december
15, 1962 –
december
15, 2012 TH E STORI E S / / TH E S EC RETS / / TH E LEG E N D S
POSTER BOY Hotshot skier Pepi Gramshammer was imported to Vail’s steep runs from Sun Valley, Idaho.
Flirting with boundaries, circa 1970s
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the May D&F department store’s ice skating rink in downtown Denver. Their task was to promote the new Vail ski area. Sometimes promotions can be death-defying. All these newly minted Vail ski instructors had to do to win glory and honor was ski down a four-story, carpet-covered ramp.They looked down, they looked at each other, and they looked down again. The chosen Vail ski instructors were from the East or from Europe and were supposed to be able to ski hard pack and difficult conditions. They had no training runs and falling was not an option, especially in front of a large skeptical Denver audience, ready to poke fun at that upstart ski area. They careened from their fourth-story perch to the skating rink, impressed the crowd, put on a good show and no one died. Pepi Gramshammer even jumped out a fourth floor window,
VAIL 50TH ANNIVERSARY G 2 012 K E E P S A K E E D I T I O N
onto the ramp and down to the ice rink. Marketing named them “Vail’s First Ski Team.” Later that year Morrie and Pete Seibert took the new instructors into the Back Bowls for the first time. They skied down Milt’s Face in six inches of sugary powder with grass and weeds up to their knees. There was whispering among the instructors who they didn’t think the average tourist would be able to ski the back side of Vail mountain, but they didn’t complain to Morrie or Pete Seibert. They didn’t want to go back to that ramp.
TRIVIA
WHICH FORMER 10TH MOUNTAIN DIVISION TROOPER JOINED PETE SEIBERT IN CARING FOR AND GROOMING VAIL MOUNTAIN?
THAT WASN’T A QUESTION John Donovan wanted to get married, which was news to Diana at the time. John and Diana were at a ski patrol gathering when John made his intentions known to Diana and everyone else in the room. “Paul Testwuide announced he was getting married so I got up and said we were getting married, too. I didn’t ask her. I just announced it,” John said. “I’m still waiting for him to ask me to marry him,” Diana said. They were married in August 1967. John ran a fullpage ad in the paper inviting everyone in the county to the wedding reception at Manor Vail. About 1,000 people showed up, some on horseback.
SEE GUTTER FOR ANSWER
IMAGES COURTESY OF MOUNT-N-FRAME ( LOWER LEFT ) & PEPI GRAMSHAMMER ( ABOVE )
TRIVIA ANSWER = BILL ‘SARGE’ BROWN
You work like a slave to build an entire ski area in six months and you’d think Mother Nature would drop a little snow on you. But in 1962 you would be wrong. There was so little snow on Vail Mountain as that first season loomed that some wise guy drove his car to Mid-Vail. You may have a ski sport with no snow, but you still have a promotion. That left Bob “The Marketing Magician” Parker and Morrie Shepard to promote the area as best they could. And that’s how, around Thanksgiving 1962, a bunch of Vail’s ski instructors came to be perched four stories above