley, California. These pictures that capture the rigor and the beauty of, as LIFE put it, “the most hazardous of all Olympic events.”

American skier Jack Reddish training for the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics, Squaw Valley, California, 1950.

George Silk Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A skier trains for the Olympics, Squaw Valley, California, 1950.

George Silk Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

American skiers in training, Squaw Valley, California, 1950.

George Silk Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Original caption: ” “Over the edge and seemingly off into space goes U.S. Olympic team member Dick Buek at Squaw Valley. On straight drops skiers have gone 73 mph.” Buek, an adrenaline junkie nicknamed “the Madman of Donner Summit,” died at the age of 27 in a plane crash.”

George Silk Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

Skiers train for the 1952 Winter Olympics, Squaw Valley, California, 1950.

George Silk Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

“Avalanche of men and snow plunges down steep side of mountain at Squaw Valley in California as American team gets ready for the Olympics. This dramatic picture was taken in early morning before the sun had touched the snow.”

George Silk Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

U.S. Olympic skier training in Squaw Valley, California, 1950.

George Silk Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

U.S. Olympic Skier training in Squaw Valley, California, 1950.

George Silk Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

A skier trains for the Olympics, Squaw Valley, California, 1950.

George Silk Time & Life Pictures/Shutterstock

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