This very cool memory was recently posted in another thread by
@ski_it and has inspired me to start a new discussion. I wonder what year this took place?
[ski_it
April 4 Posts: 4,205
I met Preston Smith in there one midweek early November. He was booting up alone, like me, across from me. I thought it might be him and then it seemed like every employee in the place walked by him. Hello Mr Smith..good morning Mr Smith, etc... So I said hi and IIRC he asked if I skied there often and what my favorite trail was. Then we skied the same trail the 1st run, except he had a photographer and an assistant for a photo shoot of some kind.]
Does anyone else have any interesting encounters with legendary ski figures that they care to share with us?
Living and skiing mostly in the mid-Atlantic all my life I didn't have too many opportunities for chance or planned interactions with famous ski people. But here are a couple.
1. I was in high school and went with my Mom (RIP) to a ski sale/promotion at the former Alpine Ski shop location in Tysons Corner, VA around 1971-72. Eddie Bunch, founder of the store, had a drawing for some ski-related giveaways. My Mom filled out a batch of entries in her name. Spider Sabich (legendary ski racer who suffered an early death at the hands of movie star Claudine Longet in 1976) was there to give several lucky winners their prizes.
Spider drew my Mom's name and she won her choice of any new Yamaha skis on the rack. Being the great mom that she was, she gave me the prize. I picked out a new pair of Yamaha Hi-Flex skis in 195cm length and I enjoyed them as my main ski for a number of years afterward. Sadly, the skis outlived Spider. He was the US Ski Teamer and early pro skier who became one of the tragic legends of American skiing when he was shot and killed by his movie star lover, Claudine Longet in 1976.
Me and the Yamaha skis at Killington in 1976:
2. In 1991 I went on a ski trip to Aspen. While skiing Ajax one day I saw an old man skiing bumps near the lower mountain. In fact, I saw him twice that day. He had kind of a distinctive face and he was skiing the bumps pretty good for a guy who looked about age 75-80. I'll never know for sure because I didn't stop to talk to him, but he looked a lot like the gentleman in this photo:
Dick Durrance died at age 89 in 2004 in Carbondale near Aspen, CO. I don't know if that was him that day in 1991, but the dates and locations do kind of line-up that I might have encountered one of the great legends of early American skiing?
