Tage Pedersen

Interviewee:      Tage Pedersen

Interviewer:      Judith Gertler

July 25, 1994, 1994.049.001

 

Tage I want to say welcome to the oral history project for the Aspen Historical Society.

Thank you, my pleasure to be here.

 

Let’s begin with a little bit of personal background before we discuss your early days in skiing and what you know about Aspen and skiing and some of the other aspects of Aspen.  Where were you born and when were you born?

I was born in 1926 in Denmark in the northwestern part of Denmark in a town named Thisted.

 

And what kind of town was that?

It was a small town of about 10,000 inhabitants and it’s very close to the west coast of Denmark which is the North Sea.  It’s about 10 or 15 miles from the North Sea and there’s a fjord going right by this town, so I’d go up by the water and did a lot of water sports at the time.  Swimming, boating, sailing and that kind of thing.

 

Did you live there your whole life?

I lived there until 1945.  I could not leave, the last five years Denmark was occupied by the Germans from 1940 until 1945 and at that time it was difficult to leave the place where you were staying at the time and you had to have a special permit and so on.  I was in an apprenticeship at that time too.  I was in an apprenticeship as a cabinet maker and I finished that and went into the military service at that time.

 

The Danish military?

The Danish military yeah and it was in the occupation of Germany which the Swiss from having been occupied by them.  I spent a half a year in Germany in the occupation forces and I went back and went to college and took a YMCA college and became in physical education and youth work and worked in the YMCA for a number of years.

 

What was your early experience with skiing?  When did you start and what was that like?

My early experience in skiing was in the Thirties and early Forties in Denmark.  Denmark is a flat country and normally we don’t have much snow, but we had about three or four snow years where skiing became popular, cross country skiing.  My earliest experiences were actually on some homemade skis out of barrel staves that I made myself and then later on I had some better skis.  But alpine skiing I did experience it in Norway in the late Forties just on one vacation there.  But alpine skiing, downhill skiing as we do here I did not experience until I came to Aspen.

 

And so you were living in Denmark and you were working with children?

Yes and young people.

 

How did you happen to come to Aspen?

My older brother had been on a tour of the United States on the gymnastic team and had decided to stay.  Or he came back but went back over again and decided to move to Denver and he was involved in landscaping and came up to Aspen in the early Fifties to ski. Since there was nobody doing landscaping he decided to stay and has been here ever since as well.

 

Is he still here?

Yes he is.

 

What is his name?

His name is Henry.

 

Same last name?

Yes.

 

And so…

So that was the reason I came to Aspen.  I did, the first and foremost reason was that I married an American girl in Denmark.  She was studying in Denmark and we met and were married there and lived for a year and had our first child in Denmark and then we decided to come to United States.  She’s from Massachusetts.

 

Had she skied in the east?

No she had never skied.

 

What year was it that you came to Aspen?

1956.

 

1956, what did your brother tell you about Aspen, either by letter…did you communicate by letter or how did you…?

We did communicate by letter, but I had been here on a visit two years earlier and visited him in Denver when he was living there and we just went on a trip to Aspen, a one day trip and I had seen Aspen at the time and…But he was very, very excited about it and then he worked as a ski instructor later on and he also worked at the Hotel Jerome as a bellman when he first came to Aspen.  So he was very excited about it and I had, in those days you had to have a sponsor in order to emigrate and my sponsor was John Oakes who was the owner of the Aspen Sports at the time.  I was actually scheduled to work for Aspen Sports which never materialized.

 

So on the recommendation of your brother and the little bit that you had seen of Aspen you decided to move here, or did you come for a visit to see what it was like?

No we decided to move here right away and I must say that it was not an easy place to move to.  It’s never been easy to move to Aspen for people without means.  Even at that time rent was very high.  The first house we had we paid $80.00 a month which doesn’t sound like very much now but I was making $1.00 an hour.  So it was about half my income that went towards it.

 

And where were you working when you first came here?

Well when I first came I worked for my brother in landscaping for a few months and it happened we were landscaping at the Aspen Meadows when the Aspen Health Center was being built at that time it was being finished.  Since that was my field, in physical education I got to know the people that were running it and I got a job there in the spring of 1956, so my career in ski mechanic business never materialized.

 

So you never went to work for Aspen Sports?

No I did not, no.

 

So you moved here and it was $80.00 a month for rent?

Yeah.

 

Was that a small house?

It was a cabin, it was actually only a cabin.

 

An old miners cabin?

No it was not an old miners, but it was down on Oklahoma Flats and it was owned by a local contractor and it just consisted of one living room about 10 x 10 and a small bedroom just the size of a bed and then a kitchen.  So it was…and then we lived there for a number of months and later on rented a house from George Shaw in the west end of town which was a step upwards.  Because we only had to pay $60.00 but the house was very, very…in poor state.  It was, it needed a lot of repair and a lot of catching up for the winter to keep the cold out.

 

So it was difficult moving here and you feel it’s difficult moving into Aspen.  Part of it was financially.

Uh huh.

 

What about social integration, was it easy to become part of the community, what was the community like in the Fifties in terms of meeting people, the kinds of things that people did together that kind of thing?

We didn’t find it easy, we really didn’t because well I don’t know why but it was not easy to become part of Aspen at the time.  There were basically three different levels of inhabitants.  There were the old timers and they didn’t always welcome the newcomers even though there was no hostility, but it was not easy to get in because they had their family life and their circles of friends and so forth.  It was not easy to fit in there.  The second group were the more affluent people that were here, like we have today and we also had them at the time and people coming from the outside and enjoying the life in Aspen and usually only spending part of the time here, either summer or winter or part of it and that group was not easy to integrate with.  The third group were the so-called newcomers like ourselves.  They were people in construction and in the ski industry and service industry and all of that.  So that group probably was the easiest to assimilate into, but I must say that it was not…I don’t look back at the good old days in Aspen because life was not that easy. We talk about pollution today, none of the streets were paved so every spring when the winds kicked up the whole town was just like a dust bowl.  Of course it got into the houses and into everything. There was no sound water system, it was unsafe, people got sick from the water because it was a privately owned water system and there was no sewer system in town at that time so everybody had their own cesspools and septic tanks and there were cross-connections sometimes between the water and the sewers and the schools were adequate. But I think they are a lot better today, so there were a lot of things that you would forget when you look back at the good old days.

