Visitors to Colorado's famous ski resorts embrace alpine adventures,
luxurious amenities, and a glamorous nightlife, all against a backdrop
of towering mountains and high-drifted snow. Wherever they go in search
of fresh powder, one thing is certain: skiing has become a major part of
recreational sport and culture and, in the process, dramatically altered
America's social, physical, economic, and imaginative landscapes.
Annie Coleman has written the first cultural history of skiing in the
United States, telling how this European sport evolved into an American
industry combining recreation, tourism, consumption, and
wilderness--along with a solid dose of exhilaration and a dash of
celebrity. She reveals how the meaning of skiing changed over the
twentieth century, how sport and leisure in America came to be about
status and style as much as about physical activity, and how modern
consumer culture merged the mythic West with real western places.
Coleman traces skiing from its Norse roots and Alpine influences through
the utility of ski travel in the winter Rockies to the rise of Colorado
resorts. Much more than a history of the sport, her work explains how
the recreation industry sold the experience of skiing and created mythic
mountain landscapes with real problems--and a ski culture that exalts
celebrity and status over the physical act of skiing.
Along the way, Coleman looks at bums, bunnies, betties, and everyone
else who uses the sport to define who they are and how they fit in.
Today's skiers are more diverse than they were half a century ago
(though chances are they're wealthier), and even snowboarders have
joined the very culture they once opposed--reviving places like Aspen
through a subversive youth culture gone mainstream.
The allure of white powder at high altitudes, manicured ski runs
designed to frame picture-perfect views, the illusion of danger--the
American skiing experience is all of this and more. Extensively
researched and engagingly written, Ski Style puts readers on the
slopes--and in the lodges--to show what it's really all about.
