Catching up with Moe, Street, Roffe; Merrill trail never moved

My new pet peeve is people who block the entrance to the lift mazes, particularly on the quad. I’m not talking about when the lift lines overflow the maze, but when the mazes are almost empty. I assume it’s someone waiting for their buddy or family or their high school reunion. Anyway, it is frustrating to have to navigate through a maze of stationary people just to get into the maze. There is an easy solution for those who want to regroup before getting in line: just stop at least 10-15 feet from the maze to leave room for others to get in line.

Well, enough complaining!

I received some good feedback on my Perry Merrill column from Brian Lindner. Lindner is a real historian who has a personal tie to the Perry Merrill story. He says, “Perry hired my father away from Mt. Mansfield Ski Patrol to Forest and Parks in 1947 and that’s how I got to grow up in the Mansfield Base Lodge.”

I had indicated that today’s Merrill was not in the same location as the original, but Lindner corrected that.

“The current Perry Merrill Trail does indeed follow the original location. In 1968 it was just widened to its current appearance. It originally started at the base of the turns on Nose Dive then mostly followed what we now call Rim Rock — although there was once a short uphill section. I remember skiing it as a kid .... missing trees, stumps, rocks and even climbing over open ditches. It was a hike to get back to the Single. That was REAL Vermont skiing.”

•••

On to this week’s topic. This February marked the 30th anniversary of the 1994 Winter Olympics. The games were held in Lillehammer, Norway, and were the first winter games held out of phase with the summer games.

Norway hosted the Winter Olympics once before, in 1952 in Oslo. At those Olympics, 28 countries participated in the alpine skiing events, which consisted of downhill, giant slalom and slalom for men and women. Those were the games where Stein Eriksen would win gold and launch a career that made him one of the most famous skiers of all time.

On the women’s side, Vermonter Andrea Mead Lawrence would win double gold.

In 1994 there were 46 countries represented in alpine skiing and the number of alpine events had expanded to five each for men and women with the addition of super G and combined. The United States fared reasonably well in the medal count, second only to the host country Norway. Granted that second place was a tie among four countries.

For the U.S., Tommy Moe won gold in the downhill and silver in the super G. Diann Roffe won gold in the super G and Picabo Street won silver in the downhill.

The 1994 Olympics were the high point of Moe’s ski racing career. He would continue racing and go to the 1998 Olympics with respectable results, but no medals. After retiring from racing, Moe founded the Tordrillo Mountain Lodge in Alaska, which features heli-skiing, fishing and hiking. Moe now lives in Jackson Hole, Wyo., where he serves as a ski guide and special ambassador for the resort.

Roffe is a Burke Mountain Academy graduate who served notice at age 17 when she won the giant slalom at the 1985 World Championships. She would compete in three Olympics — 1988, 1992 and 1994. She won a silver medal in the giant slalom at the 1992 Olympics and the gold in Lillehammer.

Roffe retired from racing after the 1994 season and turned to coaching. In 2019 she returned to Burke Mountain Academy to head up their junior skiing program.

Street came by her unique name in a unique way. Born in Idaho, her parents decided not to give her a name at birth but wait until she was old enough to name herself. However, when she was 3 and they needed a name for a passport application, they used the name of a nearby town, Picabo.

Street would compete in three Olympics — 1994, 1998 and 2002. She followed up her Lillehammer silver in downhill with a gold in super G in 1998. She is now the expert analyst for the NBC coverage of alpine skiing if you can find it on TV!

•••

Frank Springer loaned me a program from the 1960 American International ski races held at Stowe. One of the lodges advertised in the program was the Sans Souci. So, this week’s trivia question is: What is the Sans Souci called now?

Post your answer retro-skiing.com.

Greg Morrill is a retired computer programmer and college professor.