Sugar Bowl, which many consider to offer the greatest skiing in California— oh, all right, in the world—is marking its 60th anniversary this year. The book that celebrates this, “Skiing With Style,” is an absolute joy, if—and I repeat, if—you understand it is basically an affectionate family album and scrapbook, compiled by loving hands, full of memorabilia that may not make a whole lot of sense to outsiders, and with a storyline that essentially goes from one pet Sugar Bowl icon to another (leaving out the bad parts, of course), to yield a compelling narrative of a hitherto neglected, but vital part of ski history.
That’s a long, pompous sentence designed to say, “This book is fun and full of fascinating detail that is much too important to be labeled as history.” Actually, it doesn’t pretend to be history, which is just as well.
No, this book captures the essence of something it is hard to convey without sounding impossibly snobbish. The essence of Sugar Bowl is the group of people behind it, together with the love of skiing that made it all happen. Yeah. That’s really corny to today’s ears. But, all of you cynics, in the case of Sugar Bowl, it’s really true.
I read the galleys of this book at about the same time I read a news item in the New York Times, the headline of which read, “Housing for Poorer Neighbors Offends Vail’s Rich.” The juxtaposition was really weird: the Sugar Bowl blue bloods and Vail arrivistes; Warren Hellman and Henry Kravis.
Sugar Bowl was built by and for the elite and moneyed society of greater San Francisco’s Bay Area. But this was in the late 30s and on through the 50s. Names like… well, let’s not name drop. Just accept the fact that the names associated with Sugar Bowl—not just associated with, but who built homes there—were (god, I hate to use the expression) top drawer. They were not only the money and power elite (another expression I loathe), but also mixed in with some Hollywood celebs. Okay, let’s name a couple: Charlie Chaplin, who shot much of “Gold Rush” on what was to be Sugar Bowl; and Walt Disney, whose $2,500 investment resulted in Hemlock Peak being renamed Mount Disney.
But here’s what sets all this apart from the ski scene across the country: these people truly loved the idea of skiing; they loved skiing. They built houses in the Donner Summit world of Sugar Bowl and they reflected the spirit of the place, the devotion to skiing, the Tyrolean gemütlichkeit that prevailed, thanks to founder Hannes Schroll. Singing, zithers, dancing.
Kids grew up there and passed on their love for the place—and their love for skiing—to their kids, the ones who are skiing there now, and the grandkids. It isn’t corny; it’s real. The active racing programs are real. And the spirit is real.
Is it overstating the point to say that the spirit of Sugar Bowl is one of the things that’s missing on the national ski scene today? I don’t think so.
Reading this book and understanding the impact that people like Hannes Schroll, Bill Klein and others had on the growth of the sport in the West, is to begin to understand the terrible alternative that developed elsewhere and which has led the sport into a dead-end alley.
Every week, the real estate supplement of the Vail Trail features multi-million-dollar palaces that are traded among the super-rich for whom a Vail, Telluride or Aspen get-away is considered a statement for those who have “arrived.”
The Sugar Bowl founding families, god knows, had the wherewithal to do what they wanted, but in those days it was all about skiing, not about displaying wealth. A 1947 feature in Vogue marveled at the resort’s “charm and serenity,” and showed the modest chalet-style houses that Sugar Bowl stockholders had built.
And it is that “all about skiing” that we seem to have lost today. And which unleashes on us the contempt, have-not fury and disdain of many of our environmentalist detractors.
But I have strayed from the book I am reviewing. In brief, it tells the story of how the resort came to be, how it changed itself from the sort of clubby operation it started as into a major force in the ski world. Never measured on the basis of how many beds it offered, the resonance of Sugar Bowl has come from its extraordinarily successful ski school and racing programs. And from the incomperable skiing it offers.
Maybe this book is for you; quite probably it’s not. (Realistically, they’re only printing 3,000 copies, exclusive of a luxury limited edition of 100.) But if you’re interested in stylish ski and après-ski fun through the years, let this book be your guide. But please don’t get the idea this is a “Skiing’s-not-what-it-used-to-be” lament; it’s not. You might even be able to pick up a couple of wonderful retro ideas that will make your ski operation cool today.
The book was written by Robert Frohlich, who soldiered on with the project after Steve Humphries, who had contracted to write the book, died in May of this year. Frohlich picked up the many threads and loose ends and in less than three months, amazingly pulled it all together into a finished book. It is not unkind to Frohlich or his publishing and editing support, to say that the rushed timetable shows a little bit. But the material he had to deal with is compelling and spirited enough to make it mercifully forgiving.