 

What kept you and your wife here?

I think our poverty.  I think if we could, if we had money and could afford it we might have left in the early years, in the first couple of years.  Of course it was very difficult to make a living here.

 

Did your wife work also, or did you have…?

We had children, we had three children so she didn’t work at the time.  Later on she was a teacher so she did get into the school system and was teaching both at the Aspen Country Day School and at the public schools.  But prior to that no, she was a housewife, she worked hard for that for sure.

 

Oh I can imagine.  You mentioned that in the late Fifties, mid to late Fifties the streets still were not paved for the most part and the water system wasn’t too good, the schools weren’t too good.  What kind of businesses do you remember being in town in those days?

Well the main business in town was Aspen Lumber and Supply Company which was owned by Tom Sardy in the middle of town and that was really the center of all commerce I think at the time as far as building goes.  Tom Sardy financed many, many peoples houses at the time including my own.  We built a house in the late Fifties and didn’t have any money and didn’t have any access to borrowing money.  But he was an outstanding person and without having to sign any papers or contracts he just let you charge everything until you had the house built and then he helped you get a loan afterwards.  So that was the main business in town.  Besides that there was a grocery store, Beck and Bishop and that is still…Mr. Bishop is still around and that was it pretty much.

 

Some lodges?

There were lodges, some family operated lodges all of them were and a few restaurants.  First the Golden Horn and the Red Onion were the main ones and the Hotel Jerome of course had a wonderful coffee shop and they were sort of a gathering point.  There was another little restaurant on the mall called the White Kitchen where you could you know get your cup of coffee for $.10 at the time and where everybody sort of met.  Sport shops, there were Aspen Sports and Bidwells, Sabbatinis were there, but other than that there was a general store called Calmus’s where the Gap is now.  That was a small department store.

 

So you also mentioned that you saw three different groups of people in a sense.  The second one you mentioned were wealthy people who came here.  Now say let’s talk the late Fifties, early Sixties for a while.  What did they come for?  In the winter they came for the skiing I assume?

Yes they came for skiing of course, that was the number one activity, but also for the Aspen Institute and for the Aspen Music Festival (MAA).

 

So that would be summer, more summer.

That would be the summer thing yes, the summer activities.

 

Do you have any knowledge, or do you have a guess as to whether people came for both.  In other words did some of the same people who would come in the winter for skiing come back in the summer or what do you think of that?

Definitely yes, especially the people that bought property and settled in and had property in Aspen.  Most of them were both summer and winter tourists or not tourist but part time residents and some of them lived here for year round too of course.

 

And of those of your friends and people you knew who lived here all the time was there much participation in the summer activities, the Institute and the Music Festival (MAA) to start with and then things came later?

No I don’t think that group of people really participated a whole lot in that.  There was more people coming from the outside and the working people and the local people did not participate in that to a great extent.  Of course some did, we always participated in it from the beginning.

 

Why was that?

Well because there was an interest. I mean I came from Copenhagen, we lived in Copenhagen and we had been involved in activities, cultural activities and we were very happy to have that aspect of it here.

 

Let’s see, before we talk a little bit more about skiing and what the situation was with the skiing industry at that point in which you came and how that developed, did you see at that time or were you aware of or did you think that there was a lot of European influence in the way Aspen was developing, both architecturally and perhaps in the way the town was and also in terms of who was here and who was involved in skiing?

Oh definitely it was very…and I think that was probably one of the reasons that we felt at home because there were many Austrians, Germans, Italians and Norwegians of course.  When Stein Eriksen came he brought a whole bunch of Norwegians here and those people were also involved, a lot of them had small lodges and bed and breakfast kind of operations and so they were trying to make a living in the summertime in construction and what not.  So the European influence was very strong in both the cultural and social life of course.

 

Do you have a guess as to what role that European influence played in making Aspen a kind of unique skiing area?  I mean why did these people come here as opposed to perhaps some other areas?

Well I…that’s a hard question to guess on.  Of course Friedl Pfeifer and Fred Iselin were both Europeans and (Walter) Paepcke was of European descent and I think he attracted and would like to see that kind of influence in Aspen.  So…and I think right after the War especially from central Europe a lot of the people there that were involved in skiing would like to get out and this was probably a natural place to come.  It wasn’t a huge influx of people like you see, it was a very small…I mean I don’t know how many people lived here at the time, but it was certainly very, very small and maybe a few hundred people at the most.  So it was not like a huge influx of people all of a sudden, it was a trickling effect I think.

 

Something that I have always been interested in and I’m going to ask and you can respond however you want to.  Given your experiences during the War in Denmark and as a member of the armed forces, were you in the resistance also?

No I was not, I was only 17 and then the War was over.

 

But then you were in the service.

Yeah.

 

But given the fact that there were people here from Germany, from Austria, from Italy, within the town was there any difficulty, any animosity, old feelings between people of different sides in the War?  Or were those kinds of things kind of forgotten?

It wasn’t forgotten for sure, no.  But I think it was…I have never experienced or have known of a huge argument, or fights or any of that type.  But if you were a member of, or a citizen of a country…that had been occupied by the Germans you certainly had some feelings that were you know and I think it mostly depended on the individual.  There were a few people of the Germans who maybe stood out from the others.

