Spread The Word About ‘the Bird’
The next two posts will be a change-up from my recent writing on my fitness and health. I want to share some stories about Dick, Snowbird, and the inspiration for 8th Summit. These stories only scratch the surface of Dick and Snowbird’s unique history, so I will have many more stories to share in the future.
Snowbird’s Beginning
This ski season marked the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Snowbird Ski and Summer Resort. Snowbird opened for business in December of 1971. But how did it all get started?
In the 1960s, a man named Ted Johnson began to chase the legendary snow in Utah’s Little Cottonwood Canyon. Johnson began working for the Alta ski resort in the canyon, but soon began to see the potential for a 2nd ski resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Johnson began buying up mining claims and searching for investors. His search brought him to the newly started Vail Ski Resort located in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. He pitched his idea for a new ski resort to many of the original Vail investors and homeowners. His pitch centered on a homemade video that Ted made to showcase the incredible snow and terrain and to create the vision for this new resort. Everyone declined the opportunity because of the incredible financial risks in such a project except for one man—a Texan named Dick Bass. In Dick’s own words, once he saw Ted’s video, Johnson had “hooked a 160-pound Bass.”
Together, Johnson and Bass got to work on their new shared dream, but Johnson laid out much of the original vision. “Almost everything at Snowbird – from the Tram to the village to the spirit of Snowbird’s first employees – started with Ted,” said former Snowbird President and CEO Bob Bonar, who worked for Ted before the resort opened. “It was Ted’s vision, intellect, endearing personality and persistence that brought Snowbird to life.”
Two photos of Dick and Ted together at Snowbird. In the left photo, Ted is on the left.
With such massive upfront investments required to build the infrastructure for ski lifts, hotels, dining, etc., Snowbird’s creation was a huge financial challenge. Johnson, Bass, and their new team did their best to recruit new outdoor enthusiasts to their new resort by “Spreading the Word about the Bird,” determined to share a unique slice of nature with the world. Despite business hurdles to overcome, Snowbird immediately became a mountain with some of the most unique Big Mountain terrain. The mountain was perfect for skiers who wanted a novel experience that would push the limits of their abilities.
Advertisements that showcase Snowbird’s construction projects to build the needed infrastructure.
Executing on this dream to build a mountain resort from scratch was a unique achievement of creative resolve. By embarking on this mission, Ted and Dick assumed incredible financial and operational risks but overcame these risks to share a piece of the marvelous mountains with the world. Ted and Dick wanted as many people as possible to, as Dick would say, increase “human understanding through the enhancement of body, mind, and spirit” in this special sliver of America’s outdoor wonders.
“Snowbird’s mission is to increase human understanding through the enhancement of body, mind, and spirit” –Dick Bass
Two vintage shots of skiing at Snowbird in its early days. Ted Johnson is the skier in the righthand photo.
“The Greatest Snow on Earth”
A photo of me skiing at Snowbird on a powder day. I’m wearing Dick’s favorite old ski suit that I now always wear.
The Wasatch Mountain Range in North-Eastern Utah, in which Snowbird resides, are a pristine, natural wonder. Located just 30 minutes away from Salt Lake City, the powder is deep and light. Dick would always say it’s “the greatest snow on earth.” Dick was surely not the one who coined that phrase, but the saying became important for the state of Utah—for years, the Utah license plates had that phrase “Greatest Snow on Earth” written across the bottom of the plates.
Dick would say that the snow at Snowbird, and near Salt Lake City in general, was so good because the snowstorm cells that began in the Pacific Ocean would be forced to traverse across the Nevada deserts and the Great Salt Lake on the west side of the city. Before the storms hit the Wasatch Mountains that hold Snowbird, Alta, Park City and the other resorts, the salt that was in the air from the Salt Lake would dry out the snow. Each snowflake would form itself around a salt molecule making it drier and lighter than snow in other parts of the world, thus giving the snow its unique quality. Who knows if this claim is actually the truth, but it is one hell of a theory. Dick had a way of romanticizing details, making them come alive. And for those who have skied at Snowbird or in the Wasatch Mountains, they know that snow is special.
