Norman E. Foote

Oral History Project
Interviewee: Norman E. Foote
Interviewer: Sarah Oates
Date: October 24, 2005
Norman I wanted to thank you in advance for participating in this project. It will
help us learn more about your experiences in Snowmass and also more about what
life like was here throughout the years. And before we begin I wonder if you have
any thoughts or feeling about making this tape?
No.
Ok. What is your full name?
Norman Eugene Foote.
What is your date of birth?
February 7, 1932.
Where you born?
Laverne, Oklahoma.
Where did you grow up?
In Oklahoma and in Colorado also I guess.
What are your parent’s names?
Mary Odious O’Dell and she was my mother and she married to Okla Raymond Flip, my
father.
What was your childhood like before coming to Aspen?
We my family were split and I stayed with my Aunts and Uncles and Mother and Father
and this and that. I would go live with one and they didn’t like what was going on with
the other and I’d go live with the other they didn’t like what was going with my other
one. And then I had an Uncle that had went to Gunnison and had came back and takin
about the mountains and la la la. And I kinda wanted to see the mountains so I got a bus
ticket and went to Gunnison and there for this haying and then decided, me and another
fellow that was working there, go down to Grand Junction and Palisade and pick peaches.
We had quite a deal there. They pick up them ripe peaches on their big hale, ripe peaches
and use them like snowballs. And boy you get the itching from that fuss on those things
and then ended up working up in Glenwood for awhile. And then I, Ranch Haven
Sawmill that sits just below where the Walmart store is there in Glenwood Springs now.
They was lookin for somebody to help them up on Basalt Mountain. So I went up there
and meet Ed Tekoucich and Tubs Kayla and whole raft of people that was working up
there in the sawmill and cutting trees and one thing another. They all went out on Friday
evening and wouldn’t be back till Monday mourning. Well, Friday night it started
snowing and it snowed all night, Friday night and all day Saturday and all night Saturday
night. All day Sunday, Sunday night, and Monday we’d be snow was piling up fast and
not could get into us and we couldn’t get out. I don’t know about a 40′ Chevrolet pickup
wouldn’t go through the three feet of snow that we had. So we kept the sawmill going
we’d go down and get it started about nine o’clock and work till about three. Ahhh thats
enough today and shut it off. And then finally got an old keel track to open the road for us
and we came to Aspen. Then we got to Aspen and meet Johnny Hogland and he was, ahh
one of the fellows said “you need some out there don’t ya?” He said “Well I got a couple
of sheds I need cleaned out before winter.” So I went out there Brush Creek with Johnny
Hogland and didn’t have too much so I ended up working for Bill and Hildred Anderson
that winter.
Now Norman what year was this?
This was 1948.
Was there a relationship between Johnny Hogland and Hildred Anderson?
They were cousins.
Ok. Ok. So what were your first impression of the Valley when you came?
Beautiful. I loved it, still do. Except it is getting ahh better not say that.
I’ll ask you questions about the positives and negatives and stuff, a little bit later.
Aspen is a beautiful valley, ahh Brush Creek Valley. It was kinda neat. I had ahh … we
will somebody was saying S(!mething about what was it like in the depression. And he
said well we didn’t have a lot of money to spend but he said ah we tattors in the cellars
and meat in the hills and thats all that counted.
Sorry I just wanted to get a bench mark for the date, you were talking about how
your first job up on Brush Creek cause Johnny didn’t have much was working for
the Andersons.
Yeah. And ah I worked for them that winter and then the next summer we put up some
hay there for them and they didn’t have too much and I decided well maybe I would go
up and help Johnny Hogland some more. So then I went back and worked for Hogland
for the rest of that summer putting up hay and then later times I went to town and I had a
couple of winters out there on Brush Creek and down at Rifle and Divide Creek. And
decided I’m goin get a job this winter inside someplace, doing something I stead of the
weather. So this guy said I got a job for you washing dished up at the restaurant. So I
went up to the Little Nell Cafe and washed dishes and ended up cooking. I could cook as
good as the cook could. And worked there and then one of the cooks he quite and
couldn’t find anybody. There wasn’t all that many people floating around that wanted to
work or do anything and end up cooking at the Little Nell. It was an interesting thing ….
Now where was the Little Nell Cafe located?
Right across from the North of Nell building and there used to be some a-frames that was
put in there. Leonard Thomas bought those lots for $8,000 from Ms. Shawl, Ted Shawl’s
wife. Somebody said $8,000 mercy! That’s two much money! It’s a drop in the bucket
to what it is now.
Now what kind of food did you serve at the Little Nell Cafe?
Well, we had seafood. Oysters on a the half shell and fried oysters and they ship em’ by
barrels and we’d keep em in the back room there and with ice and put cornmeal on them
for food. We’d go in there and check them everyday and go in there at night and flip
light on you could tell which was good ones and which were starting to get a little bit old
and we’d make oyster stew or fired oysters out of those. We had a lot of fun with that.
Oysters on the half shell, it was something new to me but it was pretty good. And we
steaks of all kinds and hamburgers and then breakfast was … we opened at six in the
mourning and closed at three … should say three in the mourning we’d close because we’d
wait for the bar crowd to come in they’d have a little something after bar and so we put a
little a sign on the back bar and said “Fight time 2:15.” Every night. Finally we gave up
on that … that was just every night after the bars would close especially on a Saturday
night boy there was trouble.
Now did the restaurant was it both for locals and tourist or was it mainly skiers that
came in?
It was mostly locals because there wasn’t all that many skies but there was skiers there
during the day and we had a broiler there and we would cook hamburgers on there, like
twenty at a time. There was quite a few skiers back even then and when we first started
but then one winter I decided, I got into the ski part of it and we worked over there. They
had a, Bill Pitcher had a little building that he head out the ranch in the summer time and
then they’d would pull it in there in the winter and call it the Ski Barn right there by the
Kathan? later years and we’d work on skies there in the afternoon and one of the things
that was kinda remember that on is Forrest Berthod he was a honcho there and we’d wax
skies one thing or another and this gal come in and she said oh my skies they just won’t
work at all they just don’t go. And she said they won’t slid down hill or nothing else.
Well we could give em’ a wax job and help it. Oh would you do that and so we did. Fifty
cents for a wax job. And she left and went up on the hill and ohh about an hour or so she
came and she said oh these skies are just too fast I can’t stand up. They slide out from
under me. Forrest says well we’ll put some half-assed wax on there. Her lower job fell.
He said half-fast.
Now was this the barn you were talking about and ski waxing was that out at the
Snowmass or was that still in town?
Oh yes, that was still here in town.
Now let’s go back to a minute working for Andersons and the ranching. What kind
of animals did they have and what was a typical day in the life of working up there?
