Collecting trail maps?

afrazer202

Hello,

I'm new on this forum. I'd love to connect with anyone who collect ski area trail maps (or brochures that include trail maps). I've been collecting on-and-off for many years. I have about 400 maps from the 80's, 90's and 00's. Now I want to restart my collection.

In the past I collected almost every map by writing a letter to the resort asking for a map. I didn't keep track back then, but I estimate at least 90% of the ski areas sent me something. This includes resorts from Europe and Australia/New Zealand. Now that I started sending out requests again, I'm doing a mix of letters and emails. I'm not sure which method is more reliable because it's only been a few weeks.

Does anyone else here collect ski maps? Does anyone what to exchange experiences via snail mail or email (including website submissions)? I noticed already some ski areas (especially those owned by Vail Resorts) will not send out printed maps because of their new Green policies.

I'll share my results as soon as a I get some meaningful data. I can say that in the past two weeks, more about 60% of my email requests to major resorts in France and Austria have replied they will send me a trail map.

-Andy (from California, USA)

Betsy

Jeremy, founder of NELSAP (and goes by NELSAP on this site) definitely does. Hopefully he'll chime in!

rickbolger

I collect them, but I've only written/requested if I was considering a visit to the ski area. Otherwise I grab 4-5 when I ski somewhere, or I pick them up at ski shows, motel brochure racks, sometimes buy on ebay, sometimes friends grab one for me when they ski in exotic locales.

Also "exchange" with a friend here on Snowjournal, he gives me some, I give him some, and I'm waay ahead on the benefit curve thanks to his generosity.

I also bought a brown paper bag of them from a guy that I met at pump #5 at the Natick service plaza on the Mass Pike. Bet that doesn't happen there too often; must've looked like a crack deal on the MassDOT cameras.

I keep mine in vinyl sleeves, in about a dozen binders based on regions and states. Vermont fills two binders. My tired overused joke is that they probably aren't as much fun as Mitt Romney's binders, but it's what I got.

PS: I have active timber/paper industry lands as a direct neighbor, and I'm a skier with an Epic pass. From what I see, the timber people are a lot greener than Vail Resorts. If you really want to preserve forest land, print everything twice.

skelley19

rickbolger;c-67001 wroteI keep mine in vinyl sleeves, in about a dozen binders based on regions and states. Vermont fills two binders. My tired overused joke is that they probably aren't as much fun as Mitt Romney's binders, but it's what I got.

Haha wow great old reference. A buddy of mine came to my halloween party that year dressed as Romney, complete with Binder full of women.

afrazer202

rickbolger;c-67001 wrote
I keep mine in vinyl sleeves, in about a dozen binders based on regions and states. Vermont fills two binders.

The vinyl sleeves sounds admirable. But I think I'd run out of space if I did that. Maybe I'll do it just for my older maps.

Can you tell me approximately how many sleeved maps fit in a typical three-ring binder?

-Andy

bousquet19

Great topic Andy, and welcome to Snowjournal!

For those of us who were, in my wife’s words “born with the collector gene,” it’s been a bit of a disappointment to see some ski areas abandon printed maps in favor of providing online maps only. Ditto for RFID cards versus paper tickets 🎟️. Were you around in the pre-wicket years when tickets were stapled directly onto ski jackets?

To get to your topic, I got into collecting ski maps when I started skiing in the mid-1960s. Three sports stores in my home town of Pittsfield, Massachusetts had brochure racks that I invaded regularly. I also did what you’ve been doing: I wrote to ski areas in those pre-internet days asking them to send me a ski map. I think I received brochures from at least 75% of the areas I contacted. I remember one day being home from junior high school sick with something or other, and 13 envelopes arrived from ski areas in that day’s mail. Talk about an instant cure. 😉

Unfortunately, those brochures went to the landfill in the decluttering that preceded my departure for college. We didn’t call it decluttering back then. I think my parents spoke more about fumigating.

I was off skis for three decades, returning to the slopes around 2003 when our then-10-year-old son wanted to try out skiing. I was hooked again, to my surprise. And I started grabbing maps, saving ski tickets, and (new to me) buying pins. Trades with friends and 20 years of lurking on eBay helped me build a fairly good collection of old and not-so-old ski brochures and trail maps from the areas I collect. Fortunately, I’d saved the 14 ski patches my mom had sewn to a succession of ski jackets. Patches have been my focus.

But I don’t collect maps, patches, and the like from all areas. I’ve restricted myself - pretty much - to three categories:

1. Areas I’ve skied (just passed the 100 mark a couple of seasons ago),
2. the Berkshires and Vermont, and
3. to a lesser extent, the rest of eastern North America (Alabama to Newfoundland).

