By Basil Service

It was on the slope of Sun Valley that the divisions between the sports of Alpine Skiing (riding a lift up a slope to ski down) and Alpine Touring (walking or skiing up a slope to ski down) transpired.  Prior to 1936 and the invention of the chair-lift, nearly all downhill skiing was accomplished with Alpine Touring techniques.  As chair-lifts were constructed on Proctor and Dollar Mountains in 1936, on Ruud Mountain in 1937 and on Bald Mountain in 1939, the sport of Alpine Touring began its rapid decline while Alpine Skiing soon became the primary means to accomplish a downhill run on skis.  Sun Valley’s Ski School accommodated this unique occurrence in Alpine Skiing History, not as a follower but as a leader by changing its curriculums towards American in patients of learning to ski in the shortest time possible.  The Alpine Touring History of Sun Valley includes many individuals (Not just Austrians) and many Nationalities, and if you really want to trace Sun Valley’s Alpine Skiing beginnings back to its source you will then have to either start with the Swiss, in Murren, Switzerland and Sir Arnold Lunn, or with the Austrians in the Arlberg of Austria and Hannes Schneider.

 

 

 

I am a third generation Idaho Native and Graduate of Pocatello’s Idaho State University with degrees in Business and History.  I am a 35 year Fully Certified (Level III) member of the Professional Ski Instructors of America, a 24 year Member of the Sun Valley, Idaho Ski School and present day Adaptive Instructor. I have skied off of more than 100 Idaho Peaks, and have skied nearly every major ski resort in the States and in the following countries, New Zealand, France, Austria, Switzerland, Italy and Canada.  I have contributed to the following Publications:  Idaho Yesterdays-Journal of Idaho and Northwest History, Sun Valley Magazine (On three separate occasions), Rock and Ice Magazine, Exploring Idaho’s Mountains (Tom Lopez Author) Idaho a Climbing Guide (Tom Lopez Author), Nordic West Magazine, Sun Valley / An Extraordinary History (Wendolyn Spence Holland Author), Second Chances, (Elise Lufkin Author), Twin Falls Times-News, Fur Fish and Game Magazine, Rocky Mountain Game and Fish Magazine, Instructors Edge, Washington Fishing Holes Magazine and Idaho Magazine. My Photography as appeared on the covers of two Magazines.

 

This history is a culmination of 30 years’ worth of journeys thru Alpine Skiing’s most historic regions and interviews with some of Alpine Skiing’s most historic individuals.   Interviews with ski legions, Friedl Pfeifer, Austrian Ski Pioneer and Sun Valley’s 2nd Ski School Director, Otto Lang, Austrian Ski Pioneer and Sun Valley’s 3rd Ski School Director, Andy Hennig, Author and Sun Valley Alpine Touring Pioneer, Alf Engen, Utah and Sun Valley Ski Pioneer, Dick Durrance, American Ski Pioneer and first American Ski Champion to compete successfully with the Europeans, Willie Helming, Sun Valley Instructor and World War II 10th Mountain Division Veteran, Leif Odmark, Sun Valley Nordic and Alpine Skiing Pioneer,  Toni Sailer, One of Austria’s greatest Ski Champions and winner of Sun Valley’s Harriman Cup, Konrad Staudinger, 50 Year Member of Sun Valley’s Ski School-Assistant Ski School Director and Rainer Kolb, Sun Valley’s 8th Ski School Director and Austrian Ski Instruction Pioneer to name just a few.

San Anton Austria

 

The Swiss will argue they have the true roots of Modern Alpine Skiing culminating in their Jungfrau region and specifically the alpine town of Murren where the first organized alpine ski races were held in 1922 and first world alpine championships were held in 1931.  This first World Ski Championship was won by a Swiss, not an Austrian, by the name of Walter Prager.  Their historians claim Sir Arnold Lunn, an English ski mountaineer was well as Swiss Ski Greats Walter Prager, Hans Georg , Jules Fritsch and Fred Iselin are the true pioneers.  The Swiss also noted that Lunn and Schneider teamed together to organize the famous Arlberg Kandahar race, occurring nearly a decade after their Swiss races.  The Swiss historians also argued that alpine skiing, predating Austria’s Arlberg, occurred in St. Moritz where the 1928 Winter Olympic Games were held as well as the 1934 World Alpine Championships.  While no alpine ski events were held in this 28 Olympics, it was still considered a suicidal sport; the first demonstrations of its possible indoctrinations were revealed. 