 

In a negative way?

Yeah in a negative way, but in general we had, a lot of our good friends were German too.  I think it was in a sense over with and done with, but you don’t forget it of course.

 

So there was a…

I don’t think it was personalized in that sense, it was more…

 

When you arrived in ’56 did you get very much chance to do skiing in those early days?

Yes, yes I started skiing right away and I didn’t have a lot…I had to work of course, but in between we certainly did quite a bit of skiing yeah.

 

And you worked at the Aspen Meadows, were you working with fitness or were you…?

Yes I worked at the Aspen Health Center which was part of the Aspen Institute and that’s where I started working and worked for them for 25 years.  First as an assistant in the exercise program for Mr. Harrison training and that sort of thing and then later I was managing it for about 20 years.

 

And what was here in the way of skiing?  In terms of equipment, lifts, what was the skiing experience like in the mid-Fifties?

Well the only lifts, there was Aspen Mtn. that was it, there was nothing else.  There was the old Number One (Lift One), which was the single chairlift and Number Two was also a single chairlift.  So there was two lifts to get up to the top.

 

To the Sundeck?

To the Sundeck yes and then there was the lift on Little Nell and that was it, there were no…and then later on of course the Bell Mountain lifts were built and so Little Nell was the beginner area.  First there was the T-Bar and then later that got replaced by a lift.  So all of the beginning skiing took place at the bottom of Little Nell which was not ideal.  I mean it’s not that flat down there.

 

And as you said you had really not skied except perhaps for one vacation, downhill skied.

Yeah right.

 

So how did you learn and what were the conditions like and…?

Well the conditions were, of course the slopes were not groomed like they are today of course they were only packed by skiing.  But there were very few of, hardly any moguls at all because of the nature of the skiing.  The skis were longer and you couldn’t make the quick turns, you had to make the long carving turns and so that did not build up the moguls and the equipment of course was mostly, well they were all wooden skis with steel edges and leather boots and bindings that were not very solid.  Solid in the sense that it gave you a lot of support, they were hard to get out of.  But it…and for that reason of course you were not going as fast as you are now either on the skis.  But the ski techniques and the experience of skiing was very different from what it is now.  You had to use a lot more body function to turn those skis around with that equipment.

 

Because of the nature of the design of the skis?

The design of skis and lack of preparation on the slopes and the equipment, boots and bindings and so on.  So it was a completely different technique of skiing in those days as it is now.  The technique was developed in part by Friedl Pfeifer and Fred Iselin.  So I skied for a couple of years and then like everybody else I had to be a ski instructor, so then I took some courses and went to the Ski School preseason training program and then passed the exam and became a ski instructor.

 

And it all is history afterward.

Yes.

 

When you think of the skiers who were coming here for vacations, can you kind of give perhaps a…paint a picture of what type of people were coming in, let’s say the late Fifties, maybe early Sixties?  What was their profile, the vacationing skier?

Well I think they had to be somewhat affluent in order to number one to get here and stay here and take lessons and so forth.  Most of the people that I can recall now when we were looking at people where they came from, they would come from the Chicago area and a lot of Texans.  Not too many Californians as far as I remember, but a lot of Texans.  There were always more Texans than any other groups I think and then from the Midwest and the people that I would be teaching would be business people probably, mostly and their children.  Of course there has always been a fair amount of so-called celebrities coming to Aspen of one kind or another.  But I would say it was a high income level of tourists and then of course you also have the less affluent that would come from Denver or students and that sort of thing who didn’t take lessons.  They stayed in the less expensive places like you have today of course.  So I would say it’s probably a similar kind of mix as you have today.

 

Do you think that in those days skiers who came here were looking for the same kind of amenities that skiers are looking for today in terms of…I mean let me back up a little bit, I don’t want to put words in your mouth.  You said that the slopes weren’t groomed, there were very few lifts in those days, although certainly lifts developed and other skiing areas developed.  Buttermilk, Tiehack and Snowmass at the end of the Sixties etc.  How did people approach, people you taught for instance, how did they approach the slopes, with fear and timidity or with gusto or…?

Well it’s, when you look back and you talk about there were two or three lifts, but they were high tech for their time.  So I think Aspen at the time was on top of the business as far as skiing goes, as far as amenities and shops and all of the rest of it, I mean we were as advanced as any in the country.  Skiing was of course not as well known at the time as it is now, but I think it was probably pretty much the same kind of attitude among skiers as we have today.  Even though there are probably more young skiers today than there were at the time.  There was more of the adults and like I say at least in Aspen and the more affluent that could manage to come here.

 

What about the ski bums, the young people that would come and spend a season or two, or live here their whole lives.  What do you remember about them?

That was very, they played a great role in the town and they were very visible for sure and it was the kind of thing that you could do in those days because you could easily find housing for a season if you were willing to move around a little bit.  I mean there were a lot of people that would let you stay in their house for nothing just to keep an eye on it.  So the rental was not as big an issue as you have today.  So house sitting was very popular and a lot of people, a lot of the ski bums would do that.  They would also work for the hotels and so forth and they would provide housing for them.  But they were certainly an adventurous group as they are today and always have been.  But played a great role and has always been I think an important part of the ski town because they provide a service that you can’t pay for otherwise I think.

 

In terms of the kind of work that they did?

The kind of work that they would do, part time work and maybe work for a little, not for a whole lot of money.  But for a lift ticket or just for an opportunity to ski, so they did not come to make a career in Aspen, they came to Aspen to ski and have a good time.  I think that most of them…but of course many of them stayed and became…

 

Model Citizens.

Model citizens, yeah that’s a good one.

 

You worked for the Aspen Skiing Co., was that the name of it in those days?

