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Eriksen reflects on 84 years of skiing He grew up near Oslo, skiing cross country before he could read. His parents encouraged his athleticism. His mother had started the first women’s alpine club in the 1930s, and his father, a member of the Norwegian Gymnastic Team, had competed in the 1912 Olympics in Stockholm. He also had a hand in inventing the first alpine ski boot. “It was always sporty people that came through my house,” Eriksen told The Aspen Times. “I knew then, that’s the kind of life that I want to live. That’s the way I was brought up from birth on. I only had a sporty attitude. And only sporty friends.” Eriksen was in Aspen to celebrate his 84th birthday. The Aspen Daily News reports that Eriksen met with more than 200 friends and admirers in a packed ballroom at the Hotel Jerome. They heard him reminisce about being the first skier from outside the Alps to win a gold medal in alpine skiing, which he did in 1952, taking the giant slalom and earning a silver in the slalom. They also heard his memories about growing up in Norway when it was occupied by Germany. “We trained in the summertime, up on the glaciers, while the Germans were occupying Norway. As the years went by, more people did it. In the wintertime, the Germans wanted us to participate with them, but we didn’t want to. So we did our own little training, illegally, where they couldn’t disturb it.” The war had split friends. Before the war, German skier Willy Bogner had stayed with the Eriksens off and on for 10 years. Stein Eriksen credits Bogner with his success as an alpine skier. “We couldn’t meet during the war,” he told Hilary Stunda of The Aspen Times. “He fought for his country; we protected our country. After the war, we could meet him again. There was no animosity there. He was a German. He had to fight for his country.” After the war and his skiing success, Eriksen accepted a job in skiing at Boyne Mountain, in Michigan, for $10,000 a year. He later moved on to Sugarbush in Vermont, Heavenly in California, and then Aspen and Snowmass. He remained in Aspen until 1981, when he moved to Park City to establish a five-star hotel at Deer Valley. He also spends time in Montana. The Times notes that Eriksen, with his somersaults, was something of a forerunner of the freestyle movement. It came from his background in gymnastics. Skiers from the Alps, in contrast, had a foundation in mountain climbing. For all his success in America, Eriksen has never attempted to secure U.S. citizenship. “After all, my races for Norway and the acceptances I had by the Norwegian public, I can never say Norway is not my country anymore. I kept my citizenship, and I will do that until I die,” he told The Times. He also said he has no regrets; only wishes that he could do it all again. “When I came to America, there were maybe one and a half million alpine skiers in this country. Today, there are about 18 to 20 million. If I can take a little credit for what has inspired people by my background and my presence …what can you say?” The origin of the ski area has some interesting twists. The town of Breckenridge, one of Colorado’s first, was “receding into the wilderness,” in the words of Denver Post columnist Ed Quillen, during the 1950s. The mining had largely played out, and creation of interstate highways lay in the future. Into this void stepped Bill Rounds, who had a lumber business based in Wichita, Kan. He formed a new company and asked the Forest Service to look into a permit. The Forest Service at that time was eagerly assisting the ski industry to meet the booming public demand. But not everybody wanted to see skiing in Breckenridge– at least not right away. Across Vail Pass, Pete Seibert was trying to bring Vail online, with an anticipated opening of late 1962. He didn’t want to see any other competition in the area until after Vail had been open at least a year. Bob Berwyn, at the Summit County Citizens Voice, explains that the Forest Service told Seibert not to expect much sympathy. Berwyn notes that even then, the connection of real estate development with ski areas was an issue. The Forest Service rejected Vail’s argument – and Breckenridge opened in 1961. Lift tickets were $4, $2.50 for youngsters. The resort counted 17,000 skier days that first season. Ironically, the ski area is now owned by Vail Resorts. Some of the original figures at Breckenridge remain. Trygve Berge, who is now 80, was a Norwegian racer who had been recruited by Stein Eriksen. According to an account in the Daily News, Berge, along with Sigurd Rockne, who still lives in Breckenridge, hatched the idea of a ski area in Summit County during meetings with Rounds, the lumberman, in the fall of 1960. That meeting was in Aspen. So, in a sense, Breckenridge is an off-shoot of Aspen. The same can be said for Vail, Telluride, Wolf Creek and probably a dozen others. Not that many people will pay it, but walk-up customers at the Vail and Beaver Creek ski areas will pay $105 this season. The Aspen Skiing Co. is charging $104 for a last-minute, single-day lift ticket this season. That’s the same benchmark the ski company established last February, during President’s Weekend. Deer Valley, a traditional leader in pricing, is at $96 – but that does not include Christmas week. The resort’s website didn’t specify the Christmas week rate as of last weekend. Few people pay such prices, of course. All resorts offer package incentives for multi-day purchases, and the Vail Resorts season passes, in particular, offer huge discounts for pre-season purchases. In fact, the ski area and real-estate development were a package from the outset. Just the same, the town has schools, a hospital and, if not a cemetery in a traditional sense, at least a memory park, suitable for ashes and inscriptions honoring those who cannot imagine an eternity anywhere else. But local officials want to retain all the parts of community infrastructure. Eyes were raised last week when the Vail Daily reported that school officials were examining the possibility of closing Red Sandstone Elementary, among other schools, in an effort to trim $5.5 million from the annual budget. Also an option: laying off teachers, who make an average $64,000 annually, when benefits are included. Town officials are also not taking the local hospital for granted. Partly to help ensure it remains for another 40 or 50 years, they are looking at a public-private redevelopment that would yield a row of taller buildings along Interstate 70. As for the town’s biggest employer, town officials are still smarting that Vail Associates, when it became Vail Resorts and a corporate operator, moved down-valley to Avon and then to a suburb of Boulder. “We need to flush out every single issue involved with a potential bid,” committee-co-chairman Don Elliman told The Denver Post. “The questions are what will be the benefits, and if there are downsides, pinpoint what they are.” The committee appointed by Denver Mayor Michael Hancock and Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper includes Harry Frampton, chairman of the Vail Valley Foundation; and Ernie Blake, former mayor of Breckenridge. The Aspen Daily News reports that ESPN is listening to proposals from other venues that want to host the events after the contract with Aspen Skiing Co. expires in January. “We have been in negotiations over a year at this point, and we don’t have a deal,” John Rigney, vice president for events with the ski company, told the newspaper. “There is a palpable nervousness in the community,” he said. By all accounts, the X Games have been a big hit in Aspen. The number of spectators last winter pushed to 114,000, easily besting the previous record of 84,000. There were, of course, long lines for restaurants stretching out into streets on a weekend that, prior to the arrival of X Games in 2002, was a bit sleepy. As well, Aspen leaders see the X Games as part of their strategy to reinvent themselves as a mountain resort, introducing themselves to a new generation of visitors and, perhaps, real estate buyers. “It’s critical for the city,” said Aspen Mayor Mike Ireland. “This is how they become familiar with the sport.” The city government is committed to chipping in $100,000 to host the X Games. The Daily News did not report the broader community package, but Rigney did say that ESPN asks for a “significant increase in support.” Those flights are subsidized and, during recent years, at an increasingly higher cost. To reduce the deficits, the resort community reduced the flights. This year, there are 11 percent fewer seats available. But after Christmas, the number of purchased seats has declined by 12 percent, reports the Crested Butte News. Airline flight consultant Kent Meyers tells local authorities that lodging reservations are soft across the Colorado Rockies. – Allen Best |