Saddle Sore: ‘Bend zee knees — five dollars, pleeze’

The first official ski race held in Aspen was sponsored by the Roaring Fork Winter Sports Club (later to become the Aspen Ski Club) in 1937, across the road from the Highland Bavaria Ski Lodge. It was the year the Denver & Rio Grande Railroad began running “snow trains,” carrying skiers and other winter participants to Aspen. Eat your heart out, RFTA.

Ski races became popular, held with regularity, official or non-, and although the term hadn’t yet come into vogue, “apres-ski” at places such as Kelleher’s Saloon, which later morphed into the Red Onion, became a commonplace ritual.

Skipping ahead, it was December 1940, and the news around ski areas was that the fastest velocity ever recorded on alpine skis was over 80 miles per hour. They didn’t know that a few years later, speed-skiers Sean Cridland and Tommy Simons were waiting in the wings to make that look slow.  

---

---

Aspen was making the press as a great ski area, acknowledging that the first race of the season had been held, the next coming up on Jan. 1, 1941. There was no gondola, not even a breathing mention of the Aspen Ski Corporation, Lifts 1 or 2, but things were coming along. Ah, the boat tow was in operation: Roch Run, a brute, was getting skied almost every day by intrepid souls coming up the backside of the mountain via the Midnight Mine access.

Back then, they weren’t called skiers so much as “plank pushers,” plank coming from the Norwegian, and although dangerous, bear trap bindings were le seul disponible à l’époquethe (the only style available) — the French and Norwegian giving American skiing a European flair that it has had from the beginning. Bindings: bear traps and used inner tubes.

---

---

Variations in language have followed skiing like today’s dirtbags (ski bums). In the late 1930s and early ’40s, those creating sitzmarks (German influence) were described as fanny dunkers, a descriptive term that never really caught on. There were official signs on the mountain in various places, “Please fill your sitzmark!” How droll today when even a mention of the name gets a quizzical look.

We went from making sitzmarks to enduring “egg beaters,” a high-speed fall when strapped into your quick-release safety bindings, with “safety straps” or “long thongs” to prevent runaway skis when your bindings released. Both kept your skis attached to your boots while your skis whipped around similar to the rotation of helicopter blades, having the very real potential of causing contusions, lacerations, broken bones, and head injuries.

Thanks to the Italians for inventing “ski brakes” and Klaus Obermeyer for being the first visionary ski company to market such devices. You can’t buy a binding today without attached ski brakes, and no longer do we have egg beaters but instead “yard sales.” That has to be self-explanatory, leaving most everything you’re wearing in the wake of your crash. Skis, goggles, poles, backpacks, gloves; forgot to buckle your helmet — then it’s only a hat, part of the yard sale.

Oh, hell, “Bend zee knees — five dollars, pleeze.” Always reminds me of Sepp Kessler and other pros of Austrian and other European descent. It’s that influence, I’m telling you. We called them “funny talkers,” for their accents alone, not in any way discriminatory, racist, or other nightmarish dispersions. We loved and respected those guys. Stein Eriksen, Tony Woerndle, Ulfar Skaeringsson, Magne Nostdahl, Sepp Uhl, Charlie Paterson, Pietro Danieli, and more. Come on, you remember these great guys!

Skiing lingo has developed over the years as an inevitable part of the culture. It’s a club of folks who stop to help a fallen skier get his boards back on; to offer navigational advice to those looking confused; lunch menu tips while waiting in line; never telling anyone (with paltry exceptions) your favorite or hidden lines, with the glaring exception being my favorite, Summit, because most bums prefer to call it, with derision, Vomit.

Banging the bumps, putting a zipper on ’em. Ask my buddies, Don Stapleton and Bob Snyder. Oh, God, have we laughed, ripping the crud and leaving nothing but cold smoke on a powder day.

It’s great to watch my grandson and his Aspen Valley Ski and Snowboard Club teammates as they compete for Big Air accolades in Silver Queen or skier’s right of Thunderbowl. “Nice run, bro.” Or, awesome, sick, dope, steezy, drip — these kids support each other as teammates should, attitudes they’ll carry through life. Thanks in part to skiing.

There’s more, much more, but isn’t that enough for one day?   

Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.