I didn't really get to ski at a ski lift likely until the 1970s (even though I rode ski lifts with my parents like the one on Mt. Shasta before an Avalanche ended that whole ski lift I think in 1978. But, we did this as tourists not skiers. I have a photo of it from I think my cousin taking a photo backwards of my parents riding the lift up behind us there which shows the ski lodge in the background before it was all destroyed by the avalanche then likely in 1978. I think we likely rode the ski lift in 1960 that summer because it had just opened. We were heading to Seattle for the Seattle world's Fair in the summer of 1960 with my 5 years older cousin with us. I would be about 12 and he about 17 and likely ready to go to USC on Scholarship then in the fall. Here's something interesting I found on the old Ski Bowl:
Anyway, I started skiing with my Dad's old skis by the time I was 15 likely at Mt. Waterman above Los Angeles in the Angeles National Forest then which would be around 1963 but I didn't buy my own Fisher likely 170s cross country skis until I lived in Mt. Shasta in Ashland, Oregon until 1976. Buying in Oregon saved Sales tax you had to pay for everything in California by the way. But, these were mostly fiberglass which was good but didn't have metal edges. Because of sliding sideways on ice about 500 feet once I won't ski anywhere on Mt. Shasta without metal edges that mountaineering skis have now. So I won't use non-metal edged cross country skis because they aren't safe usually in icy conditions that you can get in the shade around trees even on a sunny day on Mt. Shasta in the wilds.
I skied with the Fishers which I think were maybe 170s until I broke one and then switched to metal Edged Mountaineering skis in the early 1980s. If I went downhill skiing I just rented skis at the lifts like at Snow Summit in Big Bear or now Mt. Shasta Ski Park in Mt. Shasta. In the early 2000s my wife and I would ski up at Squaw Valley which has some amazing runs too and we would stay at Granlibakken which is a Swiss Chalet kind of resort there on Lake Tahoe too
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The Turbulent History of Mt. Shasta’s Old Ski Bowl
The the 1950's, ambitious developers opened a two-person chairlift on Mt. Shasta that reached 9,200 feet and accessed nearly 1,400 vertical feet from the top to the base lodge
It was in 1959 when ambitious developers leased land from the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and opened a two-person chairlift on the southern flank of Mount Shasta. The lift began at a lodge at 7,800 feet and topped out above the timberline at 9,200 feet.
The Mount Shasta Ski bowl became the first form of developed skiing on the mountain and was one of the world’s more impressive skiing areas during it’s nearly 20 years of operation.
When the Ski Bowl opened, advertisements bragged of the largest ski bowl in the United States. Although the area was popular, boasting that 6,000 people visited the lodge in one weekend in it’s first month of business, the resort had financial issues throughout its existence. Its only recorded profitable year was 1962-1963, when it recorded over 40,000 visitors.
New ownership took control of the mountain in the early 1970’s, with goals of making the resort profitable. Unfortunately for the owners and visitors of the Mt. Shasta Ski Bowl, money was the least of their worries.
In 1971, a fire destroyed the impressive lodge at the base of the resort. Desperate to keep the fledging business afloat, the new ownership built a much smaller lodge at the base. Even under financial hardships, the resort stayed open for nearly seven more years. Until mother nature delivered its final blow.
In January of 1978, a massive avalanche destroyed the Green Butte Chair Lift, ending all developed skiing in the area.
The Mt. Shasta Ski Park opened in 1985, in a location down the mountain in order to avoid catastrophes like the 1978 avalanche. The ski park has been run successfully for nearly three decades since, switching to local ownership in the summer of 2017.
Today, the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl can be accessed by hikers in the summer and mountaineers/backcountry skiers in the winter. The old Mount Shasta Ski Bowl represents a simpler time, when ski resorts were small chairlifts up a raw mountain, compared to the over-developed resorts of today.
With increases in snow technology and resort development, could a ski lift go there today? One can dream…
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