Sometimes I acquire others, usually in a group purchased on eBay. I’ll give or trade those with friends or else put them up on eBay.

Like rickbolger and Mitt Romney, my acquisitions go into binders. Brochures, trail maps, and patches are supplemented with postcards and other paper items. Together, they make for an interesting and varied display. I don’t have binder space (or shelf space) for all my brochures, etc., so the binders contain the patches, old maps and brochures, interesting newer maps, and a smattering of tickets, postcards, and ads.

I try to find the first, or at least a very early, trail map for each of the ski areas I collect in categories 1 and 2 above. I have some cool 😎 ones.

This post is long enough.

In a second post, I’ll describe how I display the ski patches, maps, pins, and such. Will include photos.

Woody

afrazer202

Woody,

Thanks for great insight into your collection.

My history is a bit like yours. I grew up just north of Boston. When I was about seven years old I got hooked on collecting ski brochures (only if they included trail maps). I got most of mine from the displays in the sporting goods stores. Any time my family went to a big shopping mall, my dad and I always stopped at the sporting good stores so I could scour the ski brochure racks. That lasted 2-3 years. That was around 1970-1973. I don't recall any ski areas giving out brochures or maps for any ski area other than their own. This before the multi-resort passes, cross-promotions and the tidal wave of corporate mergers.

After college, in the mid-80's, I restarted my collection for a year or so. I collected them at the ski resorts, at the ski stores, and through the mail. This was before the internet, so I had to go through monthly ski magazines to get the resorts' mailing addresses.

I restarted again for a year or so in the mid-90's (by then I was no longer skiing), and again in the mid-00's. By the mid "naughts" I could get the resorts' mailing addresses from the internet, although I never tried requesting ski maps via the email.

Most of my collection is from the USA. Canada is a strong second place. I have a handful of maps from Australia, France, Switzerland and New Zealand. Most of those were collected by mail around 2000-2002.

Now, here I am again, ready to restart my collection. I'm doing a mix of hand-written letters and email requests (including website submission requests). I'm focusing on international ski areas right now (France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Germany), primarily requesting by email (just to get started). So far, Austrian resorts seem to be the most accommodating. I'll share all my stats at the end of the season.

Aside from the annoying shift to "Green" to replace printed trail maps with PDF files (I call B.S. It's not about going Green. It's really about saving money for the bean counters in the corporate office... and I'm looking at you, Vail Resorts), I'm annoyed at how some big resorts (again, Vail Resorts) have out-sourced their email request servicing to AI companies. I had three frustrating emails with a "representative" of Mount Snow, VT before I realized the email replies were being generated by an AI company called ZenDesk.

I look forward to your follow-up post with the photos.

-Andy

ADKskier

I used to have hundreds, but unfortunately when I went into the Army the stuff that my father stored eventually found its way to a dumpster.

Chuckstah

I have hundreds of trail maps, dating back well over 40 years. I don't really actively seek out new ones, but rather just grab one each season at places I ski. They are mostly tucked away in a big box, and I haven't seen most of them in years. Sorting them out sounds like a good rainy day project.

ski_it

Sounds like you people have some great collections! Like Chuck, I "collect" mostly the ones where I have been and chuck them in a desk drawer never to see the light of day again. Not sure on the quantity or quality.

bousquet19

bousquet19;c-67040 wroteGreat topic Andy, and welcome to Snowjournal! …

[snip] …
This post is long enough.

In a second post, I’ll describe how I display the ski patches, maps, pins, and such. Will include photos.

Woody

Sorry for my delay in posting photos of my collection of ski area patches, trail maps, brochures, and so forth. I was … uhh … skiing. That’s my excuse.

I’ll start with the two frames 🖼️ of ski items that I made - one for ski patches with some old tickets and pins, and the other with ski pins alone. (To longtime SJ readers: yes, these are the same frames I posted several years ago, with a few replacements.)

Photo 1a. Vermont ski area patches, with some pins and old ski tickets mixed in.
The background is navy blue felt, which I chose because it seemed a bit less "contrasty" than black felt.

Photo 1b. Oblique view of previous photo.
I placed foam behind the patches and pins to allow for the pins' depth. Ended up needing short screws to attach the back board to the frame and hold things in place.

Photo 2a. Display case of ski area pins.
I pressed some dried plants picked during the winter to break up the columns and rows of the pins and provide a more wintry look.

Photo 2b. Oblique view of the previous photo.
I bought this case (about 2" deep) on eBay. Note latches on right side.

Will post photos of my album setup with trail maps and patches next.

Woody

ski_it

Outstanding

djspookman

I love it!! Especially love the older patches ( Underhill Ski Bowl) as I grew up nearby but it was closed before I could ski there.

bousquet19

bousquet19;c-67094 wrote
bousquet19;c-67040 wroteGreat topic Andy, and welcome to Snowjournal! …

[snip] …

Will post photos of my album setup with trail maps and patches next.

