The Evolution of Tree Skiing

JimK

Nice find Cannonball! I thought you might be referring to Laurel Mtn PA which goes way back or the lost Weis Knob, WV ski area, but your source actually points to glade skiing in The Pinnacles area along Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park, Virginia about 1938. I never knew about that. Coincidentally, I had a picnic with family at the Pinnacles picnic area on Skyline Drive this summer. The 1938 photo from that area included in the article is fascinating to me because the glade is so open/cleared.

Shen Natl Park today has very dense forest cover almost everywhere within boundaries, but much of the land for the park was reclaimed from settlers/hillbillies around 1930 and may have still had many open gladed, crop fields, orchards, and meadow areas in 1938.

Today the Pinnacles area would never be considered for skiing because it’s inside the national park, also because it’s too warm to get much natural snow. But the mtns in Shen Natl Park top out at 4k feet with low valleys on each side, so there is potential for 2500+ foot vertical descents in perfect conditions.

joshua_segal

<blockquote class=“Quote” rel=“marcski”>null Stratton still has a trail called “Slalom Glade” (although it no longer has trees) that skis into their “World Cup” trail.</blockquote>

I think Rip Chord at Mt. Snow was originally called Slalom Glade also. I don’t know if it was treed.

riverc0il

I think a differentiation between types of glades would be beneficial to the conversation. A lot of areas seemed to have “open glades” quite some time ago. These would be trails that are wide enough between trees that a groomer could slip through them (a more literal use of the term “glade”). Many of those types of glade trails fell victim to snowmaking.

My first real glade experience was Sunday River around 2000 or so. They had a lot of glades on the map back then and have only added a few more since then (they even took Spruce Cliffs off the map, how many other on map glades have been removed from the official map/trail list?). So more “tree skiing” type glading was already well established by the 90s. Though we’ve obviously seen a lot more on map glades during the past 20 years as interest in getting off the groomers has accelerated.

I suspect we’re going to see a slow down in new on map glades at this point. Though some areas will still continue to debate whether or not to put off map glades onto the map. But I really don’t see many areas investing in new glade cutting at this (perhaps excepting Black of Maine which only recently began to glade out to attract more guests).

JimK

Interesting how old photo from Pinnacles is similar to my new photo from Laurel Mtn???

TomWhite

I’ve always wondered why the mogul race on Ripcord was called “Gladiator”. (I think it has been changed.) I certainly don’t know all of the mountain’s history, but I never heard of it being a glade. But one would think that’s where the race name came from.

LaurelHillCrazie

<blockquote class=“Quote” rel=“JimK”> Interesting how old photo from Pinnacles is similar to my new photo from Laurel Mtn???

</blockquote>

To give context to what we’re looking at in Jim’s Laurel photo, in the center you see a straight shot through the trees. I’m sure you recognize that as a rope tow line. It was Laurel’s first rope tow. To the right is a glade, slightly tighter than when originally cut in 1961.

archives.post-gazette.com/clip/4589535/first_groomer_1961/

It is on today’s trail map as Doc’s Forest Glade.

z1000307470

There are labeled glades on the 1982 Stowe map above Nose Dive. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, I was introduced to glade skiing at Killington and then at Stowe and MRG. There was always glade skiing at Sugarbush off the Paradise trail. At Gore there was always tons of off the map stuff that has slowly joined the map. Here is the Stowe map from 1982 https://skimap.org/data/212/2200/1449254269.jpeg

TomWhite

archives.post-gazette.com/clip/4589535/first_groomer_1961/

It is on today’s trail map as Doc’s Forest Glade.

</blockquote>

I mostly skied at Hidden Valley during the early 60’s. I did ski at Laurel Mt. when they had the beautiful red lodge. I didn’t have the nerve to ski Lower Wildcat. At that time the main lift was a T-bar. The newspaper article brings back memories. At the end, the phone number is ATlantic 1-… as in AT1-. Who is old enough to remember numbers beginning with 2 letters?

Remski

Me. Na 28207

TomWhite

Cute… I was TE5-8446 growing up in Pittsburgh.

LaurelHillCrazie

<blockquote class=“Quote” rel=“TomWhite”> archives.post-gazette.com/clip/4589535/first_groomer_1961/

It is on today’s trail map as Doc’s Forest Glade.

I didn’t ski Laurel until the late 1970s. The lodge that you refer to burned down in 1970 under questionable circumstances. The T-bar was long gone by then but there are still remnants along its tow line. Riding that must have been something because it traveled the same pitch as Lower Wildcat and yes, it is steep, not extreme but steep. I am old enough to remember my phone number beginning with two letters AC4-8005 and we didn’t have to dial the area code but often had to wait to make a call because of others on our party line.

JimK

This is a fun hijack. My folks owned the same home in Virginia from 1959 to 2005. I remember in the early 60s that our phone number began EL6—-. I can’t remember the last four digits. EL stood for the numbers 3 and 5 and our phone # was often referred to as Elwood6—-. One of my older brothers is great at this kind of stuff and would surely remember the full number. We moved from that house for 3 years and rented it from 64-66. We got a new last four when we returned and I don’t recall using the EL terminology anymore after that.

Bill29

When I was just a kid and the operator said “number. please,” and you said “2446,” you got our house in Middletown, Conn.

JimK

Since I started this thread I can change it to The Evolution of Telephone Design :p

Bill, for the first couple of decades of my life (50s-70s) this rotary dial phone was the most common telephone design in use:

We also had a wall mount rotary version like this in the kitchen:

The dial style was replaced by a similar design, but with push buttons and then mobile phones changed everything. I use an early flip phone type cell phone. I find it kind of fascinating that the most modern cell phones are getting bigger and clunkier again, which I find a disadvantage physically, but of course the price to pay to attain almost full desktop or laptop computing capabilities.

I never saw or used a candlestick type phone in actual use, but I bet you did:

Did you also use this type of early rotary dial phone:

What other styles did you (OR OTHER SNOWJOURNALISTS) see in use during your boyhood?

ciscokid

Had one of those oldy

ciscokid

trackbiker

JimK said, “What other styles did you (OR OTHER SNOWJOURNALISTS) see in use during your boyhood?”

We had one like this my house growing up until the mide ’80’s. The number was in the center of the dial but instead of the first three numbers it read ULysses5.

My uncle had a wholesale business that I worked at summers and holidays in high school and college. This type of phone was out in the warehouse. You grew muscles holding that handset while taking orders from customers. It was made from metal and not plastic or bakelite.

ciscokid

Ok let’s switch the hijacked trees, phones, to YOUR FIRST SKI VEHICLE

My first 1976 Jeep CJ 7 full time four wheel, 304 cid soft top Renegade with levi seat pkg, AM RADIO!

JimK

Made a solo ski trip driving a ’69 bug just like this from VA to CO on college spring break 1976: It had a ski rack on the back that could hold two sets of skis in sort of slanted/vertical position.

A couple years later I upgraded to the first new car I ever owned, a ’78 MG Midget much like this one. It was hopelessly tiny inside and much worse in the snow than the rear-engine VW bug. To carry skis I rolled down the passenger window and let them stick out through it. About the least practical ski car ever, but a lot more fun to drive in the off-season

Bill29

JimK, did I also use a rotary wall phone? I still have one in my apartment in Dudley, Mass. Mostly I use a cell phone, but the rotary is still on the wall, still works and its audio reception is far superior to that of the cell phone. In other words, when I converse with people on the rotary land line, I can actually hear and understand what they’re saying. Revolutionary!

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