Written in the Snows, by Lowell Skoog

Review by Dave Gamrath

One-liner:  In Written in the Snows – Across Time on Skis in the Pacific Northwest, author Lowell Skoog provides a detailed history of skiing in the Pacific Northwest.

Book Review: 

The Pacific Northwest has a rich history of skiing and mountaineering.  Ski enthusiast and historian Lowell Skoog provides an extensive review of this history in his new book Written in the Snows – Across Time on Skis in the Pacific Northwest.  No easy undertaking, Skoog has spent years researching the evolution of the area’s mountain activities, beginning with the introduction of skiing in the late 1800s to the extreme skiing challenges pursued by today’s elite skiers.  Skoog’s stories are interspersed with 150 photographs, matching faces to names, and giving the reader a true sense of the sports’ evolution.  The stories of the Northwest’s pioneer skiers “have been written in the snows – destined to fade with the passing of seasons and of generations.”  In his book, Skoog seeks to document these stories before they melt away.

Skoog tells how Scandinavian immigrants brought skiing with them as they pursued a better life in America.  Whereas skiing and snowshoeing were common Norway and Sweden, they were unknown to most early settlers to the Pacific Northwest.  Skiing, and the idea of heading to the mountains for winter recreation, was considered a crazy idea a hundred years ago.  Enthusiasm for recreating in the mountains grew very slowly, as mountain highways were closed in winter, thus getting up to the slopes was a challenge in itself.  Skoog shares the history of how as transportation improved, so did the popularity of skiing.  Gradually, skies replaced snowshoes in popularity, and the quality of skis improved from “sledders on boards” to today’s modern ski equipment. 

Skoog describes the development of most of the ski areas in the region, including Mt Rainier, Mt Baker, Mt Hood, Mt Adams, Snoqualmie Pass, Stevens Pass, Chrystal Mountain, the Olympics, Glacier Peak, and the North Cascades.  Each area has its own unique story, but also similar histories as local enthusiasts endeavored to establish their own winter playland.  Skoog also gives the history of how Mt Rainier and the North Cascades became national parks. 

With roads staying open longer in winter, Skoog states that “the year 1934 marked an inflection point in Northwest skiing:  the beginning of mass appeal of the sport.”  The development of Paradise on Mt Rainier encouraged many to brave the snowy journey up the mountain, and “by the early 1930s, Paradise would become the premier ski resort in the Northwest.”  The book’s photographs of annual tournaments and their competitors help to provide the reader with a sense of the joy people were experiencing in the mountains. 

Important to the growth of skiing was the establishment of multiple ski clubs.  The Mountaineers, founded in Seattle in 1906, became one of the largest.  Clubs built mountain huts and lodges, and often held ski competitions.  Skoog provides the history of many of these competitions, including the “Patrol Race”, which was established in the early 1930s by The Mountaineers.  The club placed 500 orange tin shingles high on trees to mark a route between Snoqualmie Pass and Stampede Pass, and teams of three skiers ran the race.  Although this race ended in the 1940s, it has been reestablished in recent times.  This is a theme throughout the book, with Skoog describing classic old events, and how current enthusiasts have reestablished them. 

As a native Seattleite, I found the story of Seattle’s “Big Snow” in 1916 especially fun.  Roughly 30 inches of snow fell in Seattle over three days, and surprisingly, Green Lake completely froze over, providing locals with a new, large ice-skating rink.  A ski jump was constructed on the north side of Queen Anne, above the current Freemont bridge, and a ski jumping competition was held.  Entrants were largely Norwegian immigrants.  This event received front page coverage in Seattle’s main newspaper, the Seattle Daily Times.

Written in the Snows touches on multiple aspects of Northwest skiing and mountaineering, including a history of first ascents, the first ski instructors, stories of the regions’ first “mountain men”, and the rough conditions they encountered.  Also covered is the establishment of fire lookouts throughout the mountains, and an extensive history of avalanches and mountain rescues.  Skoog includes an interesting chapter on World War II military training in the mountains, with the development of “mountain soldiers” and army “ski troops”. 

In 1927, an attempt to climb Mt Rainier on skies introduced the sport of ski mountaineering to the Pacific Northwest.  With the advents in ski lifts, the effort of climbing to ski fell out of popularity, but many still pursued it.  Over the decades, a counterculture developed around backcountry and cross-country skiing.  Skoog tells how these trends evolved to high-county skiing.  Skoog describes many classic alpine treks and long-distance ski traverses, and also covers extreme skiing, where “if you fall you die.”  Extreme skiing has grown in recent years, including popular movies of extreme skiers doing insane stuff.  Skoog shares the tragic story of the loss of his younger brother Carl after a fall of 4,500 vertical feet in 2005 in Argentina.  Not surprisingly, this tragedy led Skoog to lose his “interest in steep ski descents.” 

The book’s epilog is about climate change, and how, going forward, “we can expect shorter ski seasons and more frequent poor snow years.”  Skoog emphasizes that although it remains important for all of us to work to reduce our own emissions, at this point what is needed “a worldwide effort to replace an energy system based on fossil fuels with one based on sun and wind.”  Skoog’s closing line is very appropriate: “The future of skiing will be written in the statehouses as much as in the snows.”

Throughout the book, the pure joy people have experienced being in the mountains comes through.  If you are a history buff, a skier, a mountaineer, or just enjoy the mountains, you will likely enjoy this book.

Reviewer Opinion: 

The photos make this an especially fun book. 

Reviewer Rating of Book: 

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