They had sheep about 500-550 head and they had just started raising sheep there. They
had cattle before and the back side of the Anderson Ranch from East Brush Creek to ah I
don’t know what they call it over there. Actually we just called it the Dog Hole over
there. I was a little spot were there is private property was not, well the Forest Service
came in there real low and we always called the Dog Hole. But I built fence all the way
across there that summer, early part of the summer I should say and I’d leave at three
o’clock in the mourning so I’d be ahead of the sheep and keep wouldn’t be out on Forest
Service because the ranger was kinda honest about didn’t want those stinkin sheep on the
Forest Service and that was mostly why I was putting the fence up there. But we was
working up there on the fence and I was getting ready to go one mourning and Hildred
lived and worked she was a school teacher in Rifle and I was looking for something to
build a lunch out of to take with me and as I did every mourning and she came downstairs
and she said If you’ll come down for lunch, I’ll fix you a real good dinner. Ok so I went
up and she’d come up and I’d tum them back and thats about all you had to do. And
lunch time came and I come down for lunch and as I crossed the road, I looked up the
road and there’s a bear. It was so funny that that happened the way it did because the
night before I was working on the fence I worked till dark and come down … I got ready
to go down and I’d just take off running down the hill and you could make it pretty fast a
half mile pretty quick. I started down and then I thought oh I had a leather handle
hammer. If the porcupines get a hold of that and its sweaty and salt on that handle they’ll
chew that leather off of there. So I started back and as I got pretty close to where we’d
been working, I seen something big and black and I turned around and I didn’t go up
there, I just took off for home and didn’t know that big black thing was. Then the next
day that bear was on the road and I thought a thousand times that it must have been a bear
that I seen the night before and anyhow I went in the house and where’s the kids, where’s
the kids theres a bear out there and she thought I’d gone crazy. I had an old 36 rifle and I
grabbed that and there was some sheep in a pen there and that bear kinda had lunch in
mind so we drove up the road in an old car and I got out and took aim at that bear and
shot and he down and around and around up this tree like a cat and I was shaking like a
leaf and I don’t know I emptied that rifle and then I put some more shells in it. And
stopped for a little bit and kinda got everything together and took aim again and bang
down he came. There is a ditch running along there and a zig zag pole fence and I wasn’t
about to go up there to see if that bear, what was happening with him. Then our neighbor
was Alex Cerise. He come down around the comer and he says what the hell is going on
here, sounds like the German Army and Hildred says no we shot a bear. Oh no and he
jumps over there on that pole fence and down on the ground and there was the bear and
he kicked the bear and he says yeah he’s dead like hell. He better be.
You got kinda some recognition in the paper and stuff for that, right?
Yes we did. Probably shouldn’t have been shooting the bear but they weren’t quite so
fussy about it in those days as they are now. The bear was just above where the fire
station is now.
Did you ever see bears again after that?
Well, whenever I lived out there and worked out there. We used to thought it was a lot of
fun to chase em’ with saddle horses and I remember chasing one on Hogland Ridge on
the Forest Service part of it and catch in em’ trees and take after them on horses. It took
em’ a little while to get em’ to do it but they’ll do it after awhile if you just keep pushing
em’. The old bear tum around and start running and then the horse runs and this one old
horse that I had he was pretty good with em’. I was chasing one with him and I got pretty
close to that old bear and he was kinda lookin back and I got to thinking that bear stops
that horse is gonna leave me sitting right on top it so I back off.
Now we have been talking about how you had done work in the winter in Aspen at
the Little Nell and waxing skies and then did you continue to ranch during the
summer?
Yeah. I work on the ranch in the summer time and then there just wasn’t that much to do
in the winter time but feed few a cows and that the reasons we worked in town … on thing
or another but in later years Johnny Hogland sold that ranch to the Jans Investment
Corporation and they were looking for somebody that knew what the property lines were
and what the had. So I went up and talked to them and they said yeah they would like to
have me work for them. So I started working for the Jans Investment Corporations.
Running cattle and we’d have the cattle on the ranch up there in the summer time and
then in the winter time we’d moved em’ down to Divide Creek and then Oliver Demose
on Silt Mesa and they would winter em’ and I’d stay up here and then they bought a
couple of Track Master snowcats and theys’ haul fourteen people and we gonna runs
these tours but before we got the Track Masters we had an old army weasel that we
would try to make a road up on top of baldy and the Forest Service said we’d cut no trees
no green tress, we can cut any down ones or dead one but we couldn’t cut any green
trees. So we started, that was my job in the winter time was try to break a road in there
and keep that road open then. So then that could be pretty changeling cause we went up
there one time and I had a pretty good road it can be plant weather down the valley and
hardly even notice the wind and you go up on top. You get up there oh not Timberline
but down below there a ways and the wind would be blowing and seen coming up out of
East Snowmass and you’d have big drafts and Bill Pitcher was the overseer for the Jans
Investment Corporation and he took this little weasel that we had there was gonna go up
on the hill and I wasn’t there I was down in Rife at that time, looking about the cattle. He
took the weasel snowcat that we had and went up there and got the thing on log and
slipped the track off of it, so he called me up and told me what happened. Ok, and he
said get some help so I got a guy to go up and help him and we walked up that carrying,
this happened twice. But one time it was just below the saddle were the touring cabin sits
below Sams Knob and the one time Pitcher had an old Stetson airplane so we was gonna
fly in there and drop this jack and a couple of jacks and couple of bars and stuff to work
on this cat. So we come in, we come across the saddle and we was gonna use the tress
right there and the saddle as drop point but when they would come over the saddle theres
kinda of, I don’t know, a down draft right in there and we didn’t realize what was
happening we come over there. We had the door off of the plane and I had this bar in my
hand and as we came over these trees, I turned that thing loose and we has a streamer on
the back of it. So gotta hang onto this so it don’t a tail and it will jerk it out of your hand.
So dropped that bar out there and it started down and the streamer that we had tied to or
taped to it, why it would just come back and that thing was going like a rocket right
straight towards that cat that was sitting down below there. And I said come around to
the right I think I made a direct hit. And he said I’m just trying to get out of here and I
looked up and we was going down. And I mean we was really dropping and we came out
right through the bottom down there and those trees in the bottom yet hadn’t been cut out
cause there had been no cutting there as far as the ski areas. We coming right down
through there and the trees going right besides that plan and right by the wings and we
picked up enough speed to get out elevation back and come out of there. So we didn’t
come that low again we stayed up a little higher.
Now let’s go back to ranching for a little bit. You had worked for Johnny Hogland
and then there was also some mention of working for the Meltons?
Yes is kinda in the same time there worked for the Meltons. We worked there as a kinda,
the Jans wanted to get out the cattle business for Colorado or the Snowmass area. So
they sold the cattle that belonged to the Jans people to Evan Melton and I worked for
Evan Melton on a percentage basis. We got so much on a crop and so much a month. It
worked pretty good.
And did they raise, sounds like cattle?
Yes, they had quite a few cattle. They two hundred head of mother cows was there.
And did you prefer cattle or sheep do you think? Working with cattle or sheep.
The both have there place. I would kinda say cattle because you don’t have to be with
them all the time and there is not quite so many things can happen to cattle as it can
sheep.
Now is this around that time you meet your wife, Carol?
When I worked for the Meltons that’s when I meet Carol and she would come out to the
ranch and her and her sister, step sister, and sister and cook dinner for us. It was pretty
nice. We kinda laughed about then when we decided to get married. Why we were
going to Grand Junction to get married. Kinda afraid to get married in the Aspen area
they have a __ ? they can be pretty bad once in a while, I didn’t want to get into that. I
just knew that I’d be wheeling Carol down the road in a wheel barrel or something.
