In the mid-1950s there was a Sun Valley ski patrolman featured in my annual ski film. I had movies of him rocketing down the Christmas Bowl Ridge towing a toboggan. After the audience got used to his high speed I casually mentioned that he only had one leg.
I was surprised the next morning when the telephone rang in my Utah hotel room and it was a man named Ed Siegel who wanted to take me to lunch. I have a reputation for never passing up a free meal and at lunch he explained two things: 1) that he had lost his leg just below the knee when he broke his leg skiing, and 2) as a chronic alcoholic, it led to him not taking care of his broken leg and as a result it had to be amputated below the knee.
I located the Sun Valley ski patrolman and hooked him up with Ed Siegel and they became great friends.
Within two weeks of Ed seeing my movie, he rented ski equipment and went up to Alta and took a get-acquainted lesson with Alf Engen.
Ed joined Alcoholics Anonymous soon thereafter and the next thing I knew he was the general manager of Dodge Ridge in central California. From there, he moved on to become general manager of the Sugar Bowl California, where the first chairlift was built in California.
While he was managing the Sugar Bowl, I hired his sales manager away from him and Art Lawson became my No. 1 salesman. Art was so good at selling I had to hire a cameraman. Don Brolin came to work for me when he didn’t even know how to thread up a 16mm camera, but he was so good at everything he tried, we worked together for 35 years.
While Don Brolin and I were traveling all over the world taking the pictures that a lot of people seemed to like, Ed Siegel was moving along with his life at Waterville Valley, having settled down and married with kids.
Then, he went to work for the Head ski company as a factory representative. The next thing I knew, Ed had moved to Sun Valley, Idaho.
There he has become an alcoholic and drug rehab counselor and still skis on his gimpy leg, plays golf and rides his bicycle. Ed and I still stay in contact with each other by telephone two or three times a year.
As we all know, ski resorts have their share of drug and alcohol problems and, unfortunately, there are never enough alcoholic counselors like Ed to help them get their lives back in order.
For some reason, it has always been a mystery to me why a person who can climb on a chairlift ride to the top of the mountain and have total freedom in his or her life would need additional help from drugs or alcohol. Thank goodness for the Ed Siegels of the world who are there to give them a hand.
Warren Miller is history’s most prolific and enduring ski filmmaker. Visit warrenmiller.net or visit his Facebook page at facebook.com/warrenmiller.
