Books for the Skier in Your Life

New Mexico's long and distinguished skiing history began with the miners of the late 19th century and its pioneer settlers. Ski area development was launched in the 1930s in the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque and quickly spread to the southernmost range of the Rocky Mountains--the Sangre de Cristos, north of Santa Fe. Students of a boarding school, the Los Alamos Ranch School, took up the sport in the Jemez Mountains, and when the school was occupied in the 1940s by American and international scientists like Neils Bohr working to create the world's first atomic bomb, they enthusiastically pursued skiing in their rare spare time. Taos Ski Valley's founding in 1955 elevated the scene to world-class status, and today, there are eight major downhill ski areas and one cross-country center stretching from the deserts of south-central New Mexico to the Colorado border.

Located 8,671 feet in the clouds, Lake City sits on the edge of the beautiful San Juan Mountains on Colorado's Western Slope. Between Lake City and Silverton, 28 miles away, are towering 14,000-foot mountains with three nearly 13,000-foot-high passes and scenery that takes one's breath away. Lake City began as a booming gold and silver camp, complete with a narrow-gauge railroad, 4,000 residents, a smelter, and rich investors looking for their El Dorado. Today, the beautiful little town, tucked away in the Rocky Mountains, is a haven for the many tourists who come to hike, ski, fish, climb, and relax in the quaint Shangri-La of Colorado.

Organized ski racing in America started near Lake Tahoe in the 1860s when gold miners rode 15-foot boards that reached speeds near 100 miles per hour. By 1895, residents of Truckee had started the nation's first winter carnival west of the Rocky Mountains and soon built the largest ski jump in California. Today's Lake Tahoe, with significant annual snowfall, has become home to the largest concentration of ski resorts on the continent. Places like Mount Rose, Squaw Valley (home of the 1960 Winter Olympics), Sugar Bowl, Heavenly Valley, Homewood, Sierra-at-Tahoe, Alpine Meadows, Kirkwood, Diamond Peak, Donner Ski Ranch, Granlibakken, and Northstar-at-Tahoe have seen skiing styles, sports, and fashions churn through the decades, while now gone resorts, such as Edelweiss and White Hills Ski Resort, echo the memories of yesterday's skiers through the pines.

During the early 1960s, local leaders in western and northwestern North Carolina were dedicated to developing winter recreational opportunities in the mountains. North Carolina's ski industry dates back to the winter of 1961–1962, when the Cataloochee resort in Maggie Valley developed the first ski slope in the state. Once thought impossible to make snow south of the Mason-Dixon Line, technological innovations in snowmaking allowed several other resorts to develop through the 1970s, including Appalachian Ski Mountain, Beech Mountain, Sugar Mountain, Wolf Ridge, and Ski Sapphire Valley, all of which still operate today. Images of smaller ski areas, such as Hound Ears, Seven Devils, and Mill Ridge, are featured to honor these now defunct clubs. Many of the present-day resorts have incorporated snowboarding, snowshoeing, ice-skating, and snow tubing, along with mountain biking trails for summer recreation on the slopes. North Carolina Ski Resorts showcases the rich recreational history of western and northwestern North Carolina.

Author Lynn Arave gathered rare historic photographs to capture the majestic Wasatch Mountains - the rugged backbone of northern Utah.

Stretching some 160 miles, from Nephi on the south to Grace, Idaho, on the north, their elevations rise to nearly 12,000 feet above sea level. Mount Nebo, at the range’s south end, is a mammoth, triple-peaked monolith at a top elevation of 11,928 feet, the Wasatch’s highest. Dozens of densely vegetated and narrow canyons cut through the Wasatch. Thirteen public ski resorts, plus hundreds of miles of hiking and biking trails, bisect the Wasatch and offer world-famous recreation. These mountains were the centerpiece of the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympic Games and will also be for the Salt Lake 2034 Olympic Games. This book contains more than 125 historic photographs, including dozens of vintage pictures from the Wasatch Mountain Club’s collection.