Now did Carol grown up here?
Well in later years she went to Basalt school. She graduated out of Basalt school and I
think there was seven or nine in her class when she graduated from high school. She was
working in Edie’s Cafe there in Aspen when I first meet her. We went in there, one of
the cattle guys from Oxnard, California would come up here. We was getting to ship
cattle and we went there and had bite to eat and she was waitress and that’s when I meet
her. Then she would visit out there quite often and she’d come to the house one time in
the winter and snowy and the roads were kinda icy and she was going back to town and
got down there on the sharp corner that is just above the fire station and that other road
comes across that big flat was not there at that time and trying to brake for that corner,
why she put on the brake, started sliding went off the road. Sheriff Harwick said
something well if you would leave that cowboy alone you wouldn’t get into this trouble.
Just icy roads.
Now can you describe to me what the people were like during the ranching time
when you first came here?
Well. Brush Creek was a, I think there was about seven or eight ranches in the areas that
kinda worked together. Some of them I think is related to you. But they would all work
together come branding time in the spring and in the fall both while everybody from
different ranches would come in and help you brand. They was branding while you
would go over help them say way with the thrashing. Everybody had a little oats or some
wheat and thrashing time would come along and you’d the shocks of the grain. Then you
would go over there and all get together and it was quite a deal. It was like Christmas
dinner there when you were thrashing. You’d go to these different places. It was quite a
deal, very nice.
Can you describe, since you probably now know, there probably gonna be a lot of
people who aren’t familiar with thrashing the process.
Well there, actually the wheat or the oats. Mostly oats and barley in the high country.
We had there on the ranch with Hogland, they had ____ come in there with a little
OD4 and a root rake on the front of it and cleared what we called the Betsy Green and
there was a lot of Aspen trees, some pine, but mostly Aspen and choke cherry brush in
there so thick that you couldn’t hardly walk through there, couldn’t hardly ride a horse
through this stuff. And they had dozed that out of there and piled up and we’d bum it
and then we’d plant barely in there in the spring and then we cut it with a binder. That
would make little bundles out of it and then you would take the bundles and put them
together like eight or ten in a bunch and that would make a shock. It would dry out and
whenever you’d cut it , why it would be a little on green side. The grain would be what
we called in the dough, it would be a little gummy if you was to chew on one of the
kernels and the guy that owned the thrash machine was Steve Marolt from the Aspen
Golf course. Actually where they farmed and lived over there. And they came out there
and he was thrashing that, he knew ceilings whenever the came up the barely would come
up better then the oats and it would take a lot more water, cause some of it was quite wet.
We starting him thrashing there and the saplings had come up from the roots from the
Aspen tress would get eight feet tall and the barely would only be two and half-three feet
high. It would all go through the binder and then you would shock it and let it dry and
thrash the thing and Steve said boy I ‘ve thrashed a lot things but I have never thrashed
any cotton picking quakies in my life. We’d all work together then move to different
places. We’d get done at this place, we’d move over to the other guys place and thrash
there and then the women would all get together and fix dinner. It was pretty nice. It
was quite a deal. The times were different by far then what they are now and when we
was working there with the Meltons. They had a little thing and its kinda something that,
I don’t its just a little itch, I guess. She would get a lot of eggs in the fall you know
harvest time and the oats and the grain and the sunshine was bright and warm and winter
coming we had a few chickens down there in the barn. She’d get the eggs and it was
more then they could use so she would put it in this, about an thirty gallon earthenware
crock. And it has water in it and this stuff she got at the drugs store, called waterglass.
Just a few drops on the water that was in the crock and you’d put the eggs down in there
and then that was September, first October. Then in November, early December you
would take these eggs and you know the chickens the weather was turning cold and bad,
the chickens weren’t laying much. So you would use these eggs out of the crock. And I
told her one time I says you just go to break them, you break them kinda easy. But they
were good and you cook with em’ and they was just as good as fresh eggs. It’s quite a
deal. But, she was one, she would can chuck cherry juice and fruit of different kinds that
she would get andjustjuice. You wouldn’t put any sugar in it or anything else you’d just
can it up. Then in the winter time she had another stove, one wood stove and then the
modern stove was electric, the cold weather would come in why then she would start and
take this juice she would make jelly out of it or jam, which ever, just depending on what
it was, but that chuck cherry was usually jelly. She would make it in the winter time and
that way your heating the house and making the stuff at the same time. It kinda preserves
the heat as the little furnace downstairs, didn’t cost all that much, but it was nice to have
another fire in the house.
Now when you were living at the Meltons where was the house?
Well, it’s the telephone building they put a telephone building in there that was pretty
close to where Carol and I lived and the Meltons lived there also. I think that the cabin
that Carol and I lived in was right there by the telephone building is about half way down
the road, we called it Highline Road but there is two roads going along that hill. One is
quite high up on the hill and the other one is down pretty close to the valley. When we
lived there we had to go come in road from that goes on past, I think the call it Owl Creek
Road but we came down that way and I don’t know all these different things that
happened in your life time that you remember and one of them is we had been up on the
range with the cattle and we came down one of the gates was wired shut. You know
some bailing wire around there. That just happened to be, but it was dark when we got
down there and Evan was trying to get the gate open and he couldn’t get the gate open.
And Evan couldn’t tell what he was doing and he said well by George, when you wire a
gate you suppose to wire just like your putting a nut on a bolt, then you know how you
know how to unwind the wire to get it off. The more he tried the worse it got but I didn’t
know there was a certain you was suppose to wire a gate, but there was or there is.
Did he show you that?
No he just said that.
What was the social life like? You kinda talked about when the trashing was going
on, there was a bunch of gatherings. But outside of work what was it like, the social
life?
Well, it was Saturday night dance in Armory Hall or Odd Fellows Hall in Basalt or
Carbondale. Then they had some dances up on Missouri Heights and some of the old
schools. Now they are kinda being refurbished, some of them or them are not even there
anymore. You could get around pretty good but you didn’t make a date with a girl down
in Carbondale if you was from Basalt or Aspen cause that was a sure thing for a fist fight.
It is kinda strange. If you made a date with a girl in Carbondale, if you ran into some of
the boys you better be ready to do a little fist fighting cause that is what it is gonna be.
You and Carol got married in 1961?
Yes, 1962.
And how many children did you have?
I had three.
What are there names?
Colleen, Brian and our youngest one is Steven.
Are they still in the Valley?
Brian is still in the Valley. Colleen she is in Colorado Springs. Steven is in Dallas and
he’ll be back up here to do some work at the hospital. He is a computer wiz. He is gonna
do some work out at the hospital. It is kind of surprising but that’s the way life is.
Did you raise the kids out at the ranch?
No the mountain sold out and everything just .. .I went to work for the Ski Company after
they started building the lifts, why there wasn’t much room for the cattle anymore
because the cars and people and everything was startin to move in. So they kinda quit the
cattle part and started plowing up for golf courses and I plowed some of the golf course
part and then they come in. But the road that comes in from Highway 82 that goes up
into Brush Creek or in Snowmass Village, that road was not across the flat area. It came
on up the hill. You had to stay off that thing was it was raining cause it was gooey mud.
