FELIX ST. CLAIR-RENARD--THE FATHER OF SKI PHOTOGRAPHY-This article focuses on Swedish ski photographer, Felix St. Clair-Renard, who has become an icon of the industry, and is still going strong at age 60. It includes a visit with Felix in his winter home in Chamonix, an interview, and details about his fascinating career and the danger that goes along with it.

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EDI SCHAAR, THE LIVING SKI MUSEUM-Edi Schaar, my old uncle, was born in 1905, strapped on his first pair of boards before W.W.I started, and has been skiing ever since. He incurred a heart attack and a broken ankle in his seventies, but that did not stop him. During his long life of skiing that spans almost this entire century, Mr. Lettner, the inventor of the steel edge, mounted his invention on Edi’s skis in the late 1920s to get some feedback on his new product. Edi equaled the great Hannes Schneider in the ‘30s by hiking and skiing the Kalteberg and the Valluga on the same day. He escaped Hitler’s incursion into Austria by hiking over the Alps into Switzerland in 1938. Today, in his nineties, my idiosyncratic uncle still skis in some of his old equipment from various different eras. To top it all off, he did a tandem paraglider flight for his 90th birthday.

JIMMY PETTERSON PROFILE-This is a short biography which can be used to accompany an article.

LEGENDS OF SKIING--THE KING OF POWDER-This is the story of Norwegian born Alf Engen, who immigrated to the U.S. at nineteen years of age to become, perhaps, the greatest all around skier who eve lived. He set world records in jumping, won national titles in downhill and slalom, and twice won the four-way championships which included cross country skiing as well as the three above mentioned disciplines. More importantly, Alf was the father of powder technique. He taught skiing and developed new innovations in powder skiing for forty years at Alta, Utah, where he continued into his eighties, in his capacity as director of skiing. Much of the article is made up of Alf, in his own words, (with his strong Norwegian accent intact) describing his accomplishments, his memories, and his philosophy of skiing and life.

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PHOTOGRAPHER PROFILE-This is a autobiographical profile of myself and my work with ski photography, meant to accompany a photo layout depicting some of my best or favorite ski pictures. The profile is broken into subheadings beginning with a section on how I got started in ski photography. The article then discusses the positive and negative aspects of the profession, some tips to would be ski photographers, and a little technical information about my equipment. The story concludes with a humorous anecdote to sum up the life of a ski photographer.

PATRICK VALLENSANT-Patrick was one of the early living legends of extreme skiing, along with his fellow resident of Chamonix, Sylvain Saudan. Patrick died in an accident in the late 1980s, and this interview done about one month before his death serves as a touching and sympathetic memory of a man who was so influential to the development of extreme skiing in the 1980s. The article delves into Patrick’s life and achievements, as well as what kind of man he was. It even includes some of his thoughts about death, just a short month before he lost his life.

SKI TOURING WITH RONALD NAAR-This is a short piece of about 900 words which gives some background information about Dutch adventurer Ronald Naar, with whom I did some ski touring in Albania. Naar has conquered the “Seven Summits”, ski toured across Greenland, and traveled to the South Pole on skis, among other exploits, and this essay gives some information about both the man and his accomplishments.

SYLVAIN SAUDAN: FATHER OF SKI EXTREME-This article is a biography of Sylvain Saudan, the most famous steep skier in the world. It tells of some of his many adventures that have put his name into the Guinness “Book of Records” on three occasions. It goes on to describe the man, his motives, and his feelings and fears with regard to his steep skiing exploits. The article discusses briefly the many extreme skiers who have met their fate by pressing their limits. The article finishes by bringing the reader up to date with what Sylvain has been doing in the years since he “retired” from his steep skiing exploits--undefeated.

THE GREATEST SKIER IN THE WORLD?-In the day and age when skiing has so many diverse disciplines and specialties, how could one possibly establish the world’s best skier? Are we talking about downhill, slalom, or G.S.? What about mogul and aerial specialists, not to mention the gurus of Telemark turns, speed skiing, and extreme skiing. Then, of course, there is powder--perhaps the world’s best skier is one of the winners of the annual figure eight competition! A soft spoken, unassuming Finn has, over the years, exemplified such diversity in his mastery of many of these specialties, so that, perhaps, Ari Heinilä, a man who is virtually unknown outside his native Finland, could lay claim to be the best in the world.