STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
Learn the history behind the Sun Valley Ski Patrol when the Wood River Museum of History & Culture presents “Skis, Shovels and Stories: History of the Sun Valley Ski Patrol in the 1960s.”
The program will be presented at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Jan. 21, at The Community Library. A book signing will follow.
The Sun Valley Ski Patrol has long occupied a little log cabin that’s often buried in the snow atop College Boulevard. Originally a place for skiers to get out of the wind, the cabin with its wood stove has been added on several times. And the growing ski patrol even got a yurt to hold court in near Lookout Restaurant during the pandemic.
Nelson Bennett, who passed away on Jan. 30, 2016, at 102 years of age was known as the father of the Sun Valley Ski Patrol. He was born in New Hampshire as Babe Ruth and Charlie Chaplin were making their debuts and as Pancho Villa’s troops were mired in Mexican Revolution.
He began skiing at 6 on skis his grandfather had made out of wooden barrel staves with leather straps and he skied his way onto the University of New Hampshire ski team.
He became a ski patroller for Sun Valley—America’s first destination ski resort—during the winter of 1940-41 and became the resort’s second Ski Patrol Director in January 1941 when he replaced Eusebio Arriaga who switched to the Ski School.
At Sun Valley, “Benni,” as he was called, designed the National Ski Patrol’s first patrol toboggan with his brother Edwards. He decided a new design was needed after the one he’d been using ran away with him in front knocking him over.
The two worked with the Sun Valley’s Engineering Department to design the toboggan with fins for directional stability, a rope on the back to use as an anchor and redesigned shafts using a thin wall conduit.
The rescue litter basket with its tail rope and chain had a transport handle and rails so it could be transported on a chairlift by one ski patroller. And it had a removable wire basket so skiers could be transported from sled to ambulance to hospital without any more hullabaloo than necessary.
A basic design of the toboggan they introduced in the late 1940s is still in use around the country today.