UAF Ski Hill

Late 1940's to Early 1980's

~ Photos  ~

 

UAF Ski Hill Pictures from the late 1940's [Photo credits: Bevinne McCann Morse]
Skier in front of campus main building (left) and Elysian Hall (right).	U of A Jump - 1948.	Ski team member Sylvia McCann at the U of A Ski Hill - 1949.	Action at the U of A Jump - 1948 - 1949.

UAF Ski Hill Pictures from the 1940's These pictures are UAF Archives photos from the Alaska's Virtual Library and Digital Archives (ViLDA).  The date and author of these pictures are unknown, though the slalom racing pictures are likely between 1946 and 1949.  The rope tow pictures are believed to be at the UAF Ski Hill.  This was likely the first UAF rope tow, and was decommissioned and replaced by another tow at a later date.
[Photo Credit: Archives, UAF]	[Photo Credit: Archives, UAF]	[Photo Credit: Archives, UAF]	Laila Thorsen [Photo Credit: Archives, UAF]
Sylvia McCann [Photo Credit: Archives, UAF]	Sheila McSpadden Zagars [Photo Credit: Archives, UAF]	John McCall [Photo Credit: Archives, UAF]	Sylvia McCann, jump in background [Photo Credit: Bevinne McCann Morse]

 

Early 1950's pictures of jumping at the Skarland Jump
Jump on UA campus in 1950 [Photo Credit: Harvey Turner]	Harvey Turner jumping off the Skarland Jump in the early 1950's [Photo Credit: Harvey Turner]	Harvey Turner takes off.  Notice the rustic construction of the jump. [Photo Credit: Harvey Turner]
Jumper taking flight on UA campus in 1950s [Photo Credit: John Sigler Collection, UAF]		George Rae - 1955 [Photo Credit: Phil Jordan]

 

Early 1950's Cross Country Skiing [Photo Credits: Harvey Turner]
The UAF campus trails have a long tradition of cross country ski racing.  The UAF mens' ski team back in the old days did all ski events in ski meets: slalom, downhill, jump and cross country.
Merritt Mitchell	Professor Ivar Skarland.  According to Harvey Turner, Ivar would win local cross country skiing races when he was 60 years old.	Ivar Skarland, Harvey Turner, Merritt Mitchell
Not much for set tracks back in the 1950's.	UAF skier Leonard Gau heads down the trail in 1955.	1952 Gold Nugget Meet XC results. (Click to enlarge to readable size).
[Right]  This is a 2005 picture of Harvey Turner and the 9 foot long skis he learned to ski on.  His uncles that mined in the Cleary/ Chatanika area in the 1910's brought the skis up from Colorado.  When Harvey started cross country ski racing he used cut-down military skis with sneakers screwed to them. The results above refer to "Big Harvey Turner" as the winner of the race.  Harvey might be considered the 'Juha Mieto' of UAF cross country skiing, in reference to the legendary, very tall and strong, Finnish xc hero.  And that is a BIG compliment. [Photo Credit: Tim Kelley]

[Right] Start of the 1975 Fairbanks Skiathlon at the base of the UAF Ski Hill

[Photo Credit: UAF]

[Far right] Start of Skiathlon in 1972.

[Photo Credit: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner]

 This 1966 aerial photo of UAF shows the ski hill in the distance at the middle right of this shot.  On the right is a zoomed in segment of the aerial photo - where you can clearly see the outrun of the ski jump.

[Photo Credits: UAF]

~  Maps  ~

The 1975 topo map to the right shows the location of the UAF Ski Hill in Fairbanks (click on this map if you want to enlarge it)

The 1998 aerial photo to the right provides a good view of the old UAF Ski Hill (click on this map if you want to enlarge it)

the university ski hill was open in the 50's through the late 70's, until a drunken sledder died after hitting a tree, then they took it all out.  it had a single rope tow and maybe 300 vertical feet.  there was also a 30m nordic jump in the 50's (and maybe sooner), the profile is still there in the brush, but it is fenced off as well.

