USMA CLASS OF 1959 SKI REUNION

Park City, Utah   22-28 February 2003

 

PREFACE:

(First of all, beware of anything beginning with a preface. It promises heavy going.) It was my intent to record our ski reunion while memories were still fresh and before “senior moments” overtook me. Furthermore, I snapped about 100 photos with my ubiquitous little digital camera and I wanted to put these into the record, too. So, what you get is lots of photos (but far less than 100) interspersed with some of my personal observations.

 

The photos don’t approach Annie Leibovitz’s studio quality; rather, they’re paparazzi shots. I discarded most of them, and cropped and edited the ones retained. If there were multiple shots in which I was a subject, I kept the one that made me look best. Of course.

 

My hope was produce something that would evoke pleasant memories in years to come, like popping a disc by Ella or Sinatra into the stereo and sitting back to enjoy it. So that in years to come you can say, “That’s the way it was in Park City back in 2003, when we were young and could still ski like hell.”

 

Munich, in March 2003

S

Steve Klein

 

 

PARTICIPANTS: 18 classmates; 37 overall

Company

Class participants, family and friends

Number of class participants

E1

Lee Bell and sister Flo Bell

1

G1

Benny Carr

Al and Gigi Goodpasture

John and Elaine Guthrie

Steve and Christa Klein

Tim Matthes

Byron (a.k.a. Butch) Marsh

Howard and Eileen (a.k.a. Doc) Stiles

Rush Yelverton

8

K1

Bob and Karen Croteau

1

M1

Bill and Bobbie Fitzgerald

Guy and Donna Heath

2

D2

Gary and Nadine Beech

Paul Sper

2

E2

Frank Campbell; friend Valentina Coulter; and her son Robert (a Ph.D. college professor)

1

G2

John and Karla Moellering

Tom and Karen Seybold; their sons Tom, David and Matt; daughters-in-law Karen and Jacque; and 9-year old grandson John (a delight!)

2

H2

John McNerney

1

 

ORGANIZER:

Howard Stiles, from the Great State of Maine, did his usual selfless, flawless and excellent job of lashing the whole circus together. He made most of the lodging reservations; procured ski tickets; organized (but didn’t prepare) a welcoming party and a chili dinner; and arranged for an evening sleigh ride and ski hut dinner. All hail, Ski Czar!

 

VENUE:

Most of us stayed in Park City, in condominiums located immediately at the base of the main Payday lift. It was very convenient. We skied there and also at the Deer Valley resort, a few miles away, but officially within the Park City municipal limits. There was a third Park City ski area called the Canyons. To the best of my knowledge, only Howard and Eileen Stiles, Gigi Goodpasture and the Seybolds skied there. The Stiles thought it was so good that they swore they’d never go back.

 

We all preferred Deer Valley for skiing. The slopes were better groomed, the restaurants were classier and (best of all) no snowboarders were tolerated. The Canyons, on the other hand, was something of a snowboarder’s paradise -- but a skier’s hell.

 

It snowed on Sunday -- our first skiing day – and again on Tuesday. Some occasional squalls refreshed the snow during the week. But other than that, the weather was generally good. Broken clouds, with sunshine. Nor did it ever get uncomfortably cold.

 

I’d heard all these rumors about effervescent Utah powder, but, frankly, didn’t find the snow any different than that in the Alps. In fact, I thought the snow I encountered in Colorado two years earlier to be much lighter.

 

CONTENTS:

I’ve organized the photos in the following sequence:

 

·          Base area

·          Welcome party

·          Ski pix

·          G1

·          Chili party

·          Sleigh ride

·          Rush Yelverton

 

Let’s go.