1960’s

Skitching, bumper hitching, bumpershining, poggying or “hooky bobbing” – no matter what it is called.  In the 1960’s the kids of Aspen could have won Olympic Gold had it been a sanctioned sport.  Back then the technologies and chemicals to keep the streets free of snow and ice were limited to shovels and snowplows or an occasional dose of salt.  The City of Aspen Streets Department did a good job of keeping the streets plowed in the winter leaving a smooth layer of snow or ice on top of the road surface after every snow storm.

For the kids, and some adults, this turned Aspen into a giant ice rink after every good snow storm.  Although it was illegal, many of us would walk to the slopes to go skiing but at the end of the day, we just skied all the way home.  The same went for those of us who played hockey at the Brown Ice Palace, skating to or from the rink was much easier than walking especially if we had all of our pads, sticks and helmets in tow.

On some winter evenings the kids would all congregate in the “core area” of town down on Cooer Street.  The Cooper Street Pier, Red Onion and Pinocchio’s were all down there so it was a logical place to go to meet up with friends.  If conditions were good enough a virtual tournament would ensure to see who the best “skitcher” was.  Some of the passing cars encouraged the activity and would even go a safe speed when their bumper was full.  Other drivers would yell and scream at the kids to stay away, or they would speed up.  When the drivers sped up it was like a giant invitation for the elite skitchers into the game.

When the police showed up everyone scattered like roaches in the light.  As soon as they left we would eventually return to Cooper Street and continue the events.  On a few rare occasions some of the “bolder” kids would actually skitch on the bumpers of the police cars until they were noticed and then they would scurry off into the darkness.

Even though the practice was considered dangerous I do not recall anyone seriously injured over the years.  There were a few bumps and bruises and a couple of times where kids would end up underneath cars when they unexpectedly stopped but no one ever went to the hospital or jail for that matter.

With magnesium chloride and the other the chemicals put down on the roads in cold weather these days, they rarely have the conditions optimal for Skitching anymore.

1967 Est.

If you were inside the Brown Ice Palace skating rink the noise was deafening.  It always came as a surprise whenever the built up snow cascaded off the roof and it was over with in an instant.  Outside the cause of the noise would reveal itself and sometimes cars were an unwanted and unexpected casualty.

Winter snow storms in Aspen can drop more snow in a day than most places on earth see in an entire winter season.  This can cause considerable damage to poorly designed roofs, garages, barns and even basement windows.

The Brown Ice Place revealed a design flaw a few winters after its construction.  I guess it did not immediately reveal itself since some winters, even in Aspen, can be mild and drop little to no snow in big doses.  In the winter of 1967 the flaw revealed itself in a big way.  After a couple of weeks of heavy snow building up on the roof much in the same manner that it does in the high country, eventually it would have to go somewhere.

Engineers were called in to make sure the roof could handle the weight of the snow and it turns out it could.  Plans were made for people to go up on the roof to shovel off some of the buildup but that was quickly canceled after an assessment of the risk concluded that the snow could go at any moment.  Lefty Brinkman and his maintenance crew turned the inside temperature of the building down to help prevent the snow from becoming even more unstable.

No matter what they did, the snow continued to build up.  Sadly, in all the planning and mitigation work, they failed to close off West Hyman Avenue along the block that the Ice Palace was on.  That evening the snow let go and cascaded down on to Hyman Avenue, covering a number of parked cars and even going as far as into the yards of the houses across the street.  It took nearly a week for the City of Aspen to clear the street and dig everything out.

Following the great “Brown Ice Palace Avalanche” steps were taken to prevent similar disasters in the years that followed.  There were still occasions when the snow would build up enough to slide of the metal roof of the building but the maintenance crew made sure that it never got the chance to accumulate too much at any one time.

Now more commonly known as The Aspen Ice Gardens, The Brown Ice Palace still stands as a testament to Ruthie Brown who built it for the people and community she loved.

1976

It was one of the hottest days of the summer that mid-July when what appeared to be a new Learjet 25 landed at Aspen’s Sardy Field.  What exited the aircraft was somewhat of a shock but few people even took notice except for some of the other “ramp workers” and me.