[Tim Kelley note - October 2004]

Roger mentioned that closure of the UAF Ski Hill occurred in the 70's due to a drunken sledder having a fatal accident on this hill.  Possibly the ski area closed in the 1970's and this sledding accident actually occurred in 1988.  There is mention of this incident in the Supreme Court of Alaska brief on the University of Alaska vs. Shanti (6/30/92).  Here it states that the estate of the deceased sued UAF because the accident happened on a site that was ONCE an improved site.  Even though it was no longer in use.

[Roger Evans - 02 January 2005 email excerpt]

by the way.  you can see the old jump at the uaf in one of your photos.  the one with a bunch of skiers in a field.  the mound in the trees by the new athletic center is the old landing hill you can see the shape there.  if you tried it now, you'd crash into the building.  it went straight down from that mckinley viewpoint pullout on the road above.  you can see a narrow trail there on your aerial view.  i drew a line on the old landing hill mound at uaf.  [see below]

[Larry Freeman - 23 November 2005 email excerpt]

As far as the UAF ski hill's demise, my first winter was 1982-83, and I believe that the rope was still in place on the hill, and may have operated that winter.

[John Estle - 19 December 2005 email excerpt]

When I came to UAF in the fall of 1982 as the Ski Coach, the rope tow was still there and still running. One of my job responsibilities was to hire an operator to run the tow. I can't recall how many more years the tow ran after the 82-83 winter, but I would guess it was between zero and two more years, and I'm leaning toward zero.

The "lift towers" (utility poles) were removed shortly after the hill ceased operation, and the hill became a sledding hill. The hill was created in a manner that did not follow the fall-line exactly.

After sledding became the predominant use of the hill, the University placed large signs in many locations around the hill saying that it was NOT a sledding hill and that users used it at their own risk. I have to believe that the people involved in the sledding fatality started their ill-fated run within a few feet of one of these signs. When the University lost that case, a number of fences were erected crossways to the hill, so that it would be impossible to sled from the top -- well, not impossible, but it you did, you'd have a high-speed encounter with a chainlink fence.

The lower portion of the hill is still a high-use sledding hill.

For full article click here. 

Their site [ALSAP] contains some great accounts of the ski jumps at the University of Alaska and on Chena Ridge in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The UAF jump was on the hill just beyond the Patty Center, while the Chena Ridge jump was up on the hill above the Pump House restaurant.

Harvey Turner, who now lives in Anchorage, and Merritt Mitchell, a resident of Homer, were top competitors for the university in four events in the late 1940s and early 1950s--slalom, downhill, cross country and ski jumping.

Mitchell grew up in Minnesota and had been going off ski jumps since his childhood. Like Turner, he was a World War II veteran, and he enjoyed the thrill of the campus ski jump.

"It was something to do between classes," he said. "It was a good way to get the cobwebs out of your head because there wasn't much else for recreation."

Mitchell and Turner, now both in their 80s, estimated that skiers would be airborne for about 40 or 50 feet on the campus jump. It was built of poles and scrap lumber. The top was about where the road to the West Ridge is today.

Skier Donn Huber and others built a larger ski jump in the mid-1950s on Chena Ridge. Also made of trees cut from the site and scrap wood, the Chena Ridge jump allowed skiers to go about 90 feet in the air, Turner estimates. The jumpers would pack down the snow by walking sideways up the hill and zoom down and go off the end and up into the air.

"It was a thrill. It gave you a sensation that you just couldn't otherwise experience. You couldn't see where you were landing when you first took off, so that made it interesting," Turner said.

They said 10 to 20 people, most of them UA students who were World War II veterans, went ski jumping in those years. When they had competitions, dozens of spectators would attend.

Turner once broke a leg on the campus hill. It was not because of the jump or the landing, he said, but because his ski hooked a tree while he was slowing down.

Huber, who still lives in Fairbanks, said the jumpers did not try to get flat over their skis while airborne, the way jumpers do today.

"We used to do a lot of windmilling, leaning forward and moving our arms to keep from going too far forward," he said. "The biggest concern we had was falling forward and going head over heels."

The jumpers today look far more graceful, he said. He said that UA President Terris Moore used to park his airplane near the top of the UA hill. Sometimes the president would ski down the jump with the students. He didn't have a good takeoff at the bottom, but that didn't matter.

"We always admired him because he tried," he said.

Do you have further information, stories or pictures that you would like to contribute about this ski area?