No, it was the Ski School.  In those days the Ski School was not part of the Ski Company (Aspen Skiing Co.).  It was operated as a separate business and they, I don’t know what their arrangement was but my guess is that they probably paid a fee to the Ski Company, (Aspen Skiing Co.) or maybe they even did not do that because they provided a service for the Ski Company (Aspen Skiing Co.) and brought people in.  Of course they had to buy lift tickets in order to ski, so I frankly don’t know what their arrangement was but up until I would say probably in the Mid-Sixties that was the arrangement that the Ski School was a private business aside from the Ski Company (Aspen Skiing Co.) and it was operated by Fred Iselin and Friedl Pfeifer.  Then later on when Buttermilk opened, I think when Friedl Pfeifer moved out there and the Ski Company (Aspen Skiing Co.) took over management of the Ski School as well.

 

Do you have any knowledge, or have any memories of what the Skiing Company (Aspen Skiing Co.), the relationship between the Skiing Company (Aspen Skiing Co.) and the town, or between…in terms of was their a relationship, did or was it just an entity that ran skiing?

Well there definitely was a relationship and it was I don’t think…there has always been friction I think between the Ski Company (Aspen Skiing Co.) and the town.  Because when you have a major employer that can always cause that kind of friction, but on the other hand in the early days as I remember the school children had free lift tickets and the school was out every Wednesday and all of the kids went skiing and the teachers went with them in groups.  They had volunteer instructors too.  But then of course came a time when the Ski Company (Aspen Skiing Co.) wanted to charge a little bit and they didn’t like that, so there were marches.  I remember there were protest marches against the Ski Company (Aspen Skiing Co.) because they were going to charge the poor children to ski all of a sudden and so there was one hurdle.  But even though they certainly made them a very reasonable deal, there’s always a…

 

There was resentment about that?

There was strong resentment yes, very strong.

 

Anything else that you’d like to add about how skiing evolved from the time you got here through perhaps let’s say the Seventies or Eighties?  When you think about the industry itself or how it grew, technique or training, that kind of thing?

All along of course the US Ski Team has been coming to Aspen, or in those days they came to Aspen to train.  I remember the first time was in probably 1948 or so, uh ’58, prior to the Olympics and the Ski Team came and they did physical conditioning training at the Health Center that we set up for them.  The fact that the US Ski Team would come had a great influence I think on the development of skiing, ski racing in Aspen.  Aspen has always been a very, very exciting town as far as the ski racing goes, both with youngsters, children and adults as well.  Then the influx when Stein Eriksen came I think that was a change, when Aspen Highlands was built.  He was the first ski school director at Highlands and brought in Norwegians and they had a different teaching technique of the Aspen Ski School.  So there was some rivalries there on a friendly basis and a lot of fun poked at each other because this was at the time considered being more advanced than what had been taught before.  So the evolution in the skiing has had to do with both the personalities and probably more so with equipment.  The profile of the skier I think has pretty much been the outdoor enthusiast that wanted to ski and then you have parents and grandparents that want to come because the kids ski and they would like to try it out too.  I remember some students that in their later years wanted to learn how to ski just to see how it was, why people were crazy about it.  It’s always been expensive for you know, relatively for a sport even though you know I remember lift tickets were $4.50 for a day.  But skiing Little Annie on a snowcat was $15.00 a day which was a lot of money, but that included lunch too.  But it’s always been an expensive sport I think.

 

Do you think that has an impact on who…it obviously has an impact on who was being attracted to skiing, who would ski.  When you think about…in the early days there wasn’t that much diversity I don’t imagine in terms of ethnically or racially in terms of skiers?  Or was there, am I wrong?

No, I don’t think so, I think it was pretty much the upper middle class.  But on the other hand I have to say that the Ski Company (Aspen Skiing Co.) has always been in my opinion have been very interested in attracting skiers and have had package deals and have had special deals for people in the valley and school children for sure.  They had a lot of programs in the Sixties and Seventies for the school children on the weekends, they could ski.  It was called the Aspenaut program where children could ski free and get free instruction on weekends and that was sponsored by the Aspen Skiing Co..

 

How did the kids…did your kids participate in the ski teams and that kind of thing?

Competitively, just one of them did competitively but they certainly participated in all of those programs and learned to ski in ski programs.

 

The whole aspect of professional racing, the ski racing that you were talking about is the strangest thing to me.  What do you think…I understand that the first FIS race was in 1950, is that right?

Yes.

 

How did Aspen develop the reputation and the…how were we able in Aspen to bring ski racing here where some of the other ski areas weren’t able to do that?  What drew people here professionally?

I think the Mountain (Aspen Mtn.), the FIS in 1950 sort of put Aspen on the map in the ski world.  I think the nature of our Mountain (Aspen Mtn.), we have a good downhill run, which a lot of mountains at that time did not have and we had a lot of people that were interested and willing to put on the races and do it.  Then later on of course there’s always been, there has been a…I would say probably all along there’s been a sort of a controversy between ski racing and recreational skiing.  I mean a lot of recreational skiers are opposed to ski racing because it closes off part of the mountain and so you’ve always had that conflict and Aspen has never since put in a bid for a World Championships or Olympics or anything of that nature because number one it turns the whole town upside down and it brings in a lot of things that are not fitting with the resort community.  I mean you have to build a lot of extra things that…

 

For instance the Olympics?

Especially the Olympics yes, I mean when the Olympics were supposed to be here in ’76, not in Aspen, but in Colorado.  Aspen was also one of the sites that were being considered, but nobody in Aspen wanted to have Olympic ski racing in the town at the time.  So I think a town like Steamboat Springs for instance has had a more glorious history of ski racing than Aspen has for that reason.  They’ve had probably more people interested in that.  But we have certainly have had our share of good, very good ski racers and ski competition.