You could hardly get through there it was the pits. Then how that road was not there and
then the started building knolls and things in the golf course part and one of the guys said
boy that rougher now that it was when we was putting the hay up down there. It all
changes and we moved to Basalt cause we just though we’ll this was the end of it. Didn’t
know much about the skiing part but we tried just for fun. It was pretty interesting.
Before I was married we’d used to like to hike out. We’d make these little goony skies.
We get a pair of old skies cut them off about mid way and put the bindings up there.
Then we would go up to Ashcroft in the spring and snow in the mourning would be hard
and you could hike back up in there and down you’d go and come down through there. If
you wait too long though boy you start down through there and you’d hit a little spot with
the sun on it, it would be warm and down you go. I mean snow up to your waist and you
would just really take a tumble. Working for the Jans Corporation I’d go up there in the
winter time and prepare snowshoes and hike back in there marking things and looking for
trails and we did some road work in there. There wasn’t a road going to the Burlingame
Cabin. The old road was just, came in from sheep camp. That was owned by the Staple
tons then the Jans Corporation gave them a $1,000 lease on the thing to be able to go
across there property. We they started three years for the tours and I worked for the Ski
Company, I was the cook, the cat driver, you name it I was it. Jim Snell was the man in
charge and Hal Hartman he was trail and Tom Marshall was the guide and Don Rayburn
was guide and Art Bowls was in the cats. Karl Vedder from Carbondale was one of the
cat drivers. We’d go out in the mourning and I had to get coffee and hot chocolate ready
for them and they would me there at the red house. What we’d called the red house. The
old house there were the bank and BJ Adams has a real estate office in there now. We’d
meet there and I’d have hot chocolate ready but we lived there. We moved to Basalt like
I started to say a while ago and soon as we got down there, we go another, Darcy Brown
wanted to know if I would move back up there. So we turned right around and moved
back. We had the tours and we’d have hot chocolate and coffee in the mourning. Then
Rayburn and Hartman and those guys would come out from Aspen, why they’ s bring out
the doughnuts. If they had a bad night you’d have less doughnuts by the time they got
there. They’d bring hamburger from Beckman Bishops and we’d make them into patties
and we’d take it up to that touring cabin there on the saddle and I’d make soup and we’d
have hamburgers and people would bring wine. That was actually what skiing is all
about is the way they did that. Cause a lot of people can ski over like ten inches of
powder over a packed base. You’d get two feet of powder and their lost. They can’t do
it, a lot of them. I not saying you know, that kinda puts the difference between skiers and
playboys. We go up there, it was quite a wonderful thing. I was saying the people would
bring there own wine and this is the part. They had a little a deck out there in front and
the weather was nice they sit out there and oh it’s just too good to ski today. Just lay in
the sun and have a glass of wine and then they take the hotdog buns and they’d dip in the
wine and lay it up on the logs. The camp robbers would come up there, Canadian Jays,
and they would hold it out there or lay it log and the Canadian Jays would eat this
hamburger with the wine on it and the crazy thing would get loaded. They would fly up
on these piles that we set in the ground and they hit the top of that thing and fall off the
over side. It was funny it watch them. We had one soup that was crab bisque and it has a
touch of wine in there and you can taste the one. This one guy said boy that’s the only
time I ever had Darcy Brown buy me a class of wine.
Now with the skiing, do you remember around when Jan’s bought the ranches?
Never happened to give it much thought to be truthful with you, but …
It doesn’t need to be real specific. Was it the early sixties?
64, in that area. 69.
When they purchased the ranch did they purchase both the Anderson and mountain
portions or how did they acquire the property?
They had the Hogland Ranch was the on that the bought first. They had it for quite
awhile. Then Evan Melton had bought the Anderson Ranch. So he owned the Anderson
Ranch and his ranch down below there. The Jans Corporation bought it from Melton and
acquire the Anderson Ranch the and Melton Ranch at the same time. We they started
getting serious about the golf course and skiing at the same, why that’s when things
started to move then. It was kinda funny when they bought the Hogland place, the
Johnny Hogland place I should say, they had another 640 acres what they called the
homestead that’s up above Horse Ranch. It’s a beautiful view from up in there but I think
it’s going to be kept for a wildlife. I hope so now, because the elk gotta have some place
to live in the winter time. But Hogland was saying he wanted $75,000 for 1100 acres.
They whenever he come down to selling he said well I got a chance to sell it to the
Christen Brothers for sheep because the come through ever spring and they are just are
neighbors over the hill here and he raised the price to $125,000 and Jans went ahead.
Somebody said well why did you that. They was wanting to sell it for $75,000 and so I
just I just thought I’d show them I could. They wanted him to keep part of it and he
wouldn’t do it. The land is so expensive now that it is impossible.
How did you hear about Snowmass Development and what the plans were for the
valley?
Whenever the Jans Corporation bought it, why that was the plan there at that time that
they was goin to make a ski area out of it. They didn’t beat around the bush about it.
They said they was goin to build a ski area out of it and then whenever I started working
for the Jans Corporation that was there plan was to tum it into a ski development. As a
matter of fact we lived there at the ranch and Jans there was two people that I had to deal
with but they were both gone, they went to Sun Valley and she was caught in an
avalanche up there and Bill died of cancer, I guess, in later years. Anyhow they bought
the ranch with the intentions of a ski area and that is what’s Bill Pitcher was, before there
was another, Tommy, I can’t remember his name. Anyhow they used to fly in there,
Benedict was in on some of that too. They would land this plan up on bally with skies on
it and dropped of the skiers and then when they would get ready to take off, Tommy
Silence, I believe was his name. Anyhow they would take into the wind that would be
coming out of the west and they would run out there and I mean it just looked like he was
going to drop of the side of the mountain. He would disappear. Well I hope he made it.
And you listen and you didn’t hear anything, no bang, no crash and pretty soon he’d be
flying five miles down Snowmass. But sometimes you’d have to go by and kinda side
step and make a little track. If the snow was too soft to get the plan up on the snow
because it would kinda bog down so to speak.
So how would you get up there? Would you fly?
I went in there one time with em that and that’s what happened, that’s what we had to do.
But I wasn’t much of a skier at the time. I could do it but we had a lot of fun in later
years and Marshall, whenever they started cutting Sams Knob, off the backside of Sams
Knob, there’s a slot, camp ground and this and that they had plies of tress laying in there
that hadn’t been burned. Snow would come. So whenever you skiing that in the winter
time you’d come down through there. I got to be fair but everybody tried to jumped off
of those. They would ski up on these piles of trash or timber to be burned. They ski up
on the thing and no problem and jump off because the snow was deep on the other side
and jump off it really great. I never could get the hang of that and Marshall was trying to
guide and says stay on the back and you’d come off there and skies would fly out in front
of you. Get up on the tips a little more. Little more on the tip. Well you’d dive and stick
in the snow and do a summersault or so. Never did quite get that.
Now did you ever ski at Aspen?
