Warren Miller

"I don't think there is a future for the ski industry at all," Warren Miller told The Industry Report, pausing to wait for the reaction. "Not unless the industry can coalesce and convince Congress and the Forest Service that they have to provide more land for what so many people want to do on it."

It doesn't take "the voice that launched a thousand ski seasons" very long to warm up to a subject, nor to come up with different, offbeat, but often alarmingly close-to-target viewpoints on an issue. Warren Miller has been doing just that since I first interviewed him some 40 years ago for my ski column in the Palos Verdes News in his then-Hermosa Beach, Calif., lair.

There have been many times since that I returned to Miller when I needed a quote, a one-liner, or a full-on interview. He never refused, nor was at a loss for words that got attention. It seems appropriate, as I close out my career as a ski journalist with this issue of The Industry Report, to do it with words of wisdom from the master of shooting from the hip and seldom missing.

Miller, if you are new to the ski world, has made over 500 sports films - most of them about skiing. The phrase the "Warren Miller movie is in town" has been heard across this country every fall for 56 years.

He sticks to his long-held convictions, without regard to whom - often those inside the industry less daring or progressive - he irritates. That footage of skiers leaping off impossible cliffs has worried risk managers since ski areas first employed them. But, the legions of fans (and now their kids and their kids) who grew up with the annual Warren Miller movie have kept his name synonymous with winter sports. There have been predecessors, competitors, imitators, and wannabes, but there is only one Warren Miller.

The Industry Report caught up to Miller, now 80, by phone at his home on Orcas Island, off the Washington State coastline. He and his wife, Laurie, had just returned from taking their boat on a run to Alaska and back. We agreed to focus on the future, not the well-worn, but still hilarious, tales of life in the Sun Valley parking lot in 1948. You know, those stories about the days he lived in a tiny trailer, taught skiing, lived on oyster crackers with catsup purloined from the Sun Valley Lodge, and launched a never-ending career with a borrowed 16mm camera.

"I'm serious about the future of the sport," he said. "Look at the situation. There were January days the year Vail opened in 1962 when there couldn't have been more than eight lift tickets sold. There was no Beaver Creek, no Copper Mountain, and just a T-Bar at Breck. All anyone had to do was look up at Pepi's Face, and if it had been skied off, you'd just keep on driving to Aspen.

"You could pick many winter days this past season, however, when there were probably upwards of 50,000 people skiing or snowboarding at Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, and Copper. And Vail owns three of those four resorts.

"Consider that for a minute. There must be at least 25,000 of those poor people in search of a toilet that still flushes by 2 p.m.," he said.

Miller points to Sun Valley "where there's not one more acre to expand onto." He believes something has to be done to get the Forest Service to expand terrain at destination resorts throughout the country or "there is no way this sport can continue to exist." He chalks it up to the quality of the experience.

"That kind of day on the mountain is not the reason you or I got involved in this sport. We got in it for the freedom and challenge it offered," he said, repeating a favorite mantra that skiing is all about freedom.

Miller believes the mega-resort experience has become homogenized. "The trails look the same, the lifts look the same, the staff uniforms look the same, and you spend the same $40 for the same two burgers and a cup of coffee."

This industry needs to get serious about lobbying the Forest Service, he warns. "Skiers and snowboarders need to get mobilized and energized to write and e-mail their Congressional representatives in big numbers. The feds need to hear from Forest Service land users who are fed up with these conditions. I'd be willing to bet that 75 percent of the Forest Service income is derived from ski resorts.

"The timber lobby in Washington is huge and they get the permissions they need to build more roads so they can cut more timber," he said. "We have just a small presence through the trade associations. It's not good enough for survival."

Miller tells of friends in the Northwest who have discovered the smaller resorts in the Okanogan region of British Columbia - places like Big White, Fernie, Sun Peaks, and others. "They'd rather go there these days than fight the big crowds at the super destination resorts, no matter how great those mountains are. There are still a few places in the Okanogan where you can brown bag lunch and kick your boots up on the stove."

Miller believes the Forest Service should "ignore the tree huggers and open up the flood gates." He points to it being economically beneficial as well.

"Here's a simile," he suggests. "There will be 950,000 people who will get off a cruise ship in Ketchikan, Alaska, with credit cards at the ready by the time summer is over. That will generate $37 million in tax revenues from the shops alone. Look what expanded use of Forest Service terrain could bring into the economy."

Miller, just in case you thought the "r" word (retirement) was part of his vocabulary, has hardly slowed down. In fact, he's written a new book on aging that's making the rounds of publishers now.

"The premise is, if you adjust your expectations, you can stay the same age forever," he explains. "I still ski for example, but I don't do bumps anymore. I don't windsurf these days, but the boat's a great substitute. You won't be disappointed if your expectations match your abilities." It was easy for me to recall a line from one of his earlier films... "We are only allotted so many bumps in our knees. When we use them up, they're gone."

He's still writing the scripts and narrating the annual Warren Miller film, though the company is now owned by Time-Warner. He writes and syndicates a weekly ski humor column in mountain resort communities. The Millers have a winter home at The Yellowstone Club in Wyoming, where he is Director of Skiing.

He's been the catalyst behind raising nearly $4 million for exciting skateboard and other extreme sports facilities at the Warren Miller Freedom Camp, an adventure camp for kids run by the Seattle YMCA on Miller's home base of Orcas Island. The camp quickly became a huge hit. ("Sure beats making lanyards," he quips.) The concept is expected by Y camp officials to become a trend replicated in hundreds of summer camps.

A Warren Miller Freedom Foundation was established on his behalf by Laurie for his 80th birthday. "Her idea is to encourage teenagers to become entrepreneurs, not to just finish college and go to work for somebody else. I agree with that, because small businesses are the key to the economy." Pilot programs are underway with Northwest teens this summer.

"What else can I tell you?" he laughs. "Here's a quote I gave you 40 years ago that remains my core philosophy: Look at life through a 14-year-old's eyes. It will never be boring. Meanwhile, tell your readers to write their Congressman."

– by Craig Altschul,
Retiring Editor-In-Chief

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