The pilots, dressed in their airline looking uniforms exited first and headed to the office.  The other occupants took much longer to exit and only did so when informed that they could not be on board while we fueled the aircraft.  The two remaining occupants looked like they had just flown in from some sort of rock concert or Rastafarian get together.   Very long hair, baggy clothes and un-shaven, these guys did not look like your normal corporate jet passengers.  For a few minutes we thought they might be members of a rock band but we soon learned that was not the case.

To make things even stranger, the pilots jumped into a rental car and the other two individuals headed out on to highway 82 and began hitch-hiking into town.  The rest of the day seemed rather boring for us out on the ramp after what we had just witnessed but the oddities had just begun.

I was one of the first to arrive to work at Monarch Aviation, the local “Fixed Based Operator” at Sardy Field the next morning and much to my surprise the two individuals were back. They were fast asleep under one of the wings of the Learjet, with the door to the aircraft wide open.  Even Stranger, they had placed their “boom box” on the wing above them and their music was blaring as they slept.  After a couple of other ramp workers had arrived and the laughing had abated we headed out to the Learjet to wake them up and get them off the field before the police arrived.

They were not easy to wake up but once they did the story only got stranger. 

As it turned out, the jet belonged to their father who had a home in Snowmass.  The plane had come out to get their parents who were leaving the next day.  Apparently they were not getting along with their parents at the time and did not want them to know they were in town, they had come for the summer concert series in Snowmass.  The pilots gave them a ride to town and promised not to tell their parents but that was where their help ended.  Having no money or a place to stay, they decided to sleep in the aircraft but were to uncomfortable and ended out under the wings. 

Later that day the Learjet left with their parents aboard.  We heard that they snuck into the family’s Snowmass house and lived there for rest of the summer.  We never saw them again.

1974 – 1984

Not long after I stopped ski racing with the local ski club, I was hired by the Aspen Skiing Company, as it was called back then, to be a ski instructor at Buttermilk Mountain.  I was assigned to the Kids Ski School with an occasional private lesson or temporary duty assignment on one of the other mountains.  For the most part, Buttermilk was my home base and I preferred it.   I have numerous stories to tell from my years as an instructor.  Who wouldn’t when working with such dignitaries as Frog, Toad, Moose, “Mark Mark”, Captain and Sarg?  This is one of my favorite memories from my life on the “bunny” slopes.

In the early years of my instructing career, Buttermilk still had the old T-Bar at the base of the mountain which was used very extensively by the beginner classes.  Although I was not, and remain to this day, fluent in Spanish I often took the classes filled with kids from Latin American countries.  The language barrier all but disappeared when it came to teaching people how to ski.  A few words in Spanish mixed in with demonstrating what needed to be learned and in no time your class would be off to the “Blue” runs.  I also benefited from the few children throughout the years who spoke Spanish as their first language and were also fluent in English.

I was always amazed that the more I messed up my Spanish the more they loved it.  Terms like “caliente el perro y leche” for lunch or “Ariba la Montana y esperar me rojo polo” to get them to go up the T-Bar and wait for me at the half-way point, got the best reactions and they knew exactly what I was trying to say.

The hardest part of teaching beginners was getting them onto the T-Bar.  It was often a ballet of kids and adults alike along its path.  Some never made it to the loading zones while others refused to let go and would be dragged to the top.  Even more would hold on for dear life and not let go when they arrived at the top and would pile up under the “bull wheel.”  The obstacle course of bodies, skis and poles kept the trip to the top very interesting, every step of the way. 

To make matters worse, every class had a student or two that refused to go up without their instructor, making it that much more difficult to get the entire class up the hill at the same time.  Adding Spanish into to the equation things got very interesting.  There was a running challenge in the Kid’s Ski School to see who could take the most children up the T-Bar at the same time.  In the winter of 1975 I had a class of 10 students all from Mexico, Peru and Argentina and none of them spoke a lick of English.  On the second trip up the T-Bar, I was about to set a new record. 

Although the class had already been up to the “red pole” or the half way point before, I was suddenly faced with a possible revolt if I did not take them up all at once.  With the help of the lift operators we got them all into position for the trip to the top.  Two rode on my shoulders, three were between my legs, two were on each side and one held onto the back of my coat and we were off.  I hoped to make it all the way to the top, although getting to the mid-point would be all I needed to set the record and get the kids up the hill.  Although I never set out to make the record I was pleased that I had.  The record stands to this day, but only because the T-Bar was replaced by a chairlift a few years later.