In the Jungfrau Region of Switzerland at the turn of the 20th century, Cog-Trains scaled the North Wall of the Eiger thru a tunnel to an elevation of over 11,000 feet, as well as scaled the near vertical walls of the Lauterbrunnen Valley (The Waterfall Valley) to the alpine ski towns of Wengen and Murren which sat thousands of feet above the basin floor.  Incredibly, prior to the II World War, none of the trains was used for Alpine Skiing.  Why, because prior to the II World War, nearly all Alpine Skiing was accomplished by climbing up the slope to ski down.  Even in the first Winter Olympic Games to recognize Alpine Skiing as an event (Garmisch, Germany) all contestants had to climb to their venue’s beginnings (No Lifts).  I recall Andy Hennig (Sun Valley’s most famous backcountry skier) telling me “the ski lift killed the sport of alpine skiing by placing the serous limitation on where one can and will ski.” Willi Helming, a backcountry skiing partner of Hennig, Sun Valley Instructor and 10th mountain division veteran often criticized me when he saw me skiing on Baldy during my initial years with the Sun Valley ski School.  He said, “You need to explore when you are young and write about it when you get old.”  While both the Austrian and Swiss versions of Alpine Skiing’s establishments have valid arguments, there are no arguments that Europe had, by far, most of this skiing talent prior to the II World War.  It is also a historical fact that at one time or another, a good portion of this talent ended up in Sun Valley.  Either by fleeing Nazi aggressions, or simply immigrating to seek a better life, Sun Valley, fortunately, became the main benefactor of this alpine skiing migration.  And it is very important to note, these most talented individuals had little if not any concept of using a Ski Lift to accomplish a downhill turn.  They were all Alpine Touring (Ski Mountaineering) experts.

 

The beginning of the 1st World War would see Schneider and his instructors teach the Allied Troops on a massive scale.  After the war, the Ski School in St. Anton became world known when Dr. Arnold Franck’s 1931 film “White Ecstasy” (The Ski Chase) hit the movie theaters.   Being the “Warren Miller” ski film of its day, Arnold Franck set the standard for future ski film producers such as Otto Lang, Dick Barrymore and Warren Miller.

                                                                   Sun Valley’s Alps

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                                                                   Sun Valley’s Sawtooth Mountains

    Fred Iselin                              Friedl Pfeifer   Ellie Staller                                     Sun Valley’s Sawtooth Mountains

Jules Fritsch                                          Hans Georg                                      Walter Prager                           Sir Arnold Lunn                             Fred Iselin

 

 

The arguments for the Austrians are as follows:  Hannes Schneider, who many historians credit as the father of Alpine Skiing, started working as a guide in the Arlberg of Austria in 1907 and by 1921 formalized the true beginnings of an Alpine Ski School (Not a Telemark School).  Traveling to St Moritz, Switzerland on multiple occasions, he defeated the best Swiss downhill racers, who were still using Nordic methods of skiing to accomplish a downhill turn, in many of their Alpine races.  Schneider initially became famous because of his abilities to get down the hill faster, and in one piece, than any other individual in Europe.

 

In the early 1920s, such racing accomplishments didn’t go unnoticed as a hotel resort owner in St. Moritz Switzerland, who envisioned a unique idea of promoting year-round revenues by turning profitless winters into snow-bound playgrounds of cash.  The idea was simple, promote this Swiss hotel as a ski resort and bring in Hannes Schneider to teach the guests to ski.  The industrious resort owner took an immediate liking to this unprecedented idea and offered Hannes free board, lodging and a sum of three francs per day.  Such an offer greatly surprised Hannes, since the profession of a ski instructor had never been conceived as yet, and soon he began to realize that possibly a living could be made at this infant sport.  As word spread that perhaps the best skier in Austria will be exported to a foreign land making them money, the recently formed Arlberg Ski Club at St. Anton, Austria invited Hannes to attend their meeting.  Karl Schuler, the club's founder whose family owned the hotel post in St. Anton, also presented Hannes an instructional position by matching the offer of the Swiss.  This was an irresistible lure to Schneider who quickly accepted.  Schneider's first winter with the hotel post was a remarkable success.  So much so that Schuler asked him to return the following winter by sweetening his salary with an additional bonus of the entire revenues from the ski school.  Hannes would again accept this most bountiful offer and, as a result, the occupation of a professional ski instructor was born on the slopes of St. Anton.

Prager racing in Murren Switzerland

The Master / Hannes Schneider

 

It can also be argued that Lunn’s Swiss races were telemark races as opposed to Alpine downhill races.  While it is a historical fact that Schneider and Lunn were the prime driving forces behind Alpine Skiing’s first introductions as an event in the 1936 Winter Olympic Games in Germany, by the early 1930s it was clear Schneider’s Arlberg Method of downhill skiing was superior and used by nearly all the competitors to win their medals.

   San Anton Austria                                                      The Master / Hannes Schneider

                                                   Jungfrau Region of Switzerland

In 1928, Rudolph Lettner, an Engineer from Salzburg invented and patented the first steel edges; allowing the skies to grip the snow for greater turning control.  This invention, in turn, initiated the first challenge to Schneider's Arlberg technique as the need to stem the ski and the low crouch became unnecessary to some racers with exceptional abilities. Ironically this first challenge was kindled by Austria's own Anton (Toni) Seelos who also taught skiing briefly in St. Anton for Schneider.  Born in Seefeld, in the Tyrol of Austria, Seelos would later Coach the French and American teams, greatly enhancing their 1936 bids for Olympic medals.  Dick Durrance from the United States and Emile Allais from France were both his students.  Seelos’ coaching skills reached its pinnacle with Germany’s Christl Cranz, leading her to an Olympic victory in 1936 and a total of Fifteen World Championship titles; a feat, to date, accomplished by no other alpine skier.  A four-time World Champion himself, Seelos changed the character of slalom by replacing the traditional stem turn with the parallel swing which would later evolve into the “French Technique“ and Emile Allais’s “ruade.“ (Seelos would coach and head the ski school in Seefeld, incredibly till the early 1980s).

