Remembering William ‘Senior’ Mahoney

Remembering Senior Mahoney
Bill ‘Senior’ Mahoney (R) and Stanley Rice ski at 12,000 ft. on Ajax Mountain. Photo courtesy Senior Mahoney.

On March 16, 2021, we attended a virtual meeting of the Aspen Historical Society, which featured Western State College University’s Dr. Duane Vandenbusche (Colorado’s new state historian) speaking about ski history. Dr. Vandenbusche had been a great help to us when we wrote our second book on the lost areas in central and southern Colorado. During Q&A we asked him if he knew Senior Mahoney. He replied that yes, he was great friends with Billy Mahoney, and that Billy had died recently. We were shocked and saddened to hear it. We later read obituaries online and learned that he died of complications from COVID19 on Friday, January 15, 2021.

Deepest sympathies to the Mahoney family and to friends like Dr. Vandenbusche. (Here is a memorial of Senior Mahoney that was published in his hometown newspaper: Telluride legend Bill ‘Senior’ Mahoney dies | News | telluridenews.com)

Senior Mahoney had also been a great help to us as we wrote that second book. We were able to meet with him for a few hours and interview him in his garage studio in Montrose, which was chock full of ski memorabilia. He was gracious but real (in overalls), and he warned Caryn right up front that he might swear. He gave us permission to use his images as we liked, including films of skiing in the 1930s that he had acquired.

It was a real pleasure to get to meet and talk with Senior that day, and many quotes and much information from him are featured in our second book, including the photo above where he is full of life and enjoying skiing to the hilt. The photo below of him in the powder is one that we did not include in the book.

Remembering Senior Mahoney
Senior Mahoney skis Mammoth slide in 1970.

Chapter 20 on San Miguel County in Lost Ski Areas of Colorado’s Central and Southern Mountains reads, “Bill ‘Senior’ Mahoney was from a longtime mining family and became a shift boss in the Idarado Mine. He was also from a skiing family. In fact, the skis his granddad made and skied on in the 1890s in Bonanza, Colorado—where Mahoney was born—are on display at the Telluride Historical Museum. His family moved to Telluride in 1931, when he was three, and he and his brothers started skiing then.” The subtitle of the chapter describes their early skiing best: “Skiing Everywhere and a Portable Rope Tow.” With his passion for skiing, and as Telluride mining died, Senior later helped create Telluride Ski Area and became its first mountain manager and vice president. What a skiing legacy he leaves!

Farewell, Senior Mahoney. Thanks for sharing your memories with us and with our readers.

Skiing on Colorado’s Plains?

A funny thing happened this past weekend. With hardly any snow on the ground and only five miles from Greeley, people were having fun, fun, fun, and skiing up a storm.—Greeley Journal, 1971

Hat tip for image to Coloradoskihistory.com

Sometimes politicians do good things for their communities. Yes, really. This was true of Mayor Dick Perchlik, who created a beginner ski hill for the kids of his town, along with his wife Sylvia and others. They made it on a sandstone bluff overlooking the Cache La Poudre River, only minutes from town.

The purpose was to allow the average boy or girl living on the plains, who couldn’t afford to go to a mountain ski area, the opportunity to ski. While constructing the hill, the Mayor and friends found sharks teeth; hence the name.

Hat tip to Coloradoskihistory.com.
Hat tip for image http://www.coloradoskihistory.com

Read more about this ski hill in Lost Ski Areas of Colorado’s Front Range and Northern Mountains.

Another remarkable instance of skiing on the plains, also covered in this book, is the ski jumping exhibition that took place at Inspiration Point in Denver after the Big Snow of 1913. It started the craze of the extreme sport in Colorado, which went on for decades.

Carl Howelsen and friends set up a makeshift jump and demonstrated ski jumping for a crowd of some 20,000 people on January 19, 1914.

The images below are from Municipal Facts Monthly, January 11, 1920, when folks also came to see ski riders go off the jump at Inspiration Point.

2020–2021 Ski Season is On

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah and Happy New Year! Looks like COVID19 will not totally stop this ski season, even though the virus will change the way it works. You know the drill by now: keep six feet between parties; wear masks whenever possible; wash hands often; stay home if you’re sick. Also, you must have a pass to ski at resorts.

The last event to interrupt skiing in Colorado in such a way, apart from skimpy snow years, was World War II. Only a few hills and areas remained open as Americans turned their focus to fighting.

The B-Hill or B-Slope was one of these hills. It was here that the Tenth Mountain Division of the US Army’s Eighty-Seventh Mountain Infantry Regiment, which was created in 1941, trained recruits to ski. Lost Ski Areas of Colorado’s Central and Southern Mountains tells the story and gives the exact location of the hill in Eagle County.

Glen Cove in Teller County managed to stay open. The Pikes Peak Ski Club turned the area over to the military to use. In 1944, they held a military meet there. Lost Ski Areas of Colorado’s Front Range and Northern Mountains tells that story.

After World War II, Tenth Mountain Division soldiers led skiing forward in Colorado with an emphasis on Alpine skiing. Skiing had been Nordic before. What will be different about skiing in Colorado when we get through this pandemic?

2019–2020 Ski Season Shuts Down

Colorado skiers have been sans powder for a month due to COVID-19.

Governor Jared Polis said in early March that he would not shut down ski areas, but he encouraged skiers to social distance because of the new coronavirus. Then, as the resorts closed voluntarily, he issued an executive order suspending skiing for one week. That was mid March. On March 19th he extended the ban. Also, he discouraged people from traveling to the high country.