 

Were you actually a trainer for the US Ski Team?

Yes.

 

And tell us a little bit about what you did and what your responsibilities were and how you worked?

Well it sort of happened that I was in the right place at the right time being associated with the Aspen Health Center. When the ski team came to train we opened up the place and we conducted a conditioning training program and then when some of them got hurt, we tried to take care of the injuries and get them better in a hurry.  So what happened in 1968, Bob Beattie asked me if I would become the trainer for the US Ski Team at the Olympics in ’68.  Prior to that I only worked with the ski teams for oh since, well since we started in ’58 probably.  But not on an official basis.  So from ’68 on, I became the trainer for the Ski Team and traveled with the Ski Team to the Olympics and World Championships and I was responsible for setting up conditioning training programs for the individual ski racers.  Programs that they could take home with them and work on.  At that time they were not associated with the ski racer on a year round basis as they are now.  They would just get together in the fall and go for a couple of months and race in Europe and then they were sent home again.  It was on a much less intense basis as it is now when it’s a year round proposition.  So we had to set up programs for them, that they could work on individually and then during the racing season I would be with the team and help them warm up and primarily work on minor injuries and try to get them back again.

 

And strengthening as well?

Strengthening and massage and muscle sprains and we had, we usually had a training program, we had exercise sessions on the road too when we had opportunities to find a gym somewhere.

 

How long did you do this?

I did that from 1968 until 1986.  I went to the Olympics in Sarajavo, they were my last Olympics and then I went to the World Championships the following year in Austria.  Since then I’ve still been working with individuals on the team, but from about 1980 on the Ski Team hired full time trainers.  I worked on a voluntary basis, I just had expenses paid but no income from it.  I usually worked maybe a couple of months during the year and also went to training camps here in preseason, training camps at Mt. Hood, Mammoth Mountain and other places as well as having them here, where we worked on conditioning.

 

Did you continue to teach skiing for a while or…?

I taught skiing until about the middle of…the late Seventies.  I never taught, I only taught one year full time.  All of the rest of the time I just teach private lessons because I had my regular job at the Aspen Health Center which was mostly afternoon business, so I had the mornings to do the skiing.  But I taught skiing until the late Seventies.

 

And why did you stop?

Well I had it.

 

In a nutshell.

Yes when you get to the point where you have to repeat too many times and you say, “Well why aren’t they getting it?”  Then it’s probably your fault, you get to that point where…

 

Could you see your skiing grow over the years, improve and grow, your personal skills?

Oh absolutely yes.  I never did any ski racing, but my skiing ability and technique certainly improved yes.

 

I think I want to turn the tape over and ask you a few more questions.

Ok.

 

Tage how did a person become a ski instructor in the early days?

Well the ski school every year had a week long training program for perspective ski instructors and you were put into classes that were taught by people who were already ski instructors of course.  You were taught the techniques, the proper techniques for the ski school at the time and you were taught how to handle classes and handle people and present your demonstration.  Of course you had to be, you had to be a fairly good skier in order to become a ski instructor and be able to demonstrate correctly the teaching techniques.  Then at the end of the week there was an examination where there were different stations and you each had to go and you were presented with questions about techniques and also had to lead a class and show how you could teach.  If you passed, you were a ski instructor and then later on of course you had the Professional Ski Instructors Associations in the Rocky Mountain, they had them for different areas of the country and you had to pass their exam.  But the local ski school when (Fred) Iselin and (Friedl) Pfeifer had their own instructors certification program and if you were certified by them, you could teach here for sure.  You might not be able to teach other places, but there was a local homegrown so to speak program.  But it was very well organized and you knew exactly how they wanted to present the techniques and how they found that one learned the best.  They did not necessarily look for hot shot skiers to teach.  I remember Fred Iselin once said a lot of ski instructors who were struggling themselves a little bit are better teachers than the ones who are experts and maybe might not have the ability to teach other people.  I think he was right in that.  So he was less concerned with your skiing abilities as he was with your ability to get along with people and handle people.  He would always look at, if you were given a class on a Monday morning and on Tuesday nobody came back, then things were not good.  If you could keep a class the whole week you were doing a good job.

 

Did Fred Iselin and Friedl Pfeifer interact with the instructors on issues like this?  Would you talk about why you lost a class or that kind of thing or was there explanation, was there a discussion, was there people fired or…?

Oh absolutely, especially Fred Iselin, he was on the Mountain (Aspen Mtn.) every day, all day long and he would watch you, he would observe you often from behind a tree and without you knowing it.  Also for sure he would make a point of making a run with every class himself.  So he would show up and that was the highlight for the class of course and for the instructor when he would take over because he was a very dynamic person and a great personality and a terrific skier.  So he was doing that more than Friedl Pfeifer.  Friedl Pfeifer was more the organizer of the ski school.  No we would certainly…and we had a meeting every single day after skiing where you to…at the Hotel Jerome.

 

At the bar?

No it was in the blue room it was called, the room now where the dining hall now is.  We always had to show up there every time and turn in your tickets and get the critique of the day and you had be there and you had better do it right.

 

Skiing techniques have evolved over the years, partly as you mentioned because of changes in technology, how skis turned and so forth.  Also because of perhaps different philosophies, new ideas coming in?  Can you kind of trace the evolution, not necessarily specifically but could you trace it in terms of how…Let me back up, how open were the leaders of the ski school towards new changes in technique and style and ways of contacting students, that kind of thing?

Well they had their very set techniques.

 

Initially.

