Roaring Fork Valley legend who ‘lived and breathed skiing’ dies
Community bids final adjø to adored Norwegian Jan Johannessen

Courtesy photo
Aspen and Snowmass have lost an alpine great.
Jan Johannessen, a longtime ski school director and instructor, died from prostate cancer on Tuesday, Dec. 10. He was 87.
Johannessen, described by friends and fellow instructors as a “mild-mannered,” “smooth skiing,” “typical Norwegian,” was recruited by skiing pioneer and fellow Norski Stein Eriksen to become a ski instructor at Snowmass-at-Aspen when it first opened in 1967.
Drawn to Eriksen, a giant slalom Olympic gold medalist once honored by the King of Norway, Johannessen was one of several skiers to make up the Roaring Fork Valley’s Norwegian community, jokingly referred to as the “Norwegian Mafia.”
“He really cherished his fellow man,” Kjell Vanghagen, longtime friend and currently SkiCo’s oldest ski instructor, said of Johannessen. “He loved hanging out with the Norwegian crowd. We had lots of intimate times together. He was a good friend for many, many people, and I think his friendship he created was very cherished, and will be sorely missed.”

Johannessen was born in 1937 in Tromsø, a fishing town in northern Norway, living through German occupation in World War II. His father was a taxi driver, and Johannessen’s first job was on a whaling boat. He also served in the Norwegian military and later became a goalie for professional soccer club Tromsø Idrettslag.
Johannessen’s earliest breakthrough in skiing came when he devised a rope tow for his hometown hill. Tromsø skiers back then were lucky to get in two laps per day because they were forced to hike. This inspired him to ask his brother, a mechanic, to assemble an engine while he collected steel lines from the fishing docks where he once worked. Thus, they created a makeshift rope tow that allowed skiers to get in about 10 daily laps.
Johannessen met Eriksen, who died in Park City, Utah in 2015, sometime in his late teens or early 20s. It was in the 1950s Eriksen invited Johannessen to the United States to become a ski instructor at Sugarbush Resort in Vermont. Eriksen, however, later made his way to the Western U.S. and Colorado, soon telling Johannessen, “Hey, the skiing is a lot better over here.”
Johannessen, who originally intended to move back to Norway but instead fell in love with Colorado High Country, became a ski instructor at Aspen in 1965 before beginning his long tenure as a ski school director and race clinic teacher in Snowmass. He also helped establish the Snowmass Cross Country Ski Center.
“He was one of the original people scouting out runs, helping get the ski industry off the ground here in the valley and around the U.S.,” Nilas, Johannessen’s son, said of his father. “He lived and breathed skiing. He was a ski bum to the core.”
According to friends and family, Johannessen’s alpine adventures were astounding. Some dignitaries and celebrities he instructed included Ronald Regan, Bill Clinton, and National Baseball Hall-of-Famer Reggie Jackson. Johannessen once skied with the King of Spain after one of his bodyguards nonchalantly showed him a machine gun on a Buttermilk chairlift.
“When I was born, he retired from the ski company and was just a stay-at-home dad,” Nilas, a 27-year-old Aspen High School graduate, said. “He took me skiing a bunch, and he was just a really, really good guy.”

Norwegian Mafia
Martin Nordhagen, Magne Nostdahl, Amund Ekroll, Vanghagen, Johannessen — every one of these Norwegian-born, Roaring Fork Valley skiers wanted to join Eriksen’s side.
“We all came because Stein had the ski school. He was the ski god of the world, and hanging around with him was very special,” Vanghagen said. Eriksen’s legacy is enshrined at the Stein Eriksen Lodge at Deer Valley Resort in Utah. “We were considered very lucky to have him as a mentor and a ski leader.”
For Johannessen, he was one of Eriksen’s boys, and soon, he became a pillar in Aspen’s skiing community.
“He was a very smooth, very good skier. And in the summer, I was in charge of the soccer team here, and he was our soccer goalie for many years. He was a really, really good athlete,” Vanghagen said of Johannessen. “We played soccer in the summer and skied in the winter.”
Ekroll, who met Johannessen at Snowmass in 1967, said Johannessen became head of its ski school in 1971. He reminisced about the spring parties they’d throw at the ski school or the many rounds of golf they played in the summer.
“He was a typical Norwegian,” Ekroll said of Johannessen. “They liked to be together and have a good time, and we did … we did a lot.”

Longtime friends weren’t all Norwegians. Chuck Tower, a former ski patroller and mountain restaurateur, first met Johannessen in 1970. He recalled Johannessen always inviting him to the Saturday ski-school races at Snowmass.
Tower also remembers the good deeds Johannessen did for “undergrounders,” people who secretly instruct skiing under the table. In the late 1970s, well-known Aspen skier and former undergrounder Don Lemos, who died in 2023, infamously got into a legal battle with SkiCo and was arrested for trespassing.
According to Tower, it was the positive-spirited Johannessen who invited Lemos to become a legitimate SkiCo instructor.
“He brought him into the ski school and a bunch of other guys that were just ski instructing on the side,” Tower said. “He gave them chances to come under the umbrella of the ski company rather than to be chased down and harassed.”
“He was liked by everyone. He had a great personality.”
The Aspen life
Wendy Lucas remembers the day it all happened.
It was 1994. She was two-stepping at the old Shooter’s Nightclub in Aspen when a gentleman asked her to dance. It was Johannessen.
“We started going out,” she said. “We never left each other since.”
Many of their adventures, of course, involved hitting the slopes. They would also have children, Darci and Nilas. Johannessen was 60 when they had their first born child.
“Skiing with him was just such a pleasure. He was such a beautiful skier,” she said. “I used to follow him down the mountain all the time … if I could keep up with him.”
Johannessen would retire later in the 1990s. He would become a stay-at-home dad, cooking, and bringing and picking up the kids from Aspen School District.
But what Lucas will miss the most of her late husband? His storytelling.
“I mean, you’d sit down with him and you were just transfixed,” she said. “He just had these absolutely fun, fantastic stories.”

Final days
Ekroll has been thinking a lot about his friend lately, he said.
It was only at the end of November that Ekroll got to spend time with Johannessen, who was a resident at the Heritage Park Care Center at Carbondale.
According to Ekroll, in what would end up being the final time he spoke with him, Johannessen was in good spirits.
“He was cheerful because we talked a lot — it’s amazing,” he said. “I visited many, many times. This was one of the better days he had.”
“But, you know, it’s tough,” he added. “He was a good friend … a very good friend.”
Ray K. Erku can be reached at (970) 429-9120 or rerku@aspentimes.com.
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