The history of skiing in the Midwest closely parallels the history of the settling of the region. The Norwegians, Finns, and Swedes who emigrated to the Midwest brought with them this sport, one that began as necessary means of transportation in their native Scandinavian homelands. Whether it be the excitement of the cross country race, or the daring young men and women risking life and limb jumping the hills, skiing captured the imagination of the immigrants and locals alike. Together they formed local ski clubs and participated in competitions across the region throughout the long winter months, and many of these same daredevils showcased their talents to the world as members of US Olympic teams. Midwest Skiing: A Glance Back is a stunning visual history that allows us to look back not only on the early times and places, but the people who made this pastime into one of the most popular recreational and competitive sports.

Skiing in New England has not always been such a breathtaking sport connected with winter vacations at distant and local resorts. From the early 1870s, Norwegian, Swedish, and Finnish immigrants utilized skis to carry the mail and to travel through the woods to school and work. Later, a group of college men at Dartmouth founded the Outing Club, which transformed skiing from everyday practicality into swift-moving recreation. Since that time, the excitement and exhilaration of skiing has spread nationwide. In this volume, we will explore the history of skiing in this region, from its early, simpler days of cross-country and jumping to the rising popularity of alpine skiing beginning in the 1930s. Rather than a technical history, this book concentrates on presenting a story that is fluid like the sport itself, focusing on places, personalities, and major innovations between the early 1870s and 1940.

Settled by miners and Mormons after the Civil War and incorporated in 1884, Park City grew into one of the world's most prestigious mining camps.

Known primarily for its richness in silver, Park City miners also extracted lead, zinc, gold, and copper from the surrounding hills. With the town and its mines located at over 7,000 feet above sea level, miners faced brutal winters to unleash treasure for the nation. As the mines grew, so too did the town, attracting businesspeople, grocers, doctors, lawyers, teachers, and more to the area, in addition to miners and prospectors seeking to strike it rich. While most miners faced tough lives and died young, some did create legacies beyond their wildest dreams. Park City made many a millionaire, including David Keith, Thomas Kearns, R.C. Chambers, John Judge, John Daly, and Suzanne Bransford Emery Holmes Delitch Engalitcheff (also known as the "Silver Queen"). From mines large (like the Silver King and the Ontario) to small (like the Nelson Queen), Park City's early history is that of the triumphs and tragedies of mining, the ebbs and flows of the community, and the metals that made it all happen.

Dalton Gackle is the research, digital services, and social media coordinator at the Park City Museum (Park City, Utah). An American West and pop culture historian by way of the Midwest, Gackle manages the Park City Museum's Hal Compton Research Library.

With its glaciated peaks, temperate rain forests, and ocean wilderness, Olympic National Park has been called three parks in one. Efforts to protect and preserve these treasures began with the creation of a federal reserve in 1897, followed by a national monument in 1909, and then Olympic National Park in 1938. The 1920s and 1930s saw the building of many trails, shelters, and roads. In 1934, the US Forest Service completed a primitive road to the summit of Blue Mountain, affording skiing at Deer Park, and in 1957, the National Park Service completed an improved road to Hurricane Ridge. These two areas have offered alpine (lift-assisted) skiing to several generations. While these roads remain today, the recognition of the value of preserved wilderness has stopped road construction. In 1988, most of the park became federally designated wilderness. In 1981, Olympic National Park was designated a World Heritage Site.

Known for its sunshine and sandy beaches filled with bathing beauties and musclemen, Southern California is a Mediterranean-climate haven for winter-weary Americans from Michigan to Maine. But for those with a hankering for winter sports, one could scarcely ignore the snowcapped peaks of Mount Baldy and San Gorgonio shimmering in the bright California sunshine. By the 1930s, skiing was all the rage, with the towns of Big Pines, Lake Arrowhead, and Big Bear Lake evolving into popular snow-sport locales. Southern California was also home to many who made their mark in the world of American skiing: Walter Mosauer, the father of skiing in Southern California; Tyler Van Degrift, owner of Los Angeles's first ski shop; Clarita Heath Bright, talented member of the first U.S. Women's Olympic ski team; Dorothy McClung Wullich, first woman member of the National Ski Patrol; and Sepp Benedikter and Tommi Tyndall, both leading the way with ski schools and instruction. These and many others are documented here in this collection of rare and vintage images of Southern California skiing.