To get back to Beaver Lake, it lays about 3/4 of a mile uphill from the Sunset Highway and the hike in to the jumps is not one to encourage attandance. Furthermore, the condition of the hills are such that five to six feet of snow are required to make the hills useable, and sometimes it is the middle of December before they can be used. Huge snowdrifts have to be leveled and the landing hills have to be footstamped carefully to insure a good foundation, so the project of putting the jumps in shape is not easy. Last winter 16 feet of snow fell at Snoqualmie Pass. This of course meant that during January and February one or two feet of snow fell every week. Consequently 2/3 of last winter was spent as follows: Sunday A.M. break trail to Beaver Lake in one to two feet of new snow. The snow always drifts in the open and the jumping hills being open meant that the jumpers could spend the best part of the day in getting the hills in shape again. Usually, all tired out, the jumper had to hurry to get in a few jumps before nightfall. Over a period of years there have always been too few, who are willing to do the work. Old timers like Ole and Martin Tverdal, Victor and Henry Larson, Adolph Dahl, Erik Bolstad, Leif Flak and many others have done a man sized job to keep the jumping sport alive around Seattle. During the last season the credit must go to Charles Wenger, Kenneth Christensen, Arnt Ofstad, John Ring and a few others (Olav Ulland among those.)

The problem of fixing the jumping hills has also been the cause of some dissension among the ski club members. The Junior members have repeatedly been criticized for avoiding their part of the job. At meetings they have been told time and again how we had to swing a shovel, cut down trees and move huge rocks to build our prictice jumps back in Norway and here also. But it has all been in vein. The boys like to jump, but they do not want to waste half the Sunday preparing the hills. Also here they have the advantage of good downhill and slalom slopes, so they have been taking a powder until the work is done then putting in an appearance. This naturally creates discord among those who worked so hard. However the situation today can be summed up as follows: The interest for ski-jumping is satisfactory, hundreds of young boys want to learn how to jump, but the practice facilities have been inadequate and too hard to prepare. The boys from Norway are growing old, in fact 2/3 of the A class jumpers should have joined the Seniors 6 to 10 years ago. The "work horses" are dropping out of the picture and unless some easier training facilities are brought about, the future of ski-jumping around Seattle is jeopardized.

The leaders of the Seattle Ski Club today understand this situation and have been working on ideas how to solve the problem. The jumping hills of the Milwaukee Road Ski Bowl are located just 3 miles from our present clubhouse, on the east side of the Cascade Mtns. at a little lower elevation, where they do not get quite as much snow, but still plenty for all needs.

The A-hill at the Bowl, where the late Torger Tokel soared to a new National record of 288' in 1941, has been unused since 1942 due to the fact that a few Sunday jumpers could not possibly prepare the hills of such dimensions.  However, the Milwaukee Road has planned large expansions at the Bowl and the Seattle Ski Club working with the Milwaukee Road, have reached an agreement relative to the use and operation of the jumping hills there for some years to come. The Seattle Ski Club will organize Ski-tournaments of National and International scope as well as local divisional meets. The one stumbling block in the past has seemingly removed by the ski clubs assuming the care of the hills and hiring a caretaker to keep them in shape the week around rather then the jumpers just on weekends. Furthermore the Seattle Ski Club plans on organizing and running a Jumping school and will give free instruction.

The Jumping hills at the Milwaukee Ski Bowl will consist of 4 hills; a novice hill that will permit jumps of around 60'; a C-hill that will permit jumps up to 140' or 150'; a B-hill that will permit jumps slightly over 200'; and the A-hill which will permit jumps up to 300' or so. We believe we will have the best possible practice facilities for the Seattle area and with this the ski jumping here has a great future ahead, especially with it accessible by train.

At the P.N.S.A. meeting last fall the Seattle Ski Club was the only club that submitted an application for a jumping tournament in 1946. The old jumpers were rather disappointed, but we refused to believe that old stand-bies like Leavenworth and Cascade Ski Club would let us down and serious practice got underway early. We were justified as later on they in turn asked for dates so that along with the Seattle Ski Club jump and two invitational jumps in Canada, the jumpers got in some real meets.