Yea, I skied at Aspen. At different times. I was up there with Bill Pitcher one time and
we was gonna getting prepare for Snowmass and we was up at the Sundeck and he had to
go down for something and ok. We went down and there’s a catwalk right above number
five and Pitcher, I was trying to stay up with him just for kicks because I was going down
to ride back up. I come down around that catwalk there and Pitcher was doing about
ninety and I was right behind him and all at once that was too much for me. I try to go
into snowplow and I ended up with a cartwheel down through there. Probably looked
like a wagon wheel.
Who was Bill Pitcher and what was his role in Snowmass?
Bill Pitcher had a ranch out on Woody Creek and he was overseer for the Jans
Corporation. Bill Jans and Bill Pitcher were old army buddies. They was in the Air
Force together during the war and they were old friend and Bill Pitcher is sill alive but he
moved to Ruidoso New Mexico. They were working on that ski area at the same time
they were working on this up here. Bill still has a son still down there in Ruidoso and I
think they’d done some trading through Red River. I don’t know. It’s a mixed up mess
but there down in New Mexico. The family lived on Woody Creek there at Little
Woody. Right there at the tum off of Little Woody. He’s a pretty good guy.
Let go back to the ski touring. Do you remember how many year they did the ski
touring before the started developing the area more broadly?
Well they started building the lifts like the second they were out there, not the lifts, but
they started digging some tower bases. Then we has ski tours one more winter and the
next summer they started in building the lifts. It was quite interesting. I helped with the
cutting of the trails. I did a lot of trail cutting. Paul/Walt Strong, myself there was
several of them in the cutting and cutting down Sams Knob. One of things, we talking
about bears awhile ago, we were cutting down the ridge off of Sams Knob and we’d
leave our tools there, you know just over night and the saw and everything would stay
there. We’d come in the next day and we’d have gas for the chainsaw or whatever and
then our lunch. We had cows down at the bottom yet and milk a couples of them. I bring
up a half of gallon of milk and I leave it to set up there and I wouldn’t carry it in the
everyday. I left this quart of milk and didn’t drink it all that day for lunch so I left it
there. It was sitting on stump along with my chainsaw and come back the next day and
the chainsaw was gone and so was the milk. What’s going on here? Finally, I find the
chainsaw and there was the quart of milk but the lid was loose. You have to loosen the
lid or else it will go kinda of sour on ya. There was mud all over that thing and said
something had this thing and rolled it around the dirt and it milk has all leaked out but the
jar was still there and the lid was still on it but it was loose and the milk was gone. We
got to lookin and there was bear tracks there. And I said I’ll be dam look at that. So then
we starting cutting and I was thinking about this bear and you know what had happened.
I was cutting on this tree and all at once something was right behind me and I just almost
went up the tree myself. I mean it scared the daylights out of me. Hal Hartman who
walked up behind me and it is wonder I didn’t take the saw to him. He just scared me,
ahh man just terrible , because I’m thinking about this bear and the guy walks up behind
yeah and you would get upset a little bit. We cut it and after they started the skiing out
there we still done all that cutting and joining places like from one glade into another one.
There’d be a glade and trees so we’d have to cut through there and open it up into another
glade. The skiing and everything with the development of Snowmass was quite neatly
skinning down through the quakies and there’s one thing you learn early. If you go
through the Aspen trees was much speed you pick a line and you stay with that line. You
don’t deviate because you cut somebody else off if you do. But you can’t remit fast
enough to go through there to do Solomon through the trees like that. You take a line and
you stay with it get out of there. Otherwise if you get off best things you can do is grab
one of those trees and hang on. It’s a different life. Hal Hartman and I cut the trail from
Sheep Camp back around so you can come there on that lower, if you’re coming down
off of Sams Knob you can ski down there and then you run into the rope and you can
around there and back to the village. We was trying to cut a trail through there so that the
directors could look and thy could see if they want cut or not. Were going down through
there or that mourning when we started to leave I had a pair of Hart skies and they were
metal and everybody else was like oh Heads they’re the only ski and I thought that Hart
was just as good as the Head. Got ready to go and my binding was broke. I said oh hey I
broke a binding here. We had three pair of skies, Head skies from Head Ski Company.
And Jim ___ was there and his boot and my boot were the same size and he says well
take that pair of mine, you could use them. Cause we had tabs on whose was what. So I
took Jim’s deep powered and we went up the hill and we was cutting a trail through there
and the snow was probably four or five feet deep. Hal Hartman had a hand level and we
start down through and he’d look through there and said that one on the left, take that one
out. So then I had a new saw that was called BT-land I think that I idled at bout 5,000
and that was what happened they only built those for year or so that was it because they
was so fast it destroyed themselves. But you could cut off an eight inch Aspen tree with
one slice and it wouldn’t get you saw. So we were going through there and we cut
several of them and we just kinda drop em down and try to drop them off to the side so
we could get this trail through there straight and the directors could slid on through there
and see what we were talking about. Got down to this one and it was all twisted up and
couldn’t tell which way it was gonna fall because it was so bent, I mean go off to the left
then tum back to the right. Hal said take that one out. Ok. So it took that thing out and it
feel the wrong direction and knocked me down and when I went down I give that saw a
little bite of gas, I guess, and hit the top of one of my skies. It took that Head ski just
plum to the base and it would just flop like a hinge, what was left of it. Oh man, one of
Head new skies and were suppose trying them out. So we took them down to the house.
We got down there and told Snob and Snell and said well send back to Head tell em we
wanted to see what was inside of it. I don’t know whatever became of that truthfully.
Somebody said they sent us three more pair but I don’t know.
Did you go back to your Harts?
Yeah, I had to go back to my Harts.
Can you explain who Hal Hartman and Jim Snob were and what there roll was with
Snowmass?
Jim Snob was more or less in charge of everything. Hartman was kinda the pusher on
everything. Between the two of them I think Jim his title was manager or something and
then Hal was the foreman. He kind of made sure the guys were cutting what wanted to
be cut and they go up there and lay out the trails and flag the trees with engineer tape.
You stay inside those lines. You’d cut a lot of trees in a days time of cutting through
there but they’d have to lay them out and kinda walk it over. Several times of walking
through to try to determine where you really want the trails and were the side is going to
be. I think Hal Hartman and I was really burned a lot of those. I think when burnt
Campground we went up there one mourning to bum slot and had a little snow and we
had to wait till snow because didn’t want anything getting from us and we did have one
of them. When we burnt the Big Bum, my brother-in-law and I, well Rayburn and some
of them we involved in that also to stack it up. The Big Bum was dry wood dried down
timber from back in the 1800s sometime that had burned over and the trees were full
length trees laying down and three feet across. So we started in there trying to cut those
things up and they were full of dirt from the sand and the gravel blowing in there. So we
went in there with the team horses and we’d hook it to them with horses and drag them
out of there and drag them over and pile them up. Then we had forty or fifty piles when
Hal and I went up there to bum it. We started in there burning there and everything was
doing fine and were thinking about going home about three o’clock, trying to get things
fixed so we can do home. About that time the wind came and the cinders of burning
wood would go sliding across the crusty snow into the trees and boy you had problems.