Fred Iselin was known as the best ski racer in Europe when he immigrated to the states to become Sun Valley’s assistant Ski School Director under Sun Valley’s second Ski School Director, Friedl Pfeifer in 1939. He would later become one of the most prolific publishers of Arlberg “how to ski” books and articles in the United States.  To date Iselin holds the fastest time in the Grand Prix de Aiguille D Midi, in Chamonix France; a race that was discontinued due to its treacherous fatal reputation.   Iselin along with his wife Ellie Staller, the first female instructor on Sun Valley’s School, summered in the Sawtooth Valley running the Idaho Rocky Mountain Ranch, and made numerous skiing descents guiding guests through the Boulder, Smokey, White Cloud, Salmon River and Sawtooth Mountains.  Many guests got their first taste of skiing Idaho’s amazing Sawtooth Mountains under the able director of Islen, Staller, Andy Hennig and their Guides.   Iselin and Staller, after the II World War, would follow Pfeifer to Aspen where Fred became the Ski School Director of Buttermilk Mountain till his death in the late 70s.

 Schneider throughout the years was a very pragmatic individual who embraced new technology and techniques.  As the ski terrain smoothed, and the equipment became more user-friendly, the stem became less necessary in accomplishing a turn.  As a result, the Arlberg Technique evolved with the times.  It soon became clear by the early 1930s, as a result of Schneider, that the alpine method of skiing was a far more functional way of accomplishing a downhill turn than the Nordic telemark turn.  It is also a historical fact that Prager, Fritsch and Iselin all, at one time or another, worked for Schneider as instructors in Austria.  Prager ended up in the United States where he coached the Dartmouth Ski Club along with soon to be Sun Valley ski guide, Florien Haemmerle.  Prager also aided Sun Valley’s indoctrinations into the sport of Alpine Skiing as an advisor and ski guide. Jules Fritsch would travel to the States and direct the Yosemite Ski School from 1928 to 1935.  Don’t forget that Sun Valley didn’t start their Alpine operations till the winter of 1936.  Hans Georg, who never worked for Schneider, also ended up in the Sierras of California in 1938 where he made the first known Skiing descent of Mount Whitney and published “Skiing Simplified” the St. Moritz Method.  The St. Moritz Method was essentially a slightly modified version of Schneider’s Arlberg Method.

Anton (Toni) Seelos

Emile Allais

Fred Iselin was known as the best ski racer in Europe when he immigrated to the states to become Sun Valley’s assistant Ski School Director under Sun Valley’s second Ski School Director, Friedl Pfeifer in 1939. He would later become one of the most prolific publishers of Arlberg “how to ski” books and articles in the United States.  To date Iselin holds the fastest time in the Grand Prix de Aiguille D Midi, in Chamonix France; a race that was discontinued due to its treacherous fatal reputation.   Iselin along with his wife Ellie Staller, the first female instructor on Sun Valley’s School, summered in the Sawtooth Valley running the Idaho Rocky Mountain Ranch, and made numerous skiing descents guiding guests through the Boulder, Smokey, White Cloud, Salmon River and Sawtooth Mountains.  First skiing descents of Castle Peak and most of the major summits in the Sawtooth Mountains were accomplished by Iselin and Hennig.  Even a skiing descent of Glens Peak, in the remote center of the Sawtooth range was accomplished in 1949 by Hennig and Iselin. Remnants of a ski hut used by Hennig and Iselin, in the Cabin Creek Drainage of the Sawtooth Mountains at an elevation  9,000 feet can still be seen today. Many guests got their first taste of skiing Idaho’s amazing Wilderness reaches under the able director of Islen, Staller, Andy Hennig and their Guides.   Iselin and Staller, after the II World War, would follow Pfeifer to Aspen where Fred became the Ski School Director of Buttermilk Mountain till his death in the late 70s and is one of Aspen’s most historic figures. 

 

While Schneider, with is ski school, would always give preferential treatment to the local Austrian’s when hiring, it was clear he also employed the best the world had to offer and encouraged his best to leave and start Arlberg Schools in differing parts of Europe and later the world.  It was this encouragement along with the commencement of the II World War that initiated the first mass exodus of his main instructor core to the United States, and as chance would have it, this was also the beginning of the first destination ski resort in the states.  It is important to note that prior to Sun Valley and the Chair Lift, nearly all alpine skiing was accomplished with alpine touring techniques (climbing up a slope then skiing down).  A single surface lift was first constructed in the Arlberg of Austria in 1938 and it was not till after the II World War that Chair lifts, gondolas, and trams made their prescience there.  If you traveled to the Arlberg of Austria to take a ski lesson with the Schneider ski School Prior to World War II, you were climbing the slopes.

“White Ecstasy” (The Ski Chase)