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History of Ski Aerial Acrobatics

Posted by Scott










After watching the Winter Olympics I found this History of Ski Aerial Acrobatics pretty amusing. The whole thing is basically just a bloopers reel of guys eating it off of jumps. Towards the end they start nailing the landings though and the super-8 style film is pure vintage goodness. Check the awesome lens flare at 3:24.

Video Link | Via Bruno Aeberli

7 Comments Leave A Comment

2

NAVIS says:

February 26, 2010 at 11:33 pm

Ha! Amazing.

I was almost in tears the other day when I found out CR Johnson had passed away. I followed him from day one. RIP CR.

3

Brett says:

February 27, 2010 at 9:53 am

AWESOME. I love these vintage ski posts Scott. I thought you might be interested in this: I’m from Utah and have worked up @ The Alta Peruvian Lodge since about 2001, situated right next to Alta Ski Resort. After working there for a few year’s, we had the option to stay for the Summer months to help with random work & to have a free place to stay. The summer offers a lot to do up here, but after a month or two, options become exhausted. That is usually when a high-paced OCD cleaning session transpires. A fellow OCD’er & myself were cleaning the large entertainment room where we show nightly movies (there are no TV’s in the rooms here) when my friend had the idea to move a Giant & HEAVY wet-bar that hadn’t ever been moved in the time that he or I had worked there, about 7 or 8 years for him, 3 or 4 for me I believe. There was some shelving that extended behind the wet-bar, and we’d cleaned the first half of the shelves, he wanted to access the rest. It was a BITCH to move, but after we worked it away from the shelves, you would not believe what we found back there… Exactly 5 old Reel2Reel’s labeled: “History of skiing at Alta”, “Early Avalanche Science – Alta 1950’s”, “The Engen Bros Jumping” “Gelande Contest” & “Powder Skiing Techniques – Alta 1954”. WE FLIPPED OUT. Immediately went down to a thrift shop & found an old Reel player, draped a large sheet from the ceiling of the TV room & got lost for the next few days in pure 8mm vintage lens flare ski BLISS. It was an exciting time in our lives.

ANYWAY, I want to leave this YouTube link, it’s the intro for a local ski-film we made, & the first 2 minutes is a compilation of a lot of those vintage shots from the Reel’s. Pay close attention @ the 1:06 mark, that’s why I’m posting this, it’s the classic GELANDE CONTEST at Alta. Alta was on the forefront of all early ski acrobatics, it was opened by the most metal-decorated aerial jumping individual at the time, the first backflip EVER was performed here, & things just became more & more progressive over time. & The Gelande Contest was a HUGE party at the end of the season purely designed to display this progression, people going as big as they could resulting in either glory or serious injury…

Sorry for the long story, I just thought that you especially might get a smile if you imagined yourself finding some old Reel’s like that. It was pretty amazing. Alright, here’s the link & enjoy the blurry washed-out epicnes!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQmk3gKX8pE

Thanks for this post Scott.