Emile Allais dies at 100
Telluride Ski Resort’s Allais Alley named for French skiing visionary
By Heather Sackett
Associate Editor
Telluride Ski Resort would not exist, at least not in its current form, without the French skiing champion Emile Allais. Allais died last week at a hospital in France at age 100.
Telluride ski area developer Joe Zoline hired Allais to come evaluate the land and explore the potential for a ski area in the early ‘70s. A renowned ski resort designer, ski racer and coach, Allais was a visionary, seeing the possibility for a world class ski area where others only saw hard-to-access terrain, too-steep pitches and dangerous cliffs. After his initial visit, he agreed to design and act as the technical consultant on the fledgling resort. Allais’ vision and subsequent construction of the ski resort helped transform Telluride from sleepy mining town into a vibrant mountain community.
In March 1970, local skiing expert Billy “Senior” Mahoney guided Allais around so he could get a feel for the rugged territory. Allais then prepared a feasibility study for Zoline.
“Emile and I spent another 10 days laying out all the ski runs, and he wrote a report that there was a good potential there,” Mahoney said. “I don’t think they would have put up the money and built the lifts without Emile’s report.”
The two, beginning at 6 a.m., used snow machines to explore every conceivable place on the mountain from Gold Hill to Bald Mountain to Prospect Basin. They skied the front side five times in one day, Mahoney said. Allais, 58 years old at the time, stayed with Mahoney, then 42, at his home during the visit. Other consultants who Mahoney had previously guided around to evaluate the future ski area didn’t think much of the land. But Allais’ analysis offered the potential for a world-class resort.
“The Telluride terrain is not real nice like Vail,” Mahoney said. “There wouldn’t be a ski area if it wasn’t for that man. He just knew how to do it. That’s just my opinion, and I think I’m right on it.”
According to a March 1970 story in the Planet’s predecessor The Telluride Times, Zoline chose Allais for his knowledge of the ski industry and reputation. Zoline knew skiers from Denver and other urban areas would only come to remote, isolated Telluride if the skiing here were as good or better than other places.
According to The Telluride Times, Allais at first had doubts about the other side of the ridge that leads into Prospect Basin.
“The importance of the proposed runs on the other side of the ridge above town lying directly to the north of Prospect Basin cannot be overstated,” Allais said. “These runs are necessary to tie in the whole complex of runs on that ridge with the proposed base area at the bottom of the basin.”
Allais won gold medals in the downhill, slalom and combined in the 1937 world championships. He also popularized skiing with the skis parallel, a new method at the time. A former coach of the French Olympic team, Allais also taught skiing at Squaw Valley and Sun Valley.
Allais Alley, an expert, narrow, bumpy run with a run-out gully off of Chair 6, commemorates Allais’ contributions to on the ski area.
“It’s right up there on lift 6,” said Johnnie Stevens, one of the first employees and most recently chief operating officer at Telluride Ski Resort. “It was the old lift line. We have moved the lift since then. We named that Allais Alley in 1972.”
Allais also gave Zoline some advice about working with the Forest Service to secure the proper permits for the ski area: Think big. Those words of wisdom have proven valuable as Telluride Ski Resort has expanded and added more lifts and hike-to terrain over the years.
“He said you always want to think big and take all the territory you can possibly get,” Mahoney said. “He even put some runs on Bear Creek as a potential.”
For more information on Telluride area luxury homes, condos and land, please contact Telluride Real Estate Corp. at 970.728.3111, info@telluriderealestatecorp.com, or visit www.telluriderealestatecorp.com.
Telluride ski area developer Joe Zoline hired Allais to come evaluate the land and explore the potential for a ski area in the early ‘70s. A renowned ski resort designer, ski racer and coach, Allais was a visionary, seeing the possibility for a world class ski area where others only saw hard-to-access terrain, too-steep pitches and dangerous cliffs. After his initial visit, he agreed to design and act as the technical consultant on the fledgling resort. Allais’ vision and subsequent construction of the ski resort helped transform Telluride from sleepy mining town into a vibrant mountain community.
In March 1970, local skiing expert Billy “Senior” Mahoney guided Allais around so he could get a feel for the rugged territory. Allais then prepared a feasibility study for Zoline.
“Emile and I spent another 10 days laying out all the ski runs, and he wrote a report that there was a good potential there,” Mahoney said. “I don’t think they would have put up the money and built the lifts without Emile’s report.”
The two, beginning at 6 a.m., used snow machines to explore every conceivable place on the mountain from Gold Hill to Bald Mountain to Prospect Basin. They skied the front side five times in one day, Mahoney said. Allais, 58 years old at the time, stayed with Mahoney, then 42, at his home during the visit. Other consultants who Mahoney had previously guided around to evaluate the future ski area didn’t think much of the land. But Allais’ analysis offered the potential for a world-class resort.
“The Telluride terrain is not real nice like Vail,” Mahoney said. “There wouldn’t be a ski area if it wasn’t for that man. He just knew how to do it. That’s just my opinion, and I think I’m right on it.”
According to a March 1970 story in the Planet’s predecessor The Telluride Times, Zoline chose Allais for his knowledge of the ski industry and reputation. Zoline knew skiers from Denver and other urban areas would only come to remote, isolated Telluride if the skiing here were as good or better than other places.
According to The Telluride Times, Allais at first had doubts about the other side of the ridge that leads into Prospect Basin.
“The importance of the proposed runs on the other side of the ridge above town lying directly to the north of Prospect Basin cannot be overstated,” Allais said. “These runs are necessary to tie in the whole complex of runs on that ridge with the proposed base area at the bottom of the basin.”
Allais won gold medals in the downhill, slalom and combined in the 1937 world championships. He also popularized skiing with the skis parallel, a new method at the time. A former coach of the French Olympic team, Allais also taught skiing at Squaw Valley and Sun Valley.
Allais Alley, an expert, narrow, bumpy run with a run-out gully off of Chair 6, commemorates Allais’ contributions to on the ski area.
“It’s right up there on lift 6,” said Johnnie Stevens, one of the first employees and most recently chief operating officer at Telluride Ski Resort. “It was the old lift line. We have moved the lift since then. We named that Allais Alley in 1972.”
Allais also gave Zoline some advice about working with the Forest Service to secure the proper permits for the ski area: Think big. Those words of wisdom have proven valuable as Telluride Ski Resort has expanded and added more lifts and hike-to terrain over the years.
“He said you always want to think big and take all the territory you can possibly get,” Mahoney said. “He even put some runs on Bear Creek as a potential.”
For more information on Telluride area luxury homes, condos and land, please contact Telluride Real Estate Corp. at 970.728.3111, info@telluriderealestatecorp.com, or visit www.telluriderealestatecorp.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment