Page 52 - Flathead Beacon // 6.11.14

52 | JUNE 11, 2014 OUTDOORS
FLATHEADBEACON.COM

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FATHERS DAY LURCHING FROM ONE
NEAR DISASTER TO ANOTHER. Warren Miller
SALE
Squaw Valley History

W
AS I NERVOUS? YOU BET! 16MM projector and showed him my
IN the end of 1949, three feet footage. Jay liked what he saw and of-

of new powder snow had fall-
fered to help me get started in the feature
ilm business.
en overnight at a brand new ski resort
As I sit here in my oice in Orcas Is- called Squaw Valley.
land, and relect back on those exciting Donner Summit was closed, and for
irst days of photography, I can’t ever re- the irst time in my life I was pointing my
call feeling as though I have worked a day brand new 16MM Bell and Howell cam-
in my professional life. I really liked what era at the ski school director, Emile Al-

I was doing and the sharing with any- lais. Emile was twice a world champion
one who would pay me a dollar to come prior to World War II and had a unique
see my ilm. So it never was like going to ski technique. I had learned about the
work.
399
French technique during the previous
For the irst 14 years that I made the winter when I was teaching the Arlberg POWER RECLINER
ilms, I did everything connected with the $technique for Otto Lang in Sun Valley.
productions. I selected where I would go; I had been hired as a ski instructor
handled the travel complexities; man- for this brand new resort with the irst

aged to get the best footage I could and double chairlift west of Colorado. The ski
then back to the oice in the spring and patrolmen who were skiing with Emile
summer to edit, choose the music (from and another instructor, Stan Tomlin-
the public domain as I couldn’t aford son, handled the powder efortlessly and
to pay for music), book the venues and I used what experience I had shooting
then start the travel all over again to the 8MM footage for the previous three win- While supplies last!
roughly 110 cities each year that wanted ters of Ward Baker and other people and

to see the ilm.
interesting things at Sun Valley.
It wasn’t until 1964, when Don Brolin With ilm costing $11 a roll including
was hired to help me with the ilming and processing, I had only saved up enough
post production and Art Lawson came money to buy ive rolls of ilm. Those ive
on board to handle sales, that I could get rolls of ilm were only the equivalent of
some breathing space. And Don stayed 12 and a half minutes of ski time. By the
with the company long after I retired time the sun had disappeared behind the
from the company.
ridge, my hands were frozen and I was re-

As the years roll by, I have all those ally nervous the next ive or six days until
memories of experiences ilming, trav- my footage arrived. I was very surprised
eling, and meeting exciting people all to discover that most of those irst ive
over the world. It’s time to inish up my rolls of ilm were good enough to include
autobiography and weed through liter- in my irst feature-length ski ilm, “Deep
ally thousands of photographs of those and Light.”
memories. My autobiography might just Over the course of the winter on
my $31.25 a week payroll, I managed to
be one man’s historical chronicle of the
growth of winter snow sports from a to- somehow ferret away enough money to
tal of 13 chairlifts in North America to buy 37 more rolls of ilm and from that
what it is today – sometimes as many as I created that irst ilm that I showed in
25,000 skiers on a single day at Mam- the fall of 1950. I was able to shoot some
moth and Vail.
footage of people trying to get up the
It’s been a fun journey of millions of rope tows as well as a young girl skiing
miles from those irst rolls of ilm taken with soft galoshes that rotated her feet RECEIVE

at Squaw Valley to be chosen to be the at least 90 degrees without ever actually $300 OFF*
honorary director of skiing for the Yel- turning her skis.
lowstone Club, the only private ski/golf In the late spring of 1950, the editor
resort in the world.
and publisher of Western Skiing, Les- STRESSLESS SUNRISE IN
ter Jay, was at Squaw Valley. I rented a
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