Skinny Ski The Ghee

In 1972 my dad decided to scope out the latest ski area to open in Wyoming. Grand Targhee was 3 years old with limited terrain. Wooden Cross country skis gave them access to unmatched access.

The early days of skiing in America must have been incredibly unique. This sport from Europe had managed to take hold in the Rocky Mountains with places like Aspen and Vail, but it was a growing sport, and new resorts all across the west were springing up, seeing if they could get in on the latest gold rush that the Rockies were providing. In 1969, Grand Targhee opened in Alta, Wyoming. Two lifts serviced this humble mountain and the area was the brainchild of residents across the border in Driggs, Idaho, who believed a ski resort would benefit the sleepy farming valley economically.

My father, Stan, had grown up skiing in Colorado. Places like Vail and Winter Park gave him the love and passion for the sport. As the winter of 1972 approached, he decided that he wanted to explore the mountains and find a place where he could ski and make a life based on the sport. He tried Alta, Utah, as the maître d' at an upscale restaurant. Finding that to be an incongruent profession for his skiing obsession and youthful twenty-year-old personality, he loaded up the car and moved on. He found Targhee and for the next several years, he settled into skiing the most outstanding snow in North America.

It’s hard to capture what it must have been like in those days. Equipment was hard to use and cumbersome. The lifts and facilities were rustic and contained nothing of the glamour that today’s mega ski resorts pride themselves on. It was still a sport that was obtainable by almost anyone. When he arrived in Targhee, he struck up a conversation with the rental shop manager and soon had gainful employment at the resort. He helped tune and fit skis for people who were trying their hand at skiing. The resort was so young and uncrowded that most days, he was finished with his duties before lunch, and he would take his own crack at the champagne powder that settled onto this big bald mountain behind the Tetons. The snow in Targhee was incredible. The wide farmland plain of Eastern Idaho allowed the storms to build up, and the distance across the state from the Sierras would dry out the wet Pacific moisture. When the storms hit the back of the Teton Mountains, they would, by nature, get trapped against those majestic towers of granite and shower feet at a time of light, beautiful snow on the hills.

Early on, Stan took to skiing to work on cross-country skis. The roads and vehicles of the day were often not matched to each other, so skiing to the resort was the best, safest, and easiest way to get to work. These skinny wooden skis with ligne stone edges and bear trap bindings became the method of getting around the valley and up to the mountain. Somewhere in the mix, another friend, Perry, joined him, and they started using their skinny skis to explore the neighboring mountain to Targhee, Peaked. They would take the lift up and then walk all over the lonesome mountain, having the snow and the runs all to themselves.

While the Airforce was staring over in Jackson Hole, these two men were out there on their very own mountain. Riding feet of snow beneath them, with only small tennis-style shoes and 200cm skis. They pushed all the limits of what the equipment of the time would allow. Their friends and co-workers thought they were crazy. They were doing all of the same things they were but with a loose heel and no metal edges.

The photos that my dad took to try to help supplement his income are the only record of their existence and adventures. This beautiful, wild west era of a young resort was captured on slide film by my dad and has since sat in boxes in his attic for years. My dad turns 73 in a few days, and I wanted to honor his birthday by helping showcase these memories. His wild skiing youth is a story that is untold in the history of Western skiing history. So few knew of his adventures and incredible feats of skiing because there was no one there to watch them.

Which speaks to the deeper story that my dad was a part of. His pursuit of this incredible sport in this marvelous place was not about who was watching or how much fame might be achieved by doing it. It was about his love of putting two wooden boards under his feet and feeling the rush of deep snow go over his head and past his legs as he careened over a cornice or a rock. As I look back through the photos, it is astounding to me the amazing things they were skiing and doing on equipment that no one else was using. The athleticism and balance that are required to do what they were doing are likely never to be matched in the sport again. Seeing these old photos again after 40 years of being forgotten is a stunning story to relive.

Stan and Perry walked around the mountains of Western Wyoming, chasing their youthful exuberance and pushing their own limits. What I often wonder about my dad and his time in Targhee is what it was they were chasing. I have my own mental struggles from time to time about fleeting youth, and the machine we live in that keeps us struggling to build up manageable lives and semi-opulent existences. I can only imagine that at moments in those wild winds and storms behind the Tetons, my father was trying to find something.

This may be too personal and hard to understand, but our family has been marked by business success. My grandfather was a very prominent figure in our small town in Colorado, and his ambition and capabilities made his name and business one that many knew. My father came back to work for the family business in the late ‘80s after pursuing his own path and faltering. He became equally or more successful in his field of real estate and built his own reputation in business. When success is presented to you, there is an implication that you must participate in that same story. I know for myself that I have chased old ghosts of both my Grandfather and Dad. The Bing Crosby song, “I’ll Be Seeing You,” often plays in my head in my hardest moments. I have not found the same traction in business that my family has had. Perhaps it is due to my own inabilities, or maybe our American landscape is nothing like the one my predecessors lived in, regardless, I am filled by those haunting voices that say I am not as valuable as they are.

I often wonder if my dad was chasing those same ghosts out there in the white, bottomless snow of Alta, Wyoming. I certainly would understand it…perhaps more than he might ever know. There is something about trying to find your voice or your own footing in tumultuous seasons. The burden of expectations is a heavy one. You cannot speak about it because your baseline is above your peers, and you are unrelatable to them. I’ve tried it before, but it doesn’t sell well to others. So out there, I wonder if Stan was trying to find out if the balance on those skinny skis could translate to balance in his own life. The rush of jumping off the next biggest cliff or speeding past the trees in waist-high snow makes the mind contemplate what it is you might be chasing.

I would like to find out. I would like to know what it is we’re all chasing. Why have we created the system of success we have? Why do we manage it with terrible politics and crooked politicians? Why is it that chasing old ghosts in knee-deep snow isn’t viable while ripping off your neighbor for the next buck is socially honored?

I want to tell this story because it’s been lost to history. Targhee is now owned by some mega-corporation ski company, and the old days of what must have felt like the Wild West are fading. Stan and Perry’s tracks are long gone - 50-plus winters have sent them with the melting snow back to the Pacific Ocean where they once came. As time does its cruel wrecking of our existence, we must be compelled to remember what our lives are about. Politics, money, and power are the presented treasures. But I think if you asked my dad, he might just say that he’d give anything for one more walk up Peaked or a plummet from the top of a rock into the cushioning powder below.