Now we never let anything get away from us. We always managed to get control of them
when it would happen but we was going down slot and burning it at one time. When it
was plowed to bum they didn’t watch what they were doing and the laid the logs across
the hill and as the plowed bum down here comes the logs rolling down the hill and one
guy would watch for everybody. You’d howler look out you got a log corning and made
them roll off into the trees and you have to get em and pull them back out of there and
throw snow on them and tried to get em’ out. We started that mourning on Campground
and it started snowing but we went in there and was carrying a propane tank on our back
and lunch pail and we’d go down in there. We set our lunch pail down on the stump and
light up our torches and start burning these piles. Took us awhile to get some of em’
going but we’d get them going and go from one to the other one. We worked there until
around noon time and boy it was snowing just snow, snow, snow. Boy it was really
corning down and we started to get our lunch, we couldn’t find our lunch pails and finally
Hal found them. They was covered up with snow and he couldn’t see em. And finally
walked right over the top of them. Anyhow we better think about getting out of here. So
we had to spend a couple more hours there trying to get ready to go. Started to get out
like four o’clock in the afternoon and hike back up to the Knob where we’d left the Jeep
pick-up and got in the Jeep pick-up and backed it up and the back bumper was shoving
snow out of the way and start of down the hill so you can kinda watch see where the road
is and the snow was corning up over the front bumper and going through the radiator and
you couldn’t see where you was going so we finally get some paper and we’d stick in the
distributor and bum the paper in there and try to dry it out because the water would come
through the radiator and hit the fan and flood the thing. Finally go down there and we
tried backing down and that worked a little bit. We couldn’t see were we was going and
back down I walked in front of the Jeep and back down there a ways and it was still so
much snow cornin down, it quit on us again we couldn’t get it going. So we hiked down.
Got down to the house and Hal Hartman he was living there at the Anderson house and
we were living there at the red house. They was worried about what happened to us and
though something we wrong. So we go down to the house just as the reception
committee had came out from town to come looking for us cause we hadn’t showed up.
We was ok but we had a pretty good walk. We didn’t get it burned that year. I think that
we had to wait till the next winter until before we could bum it.
When were you able to get the Jeep out?
We went back and go the Jeep. We went back and broke a trail going in. Whenever you
are prepared for something like that you can do it.
When did the Ski Company get involved in the development out there? Was it early
on?
It was pretty early. The Skier Company was involved in it right off, when they started on
the lifts cause, Jans said they had talked about doing the ski area out there and then they
talked to Darcy Brown and then they decided to do it. Cause when they started digging
bases why that was Ski Company nobody else was in there.
What was the first lift that was put up?
Number one and number two both came in there.
Were you involved with both of those?
Not with those. Later I was in several of them. Eddie Tekoucich, myself, and Ray Bates
built eight and nine, ten, eleven. I built eleven and ten. Ed Tekoucich was eight and
nine. The was several of em’ but we had a lot fun. We had one of the lifts up there
number 11 lift. It comes up over the catwalk there and what we called middle park up by
the restaurant up there. It had this one tower that sits up there like sixty-three feet tall and
started to set the thing after we had the base in and everything and the started to set the
thing after we had the base in. They started to set it and broke the base and down it came.
Nobody was hurt. So the got the base all fixed up and went back down and help them set
the thing and then after we got it set nobody would climb it cause it was broke once. The
tower sits back on an angle because it is an incline right there and nobody would climb it.
So I though well you can’t ask somebody else to climb a tower if you won’t. So I went
up and there was another guy who was gonna go up with me. He said if your dumb
enough to climb that thing I’ll go with you. So were putting up the chair guard and the
hardware on top. Whenever you go up you just got the T on the top of the tower, the
heads on it. So were putting the rest of it on there. So I’m on one side and he’s on the
other side and it’s a wet muddy day and this guy walks up to the tower and kicks his boot
up against the tower to get the mud off his boot and your thinking all the time, about this
thing fell once. I mean it’s sitting at the back of your mind, you know your not really
thinking about it but it’s there. And he kicked that tower and Wayne Harries was the
other guy and just it scares ya when that happens. Boy your heart just jumps and old
Harris looked down and said you son of gun, I ever get out of the hospital I’ll kill you.
Cause it scares you something terrible. Your sixty feet in the air and after the cables are
on they stabilize those towers. You don’t think so but they do and it’s kinda funny how
that works. When your up there on just the tower, you can just sit there and go like that
and just wobble that thing all over the place. Once the cable is on you can’t while you
can’t do that. Quite a difference.
What were the visitors like that came up, maybe we’ll start with the ski touring.
Who were the visitors and what were the visitors like during the ski touring?
Well the were from all over the country. Just come in there are and we had a Ms. Engle,
I believe her name was Engle, I can’t remember. Anyhow she was bout eighty years old
and she been pushing the Ski Company over in the office about going to Snowmass
touring and they kept making excuses not to go because she was a litter bit older. And
you know your kinda going for the younger set and the macho hotshots. One day we
didn’t have much we got blown out, the wind blew in there pretty heavy. Whenever you
get a storm and you get wind or just a storm, well you need another day to get the road
open. I’d build an A what they called an A that’s be used for hundreds of years I guess.
That type of thing and how it’s just a G with one runner in it and on the tail end of that
one you got a flange that drops into the snow. You go this way and you can shove snow
out to the rights and you can roll it over and shove the snow out to the left and we used
that to grate our road with because before that we tried get a cat and now the didn’t have
a cat they could spare to send us out there. But that worked fine. That’s how we kept out
roads open, but we had to have a day with no people cause we could get our road open
that day and the next day we’d be ready to go again. So they sent us Ms. Engle out there
on that day cause she could have a guide and the guide wouldn’t go to be doing anything
anyhow. So she come up there and we took her up in the cat and she would go just
across the bum and go over there and tum around and come back across the bum. It took
her two hours to get off the bum but she just loved. She said this is just is like my home
in Switzerland or Norway or wherever she was from, can’t remember. She just loved it.
She had a wonderful time and I think Mick Strong was her guide and Mick said boy
she’ll run your legs off she’ll never stops. She just goes and goes, and goes and turns
around and go, go, go. She had quite a time.
Now were there any accommodations up in Snowmass before they started putting in
the village?
There was nothing. Nothing there. Unless you had camp. You had a tent and there
might hunters or something. The was one cabin up above where we lived there at the
Conoco station and it wasn’t there then but there was one cabin up there called the Long
Green Cabin and there was a guy staying that cabin He went to Greece on vacation and
came back and called he said I found my love. I said I’m gonna move and he had an old
1928 Chevrolet car up there and he said I’ goin to move back to Greece. I love it there.
He said when he goes to bathroom you can count that start and they all live on the wine,
he says it’d great. He wanted me to go up there and get that stuff out of there for him and
he’d pick it up when he had a chance. So we went up there. He said that you could have
that old car and I give it to my brother-in-la, I should have kept it but that would be worth
some money now. We went up there to get it and we got in there to take the stuff out of
there and here this bed. There’s a rope tied to the headboard and it goes up through the
ceiling. I said what was he doing with that? Well we couldn’t see so went around to the
back and you can walk around the hillside and come in on the top. Looked in there and
here’s this rope tied to the ridge and it goes down. Its got all these cans hanging on it and
what the devil? So he come and got the stuff and I said what that rope with all those cans
on it? He said Oh those packrats are so bad up there, I get in bed and the start rattling.
