SKI FEVER

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 67, 21 March 1938, Page 3

SKI FEVER

the scar on a mountain, fifty, sixty, seventy miles an hour, streaking down a narrow trail, cutting a hot corner by a graceful quick thrust, with the heels will come 500.000 "toestrappers” almost skidding on their skis this winter. Literally they will overrun the Canadian Laurentians, the White and Green Mountains and the Berkshires of New England, the Catskills and Adirondacks of New York State, and the Posonos of Pennsylvania. Commentator’s Frank Elkins In Dec ember says that once fall arrives the department stores are cluttered wit i lads and girls eyeing Tyrolean fashions and spending 3 dollars for an hour on the borax ski slides where the store’s professionals try to turn women in 125 dollars ski-outfits into ski-angels able to ride steep slopes with easy “schusses,” check their speed with "Christiansens.” and take the deep or soft snow with graceful “telemarks”— which experienced skiers are glad to learn in a lifetime. This hue and cry for speed has developed the typical American skier, “the basher.” who habitually runs out of control on the serpentine trails with

no thought of his own or anybody*! safety. He tears downward with « prayer on his lips as his only means of stopping and turning; people like him were responsible for forty per cent, of last season’s accidents because they ski too fast for their own ability. The vogue for ski-ing began a few years ago when snow addicts switched from ski-jumping to down-mountain running, the faster phase of the spoit where competitive chances are keener. Snow-trains, which got people out to snowy vistas under conditions which they could not previously afford, prove i so popular that 20,000,000 dollars will be spent this winter for skis, binding, accessories, clothes, lodging at summer hotels which are remaining open in the winter to make this easy money on cigarettes, liquor, ski-tows, movies, taxis, and telegrams. Two-thirds of the ski-ing thousand pushing across landscapes and zoomin? down mountain-sides are in the East. The rest arc spread over the continent. To them, as they remember last yeari brown Christmas, we bring good news “The coming winter will be colder than normal with snow which will last.”