I continued to be a Ski Instructor for 10 more years and enjoyed every minute of it.  Over the years I taught kids, teenagers, adults, private lessons, friends of all ages and even some very famous people but the students I liked the best were the littlest of them all.

1979

Throughout my childhood years I had the opportunity to go up with the crews designing the Snowmass Ski Area as well as the teams that researched the possibility of building a resort on Haystack Mountain.  In the end Snowmass became a reality while the Haystack Mountain research may have been nothing more than posturing to prevent a competitor from developing it.  The mountain never became a resort.

Little did I know that would not be the first time I was a part of new ski area.  Years later, in 1979 I was given the opportunity to fly to Park City, Utah to see the new Deer Valley Ski Resort while it was under construction.

As the Class President my senior year one of my tasks was to find the keynote speaker for our graduation ceremony in June of that year.  I considered a number of local celebrities and businessmen for the task and in the end I was able to get Edgar Stern.  Edgar Stern was a successful businessman with his roots in the south where he had a number of holdings through his Royal Street Corporation.  He had also been involved in other resorts in Park City, Utah and owned the Sir Francis Drake Hotel in San Francisco.  Locally he had a number of holdings and was responsible for the creation of the exclusive Starwood residential community. 

During my conversations with Mr. Stern, the new Deer Valley Resort that he was developing came up as did my love of flying and all things aviation.  When he offered to let me go with him the following weekend to check out the new ski resort, I nearly fell out of my skin.  Not because I cared all that much about the ski area, I was more interested in how we were going to get there.

Over the years Mr. Stern had owned a number of private aircraft including a Gulfstream I and a King Air.   In 1979 he owned a Sabreliner 40A, a seven passenger corporate jet.  I had never flown in a business jet and the opportunity to do so was irresistible.  The trip to Salt Lake City International took about an hour and a half.  We landed in Salt Lake City since the local Park City airport could not accommodate aircraft of that size or weight.  It was a really fun ride over the mountains but it did not last anywhere near long enough.

In Salt Lake City we grabbed a rental car for the quick trip up to Park City.  All joking aside, I remember the Osmond’s were on the radio when we climbed into the car which seemed only fitting.

Our day included hiking around on a few of the trails that were already cut as well as looking at the potential paths the lifts would follow on the slopes.  We also looked at all the buildings that were under construction in the base area.  Our return trip home was just as quick and every bit as much fun. 

A few months later Edgar Stern spoke at our graduation.  His message escapes me but the ride on his Sabreliner never will.  Deer Valley opened two years later, in the winter of 1981.  I have never skied there but it is still on my “bucket list.”

1960’s & 70’s

Robert Norman “Badger Bob” Johnson, coach of Team USA at the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics owes some of his success to the Ice Hockey Camps he held every summer in Aspen in the late 1960’s and into the 1970’s.

The Brown Ice Palace, later known as the Aspen Ice Gardens, was home to Coach Johnson’s summer camps.   Coach Johnson started the camps while he was the head hockey coach for Colorado College, a position he took in 1963, and even after he moved to the University of Wisconsin (Madison) in 1966 he continued to hold his summer hockey camps in Aspen.  Some of his students, including his son, Mark; who attended the summer camps went on to be members of Team USA and were part of the miracle on Ice.

The Hockey camp had to share the ice with a Figure Skating Clinic which also attracted talented figure skaters from all over the United States every summer.  The ice sharing arrangement was tenuous at best and was the cause of many verbal disagreements between the two camps throughout the summers.  Disagreements aside, the skaters themselves found a convenient dating service out of the two programs.  The participants knew that they would all go their separate ways by summer’s end so the usual commitment issues were never a problem. 

I worked upstairs at the refreshment stand at the Brown Ice Palace for a number of summers and got to know Coach Johnson and many of his players.  They were a good group of guys and would willingly let a number of the local boys skate with them and pick up pointers.  Most of us that worked for Lefty Brinkman, manager of the Ice Rink, played in the local hockey programs.  The pointers we learned from Coach Johnson and his players made the local Aspen Teams tough to beat throughout the years.

Little did we know we were skating with a bunch of guys that would go on to make history?