He sounds like a bunch of horses up there. I rattle those cans and by the time they get to
makin noise I’m a sleep. Packrats are strange ones. I don’t know. I guess their still out
there someplace. Their quite the little guys.
During your time up there, what type of animals did you see?
Well we had dogs. We had a guy by the name of Belton bought the Snowmass Lodge.
Which is over the hill in main Snowmass and there’s eight or ten cabins in there. Guy
bought and he had this Great Dane that stands about three feet tall and six feet long. He’s
a big sucker. Anyhow, were up in the house there one night and we had ham. We left
the ham bone laying on the cabinet and about one o’clock in the mourning this God awful
noise down in kitchen. Something’s down there. So I slip down the stairs and the moon
was shining through there and I could look into the kitchen and I could see this high
animal. I thought mountain lion, I thought bear, I didn’t know what it was. So I went
back upstairs and got on the roof and went down the ridge of the roof and my rifle was
right inside that room if I could just get down there. I thought well know if you goes out
that door I’ll go in this door. I had it all figured out how, I was gonna do this. Dropped
down to the ground, got in there got my Rifle and then I got over to the door that opened
into the kitchen and I had my foot against the door, ready to go. All I had to do was just
aim and pull the trigger. And I looked in there and it was this Great Dane dog. I was so
scared and that dog turned and ran out the door. I knew what it was just as soon as I saw
it. I run over there and fired and that dog got all disoriented. He ran into the fence and
he just climbed that fence and done a summersault backwards. He couldn’t find the gate
and I fired again. Didn’t want to hit him and I just bang. He finally got the gate and got
out of there. Anyhow, a couple days later here come Belton down there in his big
Cadillac convertible and he said You know it really gets me but I don’t know why but
that dog won’t by this house anymore. I used to let him run from the shape camps all the
way overt to Owl Creek Divide and he won’t go by this house. I said the heck he won’t I
don’t know. I never did tell him what happened but I didn’t want to get into then.
How long did you work up in Snowmass?
I spent a lot of years up there. I worked the Snowmass Ski Area for quite a while. Pack
in the winter time. Drove a snowcat. Bud Fender, Some of those guys they were crazy.
Some of this was trial and error. I was the first one to drive a wide tract. The tracts were
made in Switzerland and the cat was made in Logan, Utah. They brought it up there and
I took it up there where summit number 7 is. I was supposed to drive the cat. Whatever I
wanted to do. Just try it out and drive it. I’d see this bunch of snow up ahead of me. I
mean forty five degree angle or something going up. I just hit it up the hill and keep it on
fall line and go right up. I was quite a cat. Then packing and when the built the lift going
up there on East Brush number ten, I hauled and pull all the logs down out of there
because they didn’t wanted to burn them in there. Pulled the logs down and stack them
up and then they hauled them out to the sawmill. I was pretty well involved for quite a
number of years.
What were your impressions of Snowmass Village? The mall now?
They sure ruined some good hay land. No, it’s ok but it’s just a hillside. It’s done quite
well for the steepness of everything. They had some pretty good food up there in
different times. That we’d go out and have a steak once and a while. We used to like to
go to the Steak Pit there in Aspen, when they were there. Once in while, it kinda got a
little pricy and you can’t do that. You can go home and cook a pretty go steak too. So
that kinda what we do now a days. It is still kinda nice to go out once in while.
What do you think has been the biggest change to Snowmass?
It’s got some good skiing in there. It’s got some challenging skiing. It’s gotsomething
that the kids can come and have a wonderful time. That’s like Aspen mountain and
Buttermilk. Buttermilk takes the kids. Aspen mountain takes the hotshots over there.
It’s all good skiing. It just depends on what your skiing levels are. One thing that I
thought several years ago that be kinda neat and it’s kinda fallen to the wayside. One of
these days, I like to see a bobsled run coming down Truth of Circ up there off of number
nine. Go off number nine drop down in there and come right down through the gully.
They could go under the bridges. I think that would be an excellent course for a bobsled.
I think it would be a great bobsled run.
Was there anything ever like that up there?
No. Early days we had Carl Vetter was an old cowboy and a pretty good one at that, but
he wanted to go for a toboggan ride. Marshall said I’ll give you a toboggan ride. So he
took the banana boat off the cat. Carl sits down. I wanna sit down in there. I wanna
right there so I can tell you what is going on. The have a rough lock chain right on the
front of them to keep em’ slowed down if you need it so you can drop the thing and it
will catch the snow and slow it down. Carl Vetter said I am gonna hang on to this chain.
You get to going to fast, I am gonna to drop the chain. Tom says I don’t care you just do
whatever you want to do. I’m just gonna steer you down. So they got in there and I was
gonna drive the cat down. We started down and they go all set to go and we wanted to
get down there so we could watch em’ doing down the bum and Dallas Freeway. Alright
here they go. Carl is sitting up in there and he’s got this rope in his hand. I mean you
could see daylight under that toboggan. Old Tom just put them together and coming just
straight off of that thing. He was getting the air and Carl drops the chain and snow just
flies up there and Tom just keeps going. Got down to the bottom and we meet them
down. __ I thought you was gonna drowned me, I couldn’t ‘t breathe. The snow was
flying up in my face so bad. You wanna go for a ride that’s it. They must have been
doing forty or fifty miles a hour down through there with that thing. Cause the move and
Carl is a pretty heavy guy and that toboggan and you could see daylight whenevers they
was goin down, just moving, bounced off there and you could see daylight underneath it.
They was really traveling. Carl got his ride.
Did he ever go again?
I think he did.
What do you think are the positive things are in Snowmass?
There is a lot more money made there then there was ranching. The was good hunting in
that area. Good elk hunting, good deer hunting. I’d like to see some of that top part, and
I don’t really know if there is sheep up in there. There’s sheep up in there. Some
bighorns. We saw four big rams up in east Snowmass. Build a fence. We was trying to
learn to control snow that would come in there. Then the wind would come across that
top because we was takin about putting a pomalift on up there one time years ago. I
guess whenever I left, I kinda left the Snowmass ski area when I went to Breckenridge.
We built this fence there on top up above Timberline, very close to the top, we was up
around thirteen thousand feet with that cat and turned around there right on the edge and
you could see one of them little basins in east Snowmass that sits right up against the ski
area there. We come around there with cat and looked right down in that thing and there
was four big rams right there. They just stand there like their frozen in time. Wouldn’t
even blink an eye. Then all at once they communicate with each other. Just bang all four
of them gone. Just like that. Their there together. Makes you wonder how they
communicate that their gonna go. We never saw them again but, the amazing thing is in
the winter time the ___ are up there. But then there’s a lot of rabbits up on top.
Then the fox and the coyotes they kinda like to tend up in there whenever the snow is
blow off it you can still see fox tracks up on there. Kinda clever but the ____ stay
down in there and their get in the willows. I’ve seen them get underneath there and go
for quite aways. Once they get underneath the down in the brush they can travel pretty
good.
When did you go to Breckenridge?
In 1972.
Did the family move there?
