I have come to the conclusion that complaining doesn’t get a person anywhere, unless the person you are complaining to can do something about your complaints.
A few years ago when I was making ski movies, as I did for 55 years, I had three extreme skiers sitting around at lunch and we were talking about the advances in ski design and manufacturing. Before long, I had a bet going that as good as those skiers were that they would have a hard time turning a pair of 1947 top-of-the-line Northland skis with bear trap bindings, little camber and almost no side cut. The skis were made out of laminated hickory and sold for $23.95 in better ski shops. We managed to round up three pair of these vintage skis, adjusted the bindings and set out to film how those extreme skiers would handle them on a modest slope; almost a flat slope would be the better description.
“They can remember everything about that first day on skis because it was their first day of total freedom.”
The snow was hard-packed granular and the edges were not offset. Skier No. one started across the hill in a long traverse and never could make the first turn, but ran out of ski slope and onto the gravel road that led to the maintenance shed.
He did a step turn that took about 10 steps until he was headed back toward my camera. About 3 feet below where he had left 10 minutes before, he arrived one angry, sweating, frustrated, extreme skier of the 1990s.
Almost the same thing happened to the next two extreme skiers and it must have taken them 30 minutes each, experimenting with every ski technique they had ever read about before they could finally turn the skis. They all fell back onto 1940 Arlberg with a lot of French-exaggerated rotation, while in a wide-stem position that is called Slice of Pizza today. An hour or so later, I was able to finally run my camera and document these extreme skiers on 1947 ski gear, as they struggled down the hill at 4 or 5 mph.
This exercise did not prove anything except that thanks to the ski manufacturers and the millions of dollars in research and development, the sport is so much more user friendly. Is it easier today? I don’t know. All I know is that all of the time it took a person to learn how to ski 50 years ago is now spent earning the extra money needed so they can go skiing.
In 1948, the only year I spent as a ski racer, my skis were Northland seconds because they had a knot in the wood near the tip and they cost me $22.95, instead of $24.95. My ski boots were the top-of-the-line soft leather and were $19.95. I think the formula to translate all of these numbers is to add a zero or two to everything and then you come up with a realistic figure for cost of skiing in today’s dollars.
For a first-time skier to turn today’s skis, it is still not easy. Skiing has been defined as being too far away, too cold, too dangerous and too expensive. Once a person can overcome all of those reasons for not trying skiing, the rest is easy. Find a friend who owns a condo somewhere, hitch a weekend ride with them and your life will be changed forever.
I can ask anyone who learned to ski after the age of 4 if they can remember their first day on skis and they get a glazed look in their eye as the remember where they skied, who with, how they got there, what they had for lunch and what the weather was like. They can remember everything about that first day on skis because it was their first day of total freedom. The only thing that held them back was their amount of courage as they were in the middle of their first turn and governed only by gravity.
My first day of freedom was in 1937 on corn snow on Mount Waterman, 50 miles from where I lived in Hollywood at the time. Since then, I have turned my skis and filmed other skiers on mountains from Zermatt, Switzerland to New Zealand and from Alaska to Chile and everything in between. It has been an incredible trip so far.
Warren Miller is history’s most prolific and enduring ski filmmaker. Visit warrenmiller.net or his Facebook page at facebook.com/warrenmiller. Read more of Warren’s stories at TheTahoeWeekly.com.
