Winter 1963

Many of my adventures were about the “good old days” and there is a reason for that, those days were good and they will never happen again.  For my children, they will someday have their “good old days” to reflect upon but they will never be the same as mine.

I started skiing at the age of 2, this was not because my Mom or Dad felt it was necessary to get a start at it as soon as possible, I would like to think is was more a matter of convenience.  The Little Nell lift was close to all of the downtown businesses and it was a convenient place to meet up with friends and family.  I do not remember much from the age of 2, but by 3 some of my memories were becoming more permanent, at least for the next 40 or 50 years.  As the story goes, so it has been passed onto me, by the age of 3 I could go skiing on Little Nell while my mom stayed at the bottom or in a near-by business and my father was at work up on the mountain. All my life I have had a ski pass and even back then, my mom kept my passes from over the years and the one I wore that year was a small, flat piece of wood with “Aspen Skiing Corporation Season Pass 1963” engraved on it and the number 19.

I was not able to get on the lift by myself but there were always lift operators willing to help out, besides I was related to most of them.  At the top, getting off was easy, I basically threw myself out of the chair and headed to the bottom.  Each run down consisted of only a turn or two and I was in a permanent snowplow but that did not stop me or even slow me down for that matter.  At the bottom I could ski on for blocks since the North of Nell Building did not exist and neither did many of the other obstacles that exist today. The old A-frames on the corner of Hunter and Durant were the first obstacle and if you cleared them you were “home free.”  In fact I could ski all the way to my grandfather’s grocery store in the Wheeler Opera House building. 

I remember one individual who was quite concerned about a little boy at that age skiing all by himself.  But when he pointed it out to the lift operators, they all knew me by name and told him not to worry.  In today’s world you would never leave your children alone like that but that was the kind of small town Aspen was in the early 60’s.  That is what makes this adventure so special.