Woody
Photo 1. Here are my binders of ski trail maps, brochures, patches, etc. This is my entire set of binders. They're divided geographically; for example, I have a binder for Maine, 2 binders for Vermont, a binder for the Southeast + Quebec, a binder for patches from places I've skied, a binder for Bousquet Ski Area, and so on.

It took me a long time to figure out a layout of pages - and find the plastic sleeves to hold the contents - that was varied and did the job. The key for holding brochures turned out to be plastic postcard pages, but not the common 4-cards-per-page layout. I found a 3-pocket page that has worked well (see Photos 3 and 4).

My wife says that this is one of my collections she's OK with, because it takes up relatively little space in the house (and, I'd add, it collects relatively little dust).

Photo 2. I usually start each album with a cover - that is, a full-page plastic page protector containing a brochure that relates to the subject of the binder's contents. A neat old Berkshires map does the trick in this case.

Photos 3 and 4. Most of my trail maps and brochures go into these 3-sleeve plastic pages for postcards. Four standard-size maps/brochures can be displayed per page if you place the brochures back-to-back, but sometimes the backs are interesting so I place only 2 brochures in a page. The top pocket can hold a postcard (as in this case) a patch, an old ski ticket, or sticker.

Photo 5. I display some maps unfolded. This approach can highlight interesting graphics or unusual trail layouts, and it adds variety to the album as someone views page after page.

Photo 6. Pages for patches: a 6-pocket page for large patches, and a 9-pocket page for smaller patches. The 6-pocket pages are sometimes used for the large Girl Scout and Boy Scout patches that commemorate special scout events. Sports card collectors will recognize the 9-pocket pages.

Photos 7 and 8. For interest, I try to mix different types of items: a page of maps, then a page of patches.

Photo 9. Some oldies from Bousquet Ski Area, originally Bousquet Ski Grounds and today Bousquet Mountain). Many are those that my family saved.

Virtually all of the old (c. pre-1970) trail maps I've collected from eastern North America are included in the binders shown in Photo 1. The maps are fragile but protected fairly well by the plastic page sleeves. For me, this setup allows me to enjoy what I've collected and to share them with others who might be interested ... or at least those friends and relatives who will tolerate my yapping about them for a few minutes.

Like others who've posted in this thread started by ajfrazer202, I continue to pick up maps from ski areas I visit each season. A few distinctive ones - cool graphics, new lifts, an area's 50th anniversary - end up in the binders, but space limitations cause me to relegate the others to boxes in the cellar.

Anyone else willing to share their ideas and/or collection photos?

Still skiing,
Woody

afrazer202

Woody,

That looks like a fantastic display. I love your Berkshires brochure in Photo 2.

I don't think I'm ready to put all my modern brochures into binders, especially if I can pick up 100 or so new maps each year. But I might put my small collection of vintage maps into binders to protect them better.

I'll post a photo of my "system" tonight or tomorrow.

-Andy

TomWhite

My wife secretly threw out dozens of brochures that I saved since the 60s. Several that she didn't send to the dumpster and a 1969 ski atlas, I sent to Jeremy in the early days of NELSAP.

rickbolger

I keep my collection in view binders:

Maine is lumped in with Southern New England because it used to be Massachusetts. The Carolinas and such are either in the Midwest or with NY/PA. There's a Part 2 binder for Vermont, which is on a separate shelf because alphabetical order.

One of my little fun things with the view binders is I print out ski movie posters for the front of them, which nobody ever sees but I like it.

My pages are a haphazard version of Woody's approach. He kindly gave me some of those 3-pocket sheets which are great, but I'm too cheap so I buy whatever is on sale.

Here's one for the Crotched fans:

One of my favorite items isn't a trail map, it's this super cool gizmo. In my youth, these things were a common promotional item:

Back in the early 1990s I was in the magazine publishing business for a couple years, so I'm partial to ski area promotional booklets. I keep my favorites in these pocket files:

It's an ongoing process. I have large envelopes and file folders full of brochures, stickers, trail maps, etc. The operative word is full, so now I have little piles wedged onto bookshelves and whatnot.

There may be boxes of trail maps in a closet but I don't talk about those.

JimK

These collections are making me feel emotional, a life time or two of nostalgia.

afrazer202

My collection is a lot more humble than either Woody's or Rick's. For now, everything is arranged by state or country and simple storage boxes.

But I'm planning to put at least my vintage (1960's) maps into vinyl folders.

ski_it

I’m right with you JimK.
Never saw a spin-a-ski before. I’m so jealous