Initially yes.  This was it and this was the way we taught, so called Arlberg Technique which was a technique where you used a lot of upper body and rotation of the upper body and lift in order to get the skis around.  That was dictated as I said because of the conditions and the equipment and then later on you had a French influence.  It was called the French technique of…Joberg was the name of the developer of that technique which was a little different with less motion.  That was of course because the ski equipment was changing and then there were also changes in the Austrian techniques.  There was a professor, an Austrian professor who developed some short swing, it was called short turn “Wedeling” and there was a funny story with…that I didn’t hear myself.  But somebody came to, a student came to Fred Iselin and asked him if he taught “Wedeling” at the ski school and he said, “No, we teach Friedl and Fredling.”  But he had a great sense of humor.  But it was not that he was, they were not opposed to changes, certainly not.  They changed with the times and they were good business people of course.  You don’t want to teach something old fashioned if everybody else is changing.  But there’s always been a tremendous discussion about different ski teaching techniques.

 

Continuing to the present?

Oh yes and then the short skis came in and some people started teaching people on very short skis and they didn’t like that and Fred Iselin never got involved in that in his teaching.

 

What do you think Fred Iselin would say about snowboarding?

Well he would, I think he would do it.  He was an adventurer, I mean he would do anything and no, I think he would be right in there.

 

He would be open to that?

Absolutely.

 

Well before we move on just a little bit, is there anything else about…kind of anything else you’d like to fill out with what we’ve been talking about?  How the sport has changed over the years?  Let me just ask a question, I just see something else I would like to ask.  The Aspen Skiing Co. has gone through different owners.  The original Skiing Company was sold I guess to some larger corporations, I know at one point Twentieth Century Fox owned it and Marvin Davis and now the Crown Company and…I may be forgetting some people in between.  Are you aware as a skier and a trainer and as a resident of Aspen of differences in the way skiing has been handled because different entities have owned it?

I think so, very much so yes.  I think in the earlier days it was a home owned company.  I mean the owners were mostly Aspen residents or Denver or Chicago.  I think that’s where most of the investors came from.  So everybody knew who the stockholders were in the Ski Company (Aspen Skiing Co.) and then as it was sold to a strange outside company who maybe had not bought it up because they were interested in skiing, but because it was a good business.  I think it changed the way the whole company was operated and was functioning too in many ways.

 

What might some of those changes have been?

Well it might not have…the average tourist might not have felt the difference.  But I think the people in town and employees felt it more.  Not that the old days were rosy you know people were always complaining about policies and the politics and the skiing.  But I think the same thing happened in the lodging industry.  In the earlier days all of the lodges were operated, and restaurants were operated by owners, owner operated.  But in the Mid-Sixties, late Sixties there were…things started changing, outsiders came in and bought up restaurants and hotels or built hotels, hired managers for their stores and for the restaurants and the same thing in the skiing industry.  It was an outsider that came in and it changed things considerably.  I think the old romantic ski vacation where you stay in a lodge and the owner is a ski instructor…you know it’s a very amorous attitude, I think that started to disappear and a lot of people miss that I think.  But there are very few places in town now that are owner operated and I don’t know if it’s better or worse.  In some instances it might be more professionally operated, on the other hand you lose that personal feeling and that comes with growth too of course.  You don’t know everybody.

 

Are you aware of other ski towns in Colorado and whether they are also, some are also experiencing some of the same things that you are describing?

Oh I think so definitely.  I think…

 

Like a Crested Butte or…?

Crested Butte, Steamboat Springs, Telluride, Vail…

 

Of course Vail was developed as a…

Vail was developed as a ski area in itself, but I think even there as a growth breaker you lose that personal contact and the thing is whenever you, you know after skiing, apres skiing you would go to a bar and there were only a few bars, so there were always ski instructors at the bars and that was a great interchange and people enjoyed, you know that and enjoyed the glamour of having a drink with a ski instructor.

 

And paying for it?

And paying for it yes.

 

Has your life personally changed over the years in terms of, we talked about social integration initially and yet things were closer, there were less people and everything was homegrown.  As Aspen has grown has your life in addition to your skiing changed as well?

Not a whole lot I don’t think.  I…and I know a lot of people who might say the same, but on the other hand a lot of people who’s life has changed.  But we have maintained pretty much the same group of people that we enjoy being with and doing the same kind of activities.  So that the influx and the changes in the town has really not affected us very much.  You know people say how can you stand it?  How can you live now and think back on the old days?  But it’s like the newer influx of people now, you see them but you don’t know them.  Like going to some fund raising event or some big event in town, you might only know five or ten percent of the people now, where in the old days you knew everybody.  But you sort of look past that and it can become and irritant, but on the other hand it’s part of life and so…no I would say that our life is not too different from what it used to be and a lot of the people that we associate with have the same…But on the other hand there are a lot of people that have left town because they just felt that things have changed too much.  I think that’s part of life, life is…no matter where you go it’s never the same as when you were there ten years ago.  If you go to a place for the first time and find it very charming and then you meet somebody who says, well you should have been here ten years ago, it’s terrible now.

 

You hear a lot of that in Aspen.

You do,  I remember the first time I was in San Diego and we had been going there quite a bit and I thought this is the greatest place, it’s fantastic, it’s wonderful.  Then you talk to locals and they say, “Oh it’s time leave because things are ruined.”  I think it’s the same people coming to Aspen for the first time, they are struck by the charm and the nature and the people and the activities.  But if you live here, I remember an old timer, newcomer, but old timer who died here a few years ago, he answered somebody who said well you have seen a lot of change and he said, “Thank God for the changes, if you don’t change you die.”  And I think Aspen, the changes in Aspen by large have been positive as far as I’m concerned.

 

You mentioned, well before we get into this I’m curious when grooming of the ski slopes started and what a change that made?  Do you have any idea when the snowcats were developed?

Probably mid-Sixties, I think some of the first equipment was developed in Aspen.  It was a…they put two oil drums together you know like a…made a roller and belted them together and then they dragged them behind a snowcat to smooth and groom the slopes.  Then later on they put blades on them to knock down the moguls.  But exactly when I…

 

Sometime in the, you think the late Sixties?