Most skiers left the resorts as they shut down, but backcountry enthusiasts just kept skiing. TV news reports showed that the parking lot at Berthoud Pass was packed. In mid-April the reports were that the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) blocked parking areas on Loveland Pass with snow to end parking along the mountain road.

Current generations of skiers are not the first to experience a loss of the “healthful sport” in their lives. World War II brought almost a complete shutdown of small ski areas and hills all over Colorado as the USA mobilized to fight overseas. The winter carnival in Hot Sulphur Springs shut down in 1940. When the war ended things would be different in Colorado; large resorts and alpine skiing eclipsed the little hills and Nordic skiing. Read more about this in the lost ski area books.

What will the changes be to skiing after this pandemic has passed? Perhaps Nordic skiing will become more popular because it lends itself to more social distance between skiers. Or, maybe skiers will have to ride two to a gondola unless they’re family members. Whatever happens, we know Coloradans will keep their chins up, be part of the national effort to defeat this virus, and find a way to ski after the emergency is over.

It’s Snowing Again!

Yippee! That’s what skiers say in 2020 with snowfalls that continue to accumulate inches.

In 1913, the people of Denver were not so thrilled when a blizzard hit the city, bringing 57 inches of snow in December alone. The city was immobilized, but there was a silver lining in those snow clouds.

Historic photo showing historic snowfall that got Denver hooked on skiing.
The author’s (Caryn’s) grandmother Martha (R), with sisters Mary Louise (L) and Sylvia Springsteen in the aftermath of the Big Snow of 1913.

Carl Howelsen was living on Sherman Street in Denver and working as a brick layer. He took the opportunity to ski around and show off his Nordic prowess.

One of the men who saw Howelsen ski, George Cranmer, asked Howelsen to show him how to ski. In that moment the passion for skiing among Denverites was born. Howelsen and Cranmer became great friends and the early ski clubs of Denver were born. Plus they set up a ski jumping exhibition one hundred years ago at Inspiration Point in Denver that was wildly popular. (The image atop this post shows the take off they built.) It ignited a passion throughout Colorado for ski jumping, which became the extreme sport of the day.

Read more about it in Lost Ski Areas of Colorado’s Front Range and Northern Mountains.

The Devil’s Thumb Ranch Holiday Market and Tommelfest are Upcoming

There the Boddies will sell and sign their lost ski area books, which were published by The History Press in 2014 and 2015.

Come see us Saturday, December 7, 2019, 10 AM–4 PM, at the Devil’s Thumb Ranch Holiday Market and Tommelfest in Tabernash. Shop, ski, eat, drink and enjoy the celebration.

Nordic skiing at Hot Sulphur Springs Winter Carnival in the 1900s. USFS photo.

Did you know Nordic skiing was the first form of skiing in Colorado and that it was brought by Norwegian immigrants to the state? (The images in this post are US Forest Service photos from the early 1900s of Nordic skiing and ski jumping at a winter carnival in Hot Sulphur Springs, which is Colorado’s lost ski town, and not far from the ranch.) Read more about it in the Front Range and northern mountains book.

You can also order books for gifting through our website. We’ll sign and ship them to you right away.

Come for a Fun Evening in the Town of Frisco

USFS Ski Poster
The US Forest Service was actively involved with early Colorado skiing.

Come hear the Boddies share about the lost ski areas of Colorado at the Museum in the Town of Frisco (120 Main Street) in Summit County, on Friday, November 8, at 4 p.m. It’s opening day of the 2019–2020 Season at Copper Mountain!

Come hear the story beneath the story of the Colorado Ski Industry. Come learn who brought the ski culture here initially. Come find out about the only American to win a medal in Olympic ski jumping and how he is connected to Summit County. 

The evening will be lots of fun and historic photos will be involved, plus you can buy copies of the lost ski area books and have the authors sign them. (They make great Christmas gifts!)

Berthoud Pass Film Event

Come see the documentary film Abandoned on Friday, February 8, 2019, at the D.L. Parsons Theater, Northglenn Community Center, 11801 Community Center Drive, Northglenn. Doors open at 6:30 p.m. The film will begin at 7 p.m., followed by Q&A time with a panel. Cost: $5 donation suggested per person. RSVP with name and number attending to BerthoudEvents@gmail.com.

This event celebrates the 82nd Anniversary of the opening of Berthoud Pass Ski Area. The film was created by The Road West Traveled, filmmakers who are helping people discover the lost ski areas of Colorado through film.

The authors of the lost ski area books will attend and be available to sign books after. Peter will be on the panel to answer questions along with Lucy Garst, who ran Berthoud with her husband; Sally Guanella, whose family was involved with Geneva Basin and Berthoud; one of the filmmakers; and perhaps a couple other interesting people who know and love Berthoud.

Hope to see you there! Please bring your friends.

CBS4 Features Lost Ski Areas Story

The evening news on CBS4 Denver on April 17, 2018, featured a story by Dominic Garcia and his cameraman Bill (with his drone) on the lost ski areas of Colorado.

Authors Caryn and Peter Boddie spoke with Garcia about the areas and about how hard-working immigrants first brought the ski culture to Colorado.

They met for the interview at Inspiration Point in Denver where skiing “took off” when Carl Howelsen put on a ski jumping exhibition in 1914.

After leaving the Boddies, the CBS4 staffers headed to Genessee where more ski jumping took place and to Berthoud, which was a beloved ski area for years—a place to ski and see and be seen—and is still skied by backcountry skiers.

The story is now posted on the CBS4 website. Many thanks to them and especially to Dominic and Bill!