Hermod Baake of Leavenworth and Wilmer Hampton did a very good job of preparing the large Leavenworth hill and carloads of jumpers drove the 140 mile stretch over Stevens Pass, Sunday mornings for some much needed practice on large hills. So thanks to the initiative of Hermod Baake the first post-war jumping tournament was held at Leavenworth, February 10th, and in spite of the fact that no outstanding drawing card was entered, the meet was a huge success. Canada was really well represented with Tom Mobraaten, Art Johnson and Henry Sotvedt of the Cypress Ski Club, Vancouver, B.C., as teh most outstanding ones. The old rivals, Tom Mobraaten and Olav Ulland, were fighting it out in pre-war style, and this time Olav came out ahead with 234-250 feet, followed by Tom with 222-235 feet and Art Johnson was hot on his heels with 218-240 feet. Wild man Earl Pletch from the R.C.A.F. always steals the shows by his spectacular jumping form. He works himself into a terrific lean and takes the breath away from the spectators. When Earl learns not to overdo he will be dangerous. He came in fourth with a 220-234. Alf Johanson of Vancouver surprised everybody when he hit 225 on the first try and with his second jump of 235 feet, it brought him fifth place.

In the B Class the first three places were only fractions apart. Karl Stingl of the Penguin Ski Club won by 6/10 of a point over Charles Wenger of the Seattle Ski Club; third place went to Kenny Lee of the Seattle Ski Club who was only 3/10th of one point between first and third. It was gratifying to watch the spirit with which the B boys were fighting for the honors. Henry Sotvedt won the Senior Crown with Nick Nylund of the Seattle Club a close second; Victor Larsen with his 54 years is still in there and did very well by placing in this company.

As expected Hjalmar Hvam and George Patterson did some good promoting in Portland and the result was the Cascade's Ski Club annual meet at Moltorpor Hill February 24th. The 2-3,000 spectators who defied the rain and came up to see the snow in spite of the weather, proved to us that we are going to have some mighty fine meets in the years to come. The weather was rough during the B, Senior, and C class jumping, but when the A class went up for its second try the rain turned into a blizzard. Three men went off without too much trouble, but when Wilmer Hampton lost the track, and would have lost the take-off if he had not caught a glimpse of the man with the rake, the balance of the boys picked up their boards and walked down. The A class was won by Ulav Ulland, and the B class honors went to Elof Wold of the Tacoma Ski Club who jumped very well. Nick Nylund took the senior class and the promising young Junior Joe Vincent of Leavenworth won the C crown.

The last important event of the year took place at Beaver Lake, Snoqualmie Pass, March 17th, where the Seattle Ski Club staged their annual event, with an entry field of over 100 jumper. The weather again was against us and a heavy snowfall persised throughout the day. The takeoff and landing hill became slippery and difficult. The bad weather and the hard hike up the hills kept the crowd away. Some very good jumping was exibited in spite of the conditions. Tom Mobraaten secured top honors in the A class through his excellent second try of 190 feet following a rather weak first try of 167 feet. We all thought that Arnt Ofstad of the Seattle Ski Club had the meet in the bag after his beautiful first try of 178 feet, but the slippery take off  threw him off in the spring the second time. Again the B class was hot, but Karl Stingl again won with two jumps of 185-175 feet. Jack Roocroft of Cypress, Vancouver, BC, showed to be a very much improved jumper and he took second with jumps of 180-168 feet; Laverne Hughes of the Cascade Ski Club, Buster Campbell of Leavenworth, Jack Schneider and Charles Wenger of the Seattle Ski Club were close behind Roocroft. Nick Nylund of the Seattle Ski Club again won the Senior event and Joe Vincent of Leavenworth Class C. The closely fought B class jumping this year gave us hope for the future.

The Seattle Ski Club sent a four-man team to the National Jumping Championships at Steamboat Springs; Ole Tverdal in the Senior; Olav Ulland in the Open A Class and Charles Wenger and Ken Christensen in the B Class. While the team did not win any top honors, we were pleased with Kenneth Christensen's fourth and Charles Wenger's 10th in B Class considering the keen competition. We also enjoyed getting in contact with the jumpers from the Middle West and the East. We learned over again what we have to shoot for to reach the standard of the top United States Jumpers. We regret very much that distances are as far as they are between the East and the West, but with faster trains and other means in the offing, we hope to develop a frequent exchange of jumpers in the future.

The past season can be summed up as a successful one even if two of the meets were partly spoiled by bad weather. Several B Class jumpers proved themselves capable of competing in the A Class and very likely some of them will be moved up and the A Class will have the additional jumpers it needs badly.

As for the Seattle Ski Club, Hank Jacobson, as chairman of competition, has been in charge of the delegation that has conferred with the Milwaukee Road concerning our future cooperation, and he has done a good job of it. We expect great things from this agreement.  Our intentions are to build the annual meet at the Olympic Hill up to be one of the biggest in the country. Things will be happening this winter at the Ski Bowl and we can hardly wait for the winter to come around.
 

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