Yes I would say the mid to late Sixties yes.  Prior to that we would foot pack of course every spring.

 

When you foot packed, that would be…?

On skis yes.

 

But that would be the ski patrol and the ski instructors or…?

Ski instructors, that was part of the deal, you didn’t get paid for that.  If you were a ski instructor you had to go out and pack in the early season.  Then later on they would give people a lift ticket if they would pack for a whole day.

 

A whole day?

Yes, that was part of the deal of the ski bums, that’s one of the means for them to be able to ski was to pack for a couple of hours every morning and then ski for the rest of the day.

 

Do you think the element of grooming, the ability to groom the mountain made skiing more accessible for people of lesser abilities?

Oh yes definitely, oh yeah absolutely.

 

And then more trails were being opened also and more lifts etc.

Right, right, yeah.

 

Ok you mentioned a fund raiser and while we’re talking about that we’ve talked about skiing, but as we had alluded to earlier, the cultural aspects of Aspen certainly have been very strong and you feel have drawn people here.  How have you personally been involved in the cultural aspects of Aspen, you and your family?

Well I have always been interested in the Aspen Institute of course because I worked there, I had access to go to lectures and seminars and to the Music (MAA) too.  In those days there was one, we had a season pass for the Music (MAA) if you worked for the Aspen Institute.  Of course that changed when we had, we also had a lift ticket when you worked for the Aspen Institute, because it was all integrated.

 

One of those changes.

Some of those changes they were not welcomed, but I became involved with the ballet in Aspen when it first started.  I think it must have been ’67-’68 when Mr. Christiansen from Salt Lake City who was artistic director for Ballet West, he decided to bring his company to Aspen because Aspen was a melting pot.  You had people from all over the country and he felt like it would be a good place to have a summer program and keep his dancers occupied on a year round basis.  From my life in Copenhagen I was very interested in ballet and always went to a lot of ballet performances there.  Maybe mostly from the athletic point of view I would say I was interested in ballet.  So when he came and he was of Danish descent so we had a natural avenue to get together and of course we went to the performances.  It was down in the old gym in town, in the red brick schoolhouse and I got to know him right away I think from the first year.  They came I think another couple of years and they just came on their own and there were no local support groups and we were talking and I suggested to him that maybe we should try to develop a local support group.  There were other people involved in that at the same time Mrs. Metts and Mrs. (Elizabeth) Paepcke was involved and several other people.  So for…we did get a group together and formed a committee and…

 

What was the name of your organization after you met?

It was called Ballet West in Aspen and it was a local committee under the auspices of Ballet West in Salt Lake City.  I was elected chairman of that and had the pleasure of serving for about well over twelve years.

 

You did fundraising and publicity?

We did a lot of fundraising and publicity and it grew tremendously because in the beginning it was a two week session.  Then we added a school, a ballet school and we acquired properties in Snowmass for the school, timesharing and we acquired the seating capacity at the high school.

 

 

When was that, do you remember approximately?

It was in the early Seventies, yeah early Seventies and it came to the point where we hired a full time person to do the direction and help with the fundraising and so on.

 

How did you market, or how was Ballet West in those days marketed?  Who did you appeal to, was it only local marketing, did you do any national marketing, with the lodges, how did that work?

No we did not, we just did the marketing amongst the people who were in Aspen during the summertime.  At the time we spread flyers around in the lodges and had you know ads on the radio and interviews and it was very visible.  Especially in Snowmass and it still is today with the school and…

 

The tents…

The tents out there and when it was here in Aspen as well you know it was a…in those years it was Ballet West that came every year and people got to know the dancers and pretty much like you have with the music today and there was a connection growing there between the artists and the locals.  Because you saw the same dancers year after year and it was always like they were part of you and they were part of the town.  Then we evolved to the point where we started inviting others groups to come in and the organization grew like they all do.  The more they grow, the more fundraising you have to do.

 

And have you stayed involved as President until what year about?

Probably ’80, ’81, ’82 about.

 

Was it still Ballet West at that point or was it Dance Aspen?

I think the last year I was in we changed it to Ballet Aspen and then we were trying to build a performing arts center.  There were people involved in that, Dr. Scott and we had a group involved and tried to build it down on the Rio Grande and we didn’t get anywhere.  Then we tried to do it at the school, at the high school and we had the plans and we had everything ready to go.  We had an organization and fundraising started and then the school backed out at the time and then a couple of years later they came back in and now of course we have a very nice theater out there.  But prior to that it was in the gym and it worked out pretty well.  There was a great charm in the gymnasium because you had a real intimacy, you were real close to the action and you could hear them breathe hard and see the sweat flying and so that has disappeared to some degree with the new…so that I always thought that it was very charming.

 

For the record the new performance area is in the elementary school.

Yes.

 

It’s a beautiful facility that is supported both by Dance Aspen and the school system.

That’s right, it was built when the new elementary school was built and they had to build some kind of assembly, auditorium kind of thing that the Dance Aspen came back to them again and at that time it was accepted. It was a great marriage because Dance Aspen raised some funds to do the things, you know the stage house that the school necessarily didn’t need, so there was a good marriage there.  Now it’s being used very, very successfully.

 

Do you have a sense of how support…well let’s start back in the early days of Ballet West when you became President and were doing fundraising and publicity.  Was there very much local support of the programs or were they mostly towards people who were here in the summertime?

Oh there was a great local…

 

There was?

Yes, absolutely.  We had a wonderful board and we had great support from the local people and we also had, we started a local ballet school for local children which is now operated by Ballet Aspen School or Aspen School for Ballet, which is aside from Dance Aspen.  But it was started by our organization and then later on they decided not to operate it and it was turned over to private hands.  But we had a very, very strong local support and a lot of fun events too.

