[ Music ]
>> Ever wonder where Dr. Seuss got the inspiration
for the Grinch's wild wintery ride
from his mountaintop lair to the valley below?
Maybe it come from his imagination but more
than likely it was based on a place.
[Singing]
>> Here by the fire [inaudible] we have our hearts desire
for here --
>> Beginning with John Carlton the first American born Winter
Olympic skier and through the 2010 Winter Olympics
over 100 Dartmouth skiers have qualified for Olympic teams.
They've accumulated over 250 individual collegiate national
and international championships.
Many of these heroes have become the role models, the initiators
and the facilitators, the innovators and the inventors
that have shaped skiing
and snowboarding as we know it today.
Why? Because they have a passion for snow.
>> This guy is really trying to blast [inaudible] sport.
I tell you, [inaudible] he is fearless
and he is taken an aggressive line everywhere he can.
>> Andrew Weibrecht: My plan was to continue with the US Ski Team
and go to school at Dartmouth at the same time.
I really credit Dartmouth for the being reason
that I've been able to stay on the US Ski Team.
>> You could see how steady her upper body is,
just makes it look so easy --
>> Hannah Kearney: The Dartmouth ski way [phonetic] was the
reason I began freestyle skiing.
The Forts Alr skiing program that's offered,
after school skiing on Wednesday afternoon,
it took just a few weeks of training there and I was hooked.
And I've been doing this sport every since.
>> Though the 1940 Olympic team was arguable the greatest
assembly of skiing talent from Dartmouth to be named
to an Olympic team, they did not compete.
The Olympics were cancelled with the advent of the war.
Rather than Olympic medals,
these talented courageous men earned medals
of another sort, Medals of Honor.
>> Percy Rideout: Well,
Prager [phonetic] was inducted sometime during the winter
of '41.
I had graduated in 1940.
I got a chance to go [inaudible], why not?
You know hopefully I'll get into the 10th from there which I did.
[Singing]
>> They got into a mountain [inaudible] to put it to a test
and everywhere they went they gave war [inaudible] --
>> About 120 Dartmouth students and faculty were recruited
for the 10th Mountain Division.
Dartmouth was the single largest contributor of manpower
to the US skiing troops and filled many
of the leadership positions.
>> Newc Eldredge: We learned military skiing
which is basically the snow plow of the stem turn
because you're carrying 90 pounds of rock sack [phonetic].
[Singing]
>> Newc Eldredge: It doesn't become real
until you go to the front.
We had six bayanettes [phonetic] and that's cold steel baby.
That means you may get close to the enemy.
You may have to gut [phonetic] them.
You know so you're not feeling too happy about this.
[Singing]
>> Tom Corcoran attended Dartmouth during what is often
called the Ski Team's golden years.
>> Tom Corcoran: The guys that were on the team with me
and this is in the early 50s, sort of the mid-50s and going
into the later 50s, were Bill Beck who was the best downhiller
that the United States had,
fifth in the Olympics [inaudible]
and obviously Ralph Miller, Brookie Dodge
who 5th in the slalom in '56.
>> Brookie, a student up at Dartmouth College.
>> Tom Corcoran: And Chiharu Igaya
who was really the best skier of our generation to go
to Dartmouth, skied for Japan.
>> Corcoran was but one example
of how a Dartmouth education combined with exceptional talent
as a skier led to not just a job
but an influential career in the ski industry.
Not every ski resort focuses on alpine skiing.
The Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe,
Vermont was the first destination Nordic ski resort
in the United States.
>> Sam von Trapp: You know I always knew when I grew
up that I would come back to the family business.
>> Johannes von Trapp: You haven't grown up yet.
>> Sam von Trapp: Yeah well and I'll come fully
into the business one of these days.
>> Johannes von Trapp: [Laughter]
>> Sam von Trapp: But in the meantime,
my dad really encouraged me
after Dartmouth to do something fun.
To get out, have my own experiences
and it was a great idea to do that while I was young.
Do that while my knees were young, while my back was strong
and I had a lot of great adventures and my dad started
to call me up and say when you going to come back and help out?
>> Johannes von Trapp: If I remember correctly,
I said son if you don't come up soon,
I'm going to sell the place.
>> Diane Boyer: And they talk about Dartmouth
and the granite [phonetic] of New Hampshire in our brains,
well skiing's in our souls.
[Singing]
>> Diane Boyer: The mountains in general, whether it's climbing
or snowboarding or hiking, that's what we do.
We enjoy the outdoors.
[Singing]
>> Dick Durrance II: I think my father's most important
contribution to skiing is to say that we could be world class
and he could compete with the world class competitors
and then he brought them, invited them and got them
to come to Aspen where they saw they had mountains
that were world class mountains for skiing.
So he put skiing on the world map
but I think his greater contribution
to skiing was sharing through developing these mountains his
love for the sport of skiing which he then carried
through his photographs and his films.
>> Roger Brown and Barry Corbet were among the many generations
of Dartmouth skiers to contribute in significant ways
to the visual portrayal of skiing with such films
as Ski the Outer Limits.
[ Music ]
>> Roger Brown: We went to a slow motion story.
Oh well that's a great story.
As we got into shooting stuff
with the freestyle guys particularly aerial acrobatics
then it was perfect because we hang them up in the air forever,
16 seconds of screen time for [inaudible] interaction.
And so we introduced that.
>> The forms are many in value.
The purpose is free expression
and the declaration of new limits.
[Singing]
>> It seems that skiers at Dartmouth feel part
of a bigger family propelled by a force
or maybe they're just a little bit crazy.
After all, snow will do that to you after a while.
[Singing]