History
Our Histories encompass speed-skiing records since the mid-1800s to 2000, plus a century-and-a-half Timeline of Important Ski History Dates. As a work in progress, the list of ISHA historical resources is constantly growing, as our archive expands and updates. If you can’t find what you’re looking for, let us know by joining ISHA’s Facebook page
Park City Disputes
The historic battle over who owns the rights to the land under the lifts at Utah resort. The era of pioneering entrepreneurs bootstrapping their labor-of-love ski areas into existence through grit,...
Ski Helmets: How We Got Here
By Seth Masia At the 19th convention of the International Society for Skiing Safety, held at Keystone in May, 2011, researcher Jasper Shealy, Ph.D., professor emeritus of engineering at Rochester...
Slope Grooming: How it Started
Swiss reader Luzi Hitz recently sent us a collection of photos of snow rollers used to groom pistes in Switzerland and France during the 1950s and 1960s. The photo above, for instance, was...
A Short History of Alpine Skiing: From Telemark to Today
Until the 1920s, alpine skiing was a niche sport practiced by a few European guides and their wealthy clients. Here's how it grew to be a mass-participation sport with a spectacular competition...
The Splitkein Patent
Beginning in 1891, skimakers in Norway sought to replace heavy hickory with lighter woods, originally to create faster cross-country racing skis. Over 45 years, laminated skis evolved into the multi-...
Timeline of Modern U.S. Ski Periodicals
1948: Merger of three periodicals into a single SKI Magazine. Launch of Rocky Mountain Skiing Magazine. 1959: Launch of Ski Life Magazine, New York City. 1962: Ski Life and SKI Magazine...
Historic Trails You Can Ski
Ruthie's Run, Aspen Ruthie’s Run on Aspen Mountain has been the venue for classic, hotly contested World Cup and Roch Cup races over sixty years. On the mild upper section, the whims of wind and...
Matti Nykänen: The greatest ski jumper, or the greatest tragedy?
HARRACHOV, Czech Republic (March 10, 2011) — A 47-year-old ski jumper stands atop a HS-40 ski jumping hill. His body isn’t what it used to be, abused by thousands of jumps and landings and a...