 

Let’s see arts have played an important role in your life, you said even when you were in Denmark.

Yes.

 

It’s a hypothetical question, but do you think that you would have stayed in Aspen if it hadn’t been for the other side of Aspen, not just the skiing but the cultural as well?

I don’t know, it’s uh, it would have been less likely I think for sure.

 

Do you think that’s true for a lot of people who are here?

I think so yes, I think so.  I mean as much as I like skiing and I know other people feeling the same, I still enjoy the summer more.  I look forward and have always looked forward to the summer.  Skiing, you can get tired of that, that’s all you do for about six months of the year and all you talk.  It used to be at least all the talk was ski talk in the wintertime, whereas in the summer you just have a wonderful mixture of activities.

 

Let’s see what else?  I think we’ve covered a lot of what I had wanted to ask you.  This is maybe a bit redundant, but what if any relationship do you see between the growth of the skiing industry and the growth of Aspens cultural life?  Do you have anything else to add to that, or do you think we’ve covered that pretty well?

I think we probably have, I think it’s, we have talked about that my wife and I that maybe we have too many things going.  There’s just a ton of fund-raisers going on and personally I’m not in a position where I can partake in it all and I know that a lot of the people that are involved, they are all involved, they go to one fund-raiser because they asked somebody else to go to their fund-raiser.  They are all going to each others event between Anderson Ranch, the Museum, Dance Aspen, the Music (MAA) and on and on.  So it’s pretty much to a large degree the same people that are supporting it and some, often you find my gosh you know not another one.  I think it can be too much, but it’s, I guess it’s working and I guess it will die if it doesn’t get the support.

 

See I think there are two aspects of support, one aspect you’re describing now in terms of fundraising and the kind of work that you did as President etc..  Then there is also the kind of support of people who just attend functions, who take classes at Anderson Ranch, who go to the theater and who go to Dance and who attend maybe something at the Institute, certainly Music (MAA).  Do you think there is too much going on when you look at that level of support, meaning attending and enjoying and participating in it?

I found that personally it’s frustrating in the summertime, I mean there are so many things that you want to go to and you just can’t, it’s physically impossible to because it’s all good.  What I’m concerned about in Aspen is urbanization of Aspen in the arts.  That we have to have and I’m not criticizing it because I like it.  But we have to have a Harris Hall which is wonderful, I mean the acoustics and it’s a great experience to be there.  We have a new theater for the Dance and some people would like to replace the tent with a concert hall which would make it more enjoyable, but I think Aspen has it’s charm because of the tent and because you can hear the dogs barking. The concert had to stop the other day because of rain, you know, but there was an Emerson quartet and they just had to stop because they couldn’t hear what they were doing.  To me that’s very charming and like the old gymnasium was very charming.  I think, I don’t think that you should necessarily bring New York City facilities to Aspen.  I think people enjoy the informality of the cultures in Aspen.  I think they enjoy that informality in the tent for instance.

 

Or if they got rained on…

When they get rained on and when it starts dripping down, or an airplane flies although I don’t like that, but all of those things I think are, you don’t find that in the city.  You can go to a lecture at the Institute and you can hear some incredible people that you normally cannot hear in the average city in the country speaking or interacting.  You can ask them questions and you can mix with the artists in the tent.  You see them in the restaurants around town.  What I’m afraid of is that intimacy sometimes can get lost when we are trying to perfect the system.

 

I think that’s really an important point.  What can you specifically and you generically, meaning people who have been involved and have loved the cultural life, what can you do to perhaps prevent what you are talking about, the urbanization?

Well I think I just had a chance somebody handed me a questionnaire, a survey at the tent the other day and I hadn’t had that for a long time, there you certainly have a chance to…because they asked you if there should be reserved seating at the tent.  I would be very much against that because if there were reserved seating that meant that you might not be able to get in that night.  Now you get in and you always find your place.  But you have to make an effort to go and make your seat and they’ll probably be season ticket holders that might buy out the entire tent for the whole season.  Like it’s very difficult to get in for instance to Harris Hall, to the big events.  So that kind of thing, that would be another one that I would be very much against and also the fact that you know, replacing the tent with the…so you can make your views known on your surveys for one thing and what can you do otherwise?  I don’t know, you just talk to the powers to be I suppose or hope for best that there’s not enough money to do it that year.

 

Well I think you have given me a lot of information and a lot of views.  Is there anything that I have failed to ask you or anything that you might like to add to something you have said?  Take a minute and just kind of think about it a little.

No, I don’t know, I’m sure there are things that will come to mind later on but I think if I have at times sounded negative, it’s not because I’m unhappy with Aspen.  I still think it’s…we have talked about it a lot my wife and I and some family and if we should move, I don’t know where we should move to?  Carbondale is very nice, we have been living down there for a little while and I could live there for instance.  But I still think in spite of all of the things that are going on and now the big discussion now are the monster houses.  Well we are sitting in a monster house right here.  In the old days they built monster houses, the (Walter and Elizabeth) Paepckes house and Pioneer Park.  They are all over town, I think Aspen has had it’s share of big houses and I’m not sure that I’m in favor of just saying a house can have a certain size.  I think it should be in proportion to the site and if you have a big site you can build a big house and so I’d rather have that kind of restriction than just plain saying you can’t build a house more than 3000 square feet or whatever the decision comes to.  I think that’s a negative type of control.  I would rather have aesthetic control and I know that’s not easy to do.  But in…by and large I think Aspen is a great place and I think it’s here to stay for a while at least.

 

Tage thank you very much for sharing yourself and your experiences and your views with us and it was really a pleasure meeting you.

It was my pleasure too, thank you.