Yes. We was working in Breckenridge. When the ski company bought Breckenridge
and they went over there and we built lifts and changed this and changed that. They
needed somebody to do some more work there besides building lifts. I stay over there.
We built some palma lifts and fixed them up so they was running and that were that
thumb got initiated. The old haring lifts were low to the ground and where they crossed
the ski runs the chairs were so low that people would ski down through there and hit
chairs. Hit em’ in the head. So we went in there and raised this lifts up and put thimbles
on the towers and grouted them. Grouted the bottom and raised these towers up it was a
pretty good job. Along in the winter time we had to take. Well it wasn’t the winter time.
Well the winter time comes versus September. We would put these thimbles on there and
then we would grout the bottom and to keep it from freezing we’d put this caned heat
around them and cover em’ with plastic. My daughter was starting school over there in
kindergarten and I got up one night. We would work all day and then I’d go home and go
to bed. Get up at midnight and go back up there these can of heat around the base of
these towers. One can won’t take it all night, So you’d go up there at midnight and put
another in there. Keep it from freezing and had to get up quite high on that number two
lift. About half dozen switch backs to get up there. So I got ready to go, I had a bite to
eat. I was going back up there at midnight and my daughter woke up. And she says
daddy can I go with you. I said yeah I guess so. Had brand new Jeep pick-up. Well she
be alright she’s just in her night gown. She’ll ride up there I’ll put those on and be back
in a little bit. Will I got up there and com around this one corner and the wind was ninety
miles an hour and the snow was flying all over the place. I’ve go to get up there and got
those on or there freeze and they won’t be any good. So it tried to get through and got
stuck. Oh boy I tell you that was a lesson I learned. Never take a little girl in a night
gown with you. We got it fixed up and got home. We stayed over there for three years.
I was over ____ for the __ Corporation to build two lifts and then right then at
the town of Breckenridge they had a swap going up through there in a beaver damn.
Kinda had to work around with the forest service and game and fish. I was in Korea in
the service and mine warfare and demolition. We put the explosives up through with
ditching powder and the shot that ditch open and the beaver damn. The water come
down through it looked like somebody had a D8 just shoved down. We was over there
for quite a while and revamp some of those lifts. But there was a lot of work to keep
going there. Redone number one at the time. Redone number two as far as raising it up.
That was a crazy bunch of people over there too. I was down there when the thing
happened. Two or three guys come up there and took this boat up there and these four or
five got in boat was coming down through there with oars and I makes you want to
scream. My daughter first learned to ski over there. We went up this t-bars and she went
with this one guy was a very good instructor. He would stand there in a snow plow and
the little girl would stand right in between his legs in a snow plow. And two days there
skiing like a wiz. Anyhow she’d only be skiing for two days and I was up there, I usually
make my rounds everyday and I was going up. How about I go skiing with you. Ok ohh
big deal. Skiing two day and your gonna go with Dad. So we went up there and hit the tbar
and we go off to the left and she heads straight down the hill. Down there by the
parking lot there’s a bank that is forty feet high where they dozed away for the parking
lot and she just goes straight down the hill. I had to ski down there and get in front of
her. You gotta tum a little bit. Tum back and forth. Run her off into the trees and fell
down. She goes home that night and said I don’t like to ski with Daddy he runs me off
into the trees. That was an experience over there. They had all kinds of lifts. They had
palma lifts, oldest lift in the country, I believe. The old number seven. Seven-up lift they
called it. Wasn’t very many chairs on it. You could stand right there and look down at
the bottom and people would come up on the thing and they would try to stick their toe
down there and try to write there name in the snow as the come up on the chair lift?
Now did you move back to the valley after Breckenridge?
Stay over there for three years and my wife didn’t care for it over there. It’s winter
twelve months out of the year over there. Cause it can snow every month of the year.
When we lived there was no town there to go through going to Denver. To go shopping
there was not much in Frisco for going grocery shopping. So it’s best to go to Leadville
To do that you have to go over Hooser Pass and go to Fairplay then by Climax you go
over there. She didn’t care too much for it and the kids were starting to go to school. We
lived up there on Blue River. Built a house up there and our little boy, Brian he was like
only two years old then. He was outside playing. He comes walking in and the blood is
running down the side of his face. What happened! We started looking and these little
nats was around your eyebrow. The Indians called them noseeem nats. There in there
and you don’t even feel em’ and they suck the bood out till the get so big. If you go like
that your squashing your blood all over the place. We came back and went to Sunlight.
The Ski Company sold the old number three off of Aspen Mountain to Sunlight ski area.
We were suppose to put in some of it over there. So I came back and went over to
Sunlight and started building the lift there. Then they had to have some more stuff and
then turned it over to the Sunlight ski area. We has a lot of fun there. I was something
different. We was trying to blast out the base for the base of the thing. They had a lodge
and it was bouncing rocks off of there lawn right next those. Trying blast it out of there.
Lot of fun.
Now when did Carol become County Treasure?
She worked for the treasure before we went to Breckenridge. Then she came back over
here and started again working for Zelnick. Worked two or three years for her. Then she
got out of it. Carol was kinda in line for the job. She been there for thirty three years now
I think. She’s a diabetic and has kind of a problem with it. She said gotta hang onto the
insurance because things are so expensive medical wise. It’s pretty bad. She loves
working there. She’s pretty good at it, I guess. It’s a challenge. Just like Ski Company
work was a challenge. Whenever Tom Richardson left as the president and Bland
became president. They was having a problem trying to make up there mind up what
they wanted to. You have to budget for this and budget for that. Then they come and
start looking at what you’ve got and then they start throwing your money away from you
and you don’t have the money to do it. And can’t do it. So I just tired of it and thought
all there has to be something better. I still like the Ski Company. I should had a twenty
year pass but when I went to try to get the said no you’ve been twenty years but part of it
was part time. Even though I was still with the Ski Company and some of the things that I
was doing. It’s just one of those things.
Were close to the end of the tape. Do you anything else you wanted to share with us
or any additional thoughts.
Snowmass was, I thought was a great place. It was actually Brush Creek. Something
came up about Snowmass, Snowmass store was raising cane about the mail getting all
mixed up. Cause the was calling Snowmass, Snowmass and Snowmass Store was down
the road there quite a ways and somebody said we why did you call it Snowmass when it
is suppose to be Snow Mesa? They said well, Snowmass you don’t want to call it Brush
Creek, it to hickey. It never sell. Growing up there and everything, I mean I’ve had a lot
fun. I used to go hunting there and take out hunters in the fall. Number seven is the top
of it, we had a hunting camp right in there. That little Brush Creek comes down through
there, East Brush Creek. It runs right on a ridge if you look through there in the right
places. It comes right down this ridge. We would go hunting. To go to camp, we had a
tent set up. We’d take a length of garden hose with us. What are you doing with garden
hose your going hunting? Oh this is our running water. Oh yeah. So we’d stick the end
of it in the creek and go over this bank. Like I said it’s on a ridge, go down over the
bank. Do a little suck on the hose and you got running water in your camp. Good water.
But I don’t know. There’s too many things going on, I don’t think I’d drink that water
now.
I appreciate you taking the time to talk to us.