By the summer of 1947, Friedl Pfeifer recognized the impossibility of directing two ski schools separated by hundreds of miles. He resigned from Sun Valley and devoted his full energy to developing Aspen and leading its ski school. Pfeifer soon became Aspen’s primary developer and left an enduring mark on ski history—not only as a racer who never lost a single slalom competition on American soil, but also as the inventor of the dual‑racing format, still used in professional circuits today.
Meanwhile, John Litchfield, who would later become Sun Valley’s fifth Ski School Director, stepped aside from his role as Aspen’s co‑director, returning to Sun Valley to continue instructing.
Otto Lang immediately stepped in to replace Friedl Pfeifer, taking on the role of executive ski school director. With Pfeifer focused entirely on Aspen’s development, it fell to Lang to defend Hannes Schneider and the Arlberg Technique against France’s increasingly sharp criticisms.
During the 1947–48 ski season, Lang balanced multiple roles: producing a film for Hollywood mogul Darryl Zanuck, serving as Sun Valley’s goodwill ambassador at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz, and managing the ski school. Yet his most pressing challenge was finding a successor of equal stature to Pfeifer.
For guidance, Lang turned to his mentor Hannes Schneider in North Conway. True to his philosophy of advancing his best instructors, Schneider recommended Toni Matt, a racer and teacher of remarkable skill.
Accepting the role of ski school director, Toni Matt ran the program in true Hannes Schneider fashion. This allowed Otto Lang to focus his energy on representing Sun Valley at the 1948 Winter Olympics in St. Moritz—the first Winter Games held since 1936.
France dominated the men’s alpine events, with racers using Émile Allais’ new techniques. Their star, Henri Oreiller, captured two gold medals and one bronze, helping France claim three of the six alpine medals and drawing worldwide attention to the sport.
Sun Valley’s Arlberg tradition also made its mark in St. Moritz. Gretchen Fraser, coached during her career by Sun Valley instructors Sigi Engl, Otto Lang, and Friedl Pfeifer, won America’s first alpine skiing medals—taking gold in the slalom and silver in the combined.
The United States added further promise with the impressive performance of 15‑year‑old Andrea Mead, whose racing skills signaled the next generation of American talent.
Although the ski school under Toni Matt operated smoothly, his chances of returning for a second season were dashed when a public scandal over an adulterous affair emerged. Once again faced with the challenge of replacing Friedl Pfeifer with someone of equal stature—and countering the growing influence of the French Technique in American resorts—Otto Lang devised a bold and controversial solution: hire Émile Allais.
With Allais teaching in Sun Valley during the 1948–49 ski season, the long‑anticipated showdown between the Arlberg and French styles finally arrived after thirteen years of simmering rivalry. Allais himself declared of his method: “My technique is just right for this country. It is loose and free, just like the spirit of you Americans.”
His stateside debut generated enormous publicity. Allais’ photograph graced the winter covers of both Ski Magazine and Life Magazine, turning Sun Valley into the epicenter of the international debate over skiing’s future.
For beginners, the French Technique proved disastrous. By discarding the stem turn as the foundation of learning and eliminating the snowplow, Émile Allais left novice skiers without a reliable way to build balance and control.
For advanced skiers, Allais’ hallmark move—the Ruade (lifting the tails of both parallel skis off the snow to pivot midair into the opposite direction)—lacked the smooth, flowing efficiency of the Arlberg Technique. Watching his instructors practice the Ruade, Otto Lang quipped: “They reminded me of a flock of bunny rabbits hopping around and frolicking in the snow.”
Years later, Allais himself admitted the shortcomings of his method. While skiing with Lang near Flaine, France, Lang called out as he followed Allais’ tracks: “Hey, Emile, what about the Ruade?” Allais laughed and replied: “Extinct as the dodo bird.”
At the close of the 1948–49 ski season, Émile Allais departed Sun Valley to lead the ski school at Alex Cushing’s newly developed Squaw Valley in California. Although his Ruade technique never fulfilled its promise of replacing the Arlberg, Allais—like Hannes Schneider, Averell Harriman, Friedl Pfeifer, and Otto Lang—proved himself a true renaissance figure in skiing.
In 1952, Allais coached the U.S. Men’s Olympic Ski Team, elevating them from the lower ranks of international competition to achieve fifth place in the downhill and sixth in the giant slalom. Beyond that, he trained dozens of the world’s top racers and pioneered the first non‑wood ski used in international racing.
After his American chapter, Allais returned to Europe, where he became France’s technical director for ski resort development, shaping the future of alpine recreation. Meanwhile, Otto Lang left Sun Valley for Hollywood stardom, and the resort appointed its first non‑Austrian ski school director, marking a new era in its history.
After the war, Andy Hennig, Florian Haemmerle, and Victor Gottschalk continued guiding guests through Sun Valley’s vast, lift‑less backcountry. Yet with the arrival of improved transportation up Bald Mountain and rapid advances in alpine skiing techniques, the days of the alpine touring school were numbered.
A brief resurgence of Sun Valley’s short‑lived alpine touring tradition came in the summers of 1947 and 1948, when Averell Harriman and Hennig sought to revive the fading sport. In 1947, after exploring the striking snow‑filled bowls of Boulder Basin—one of Hennig’s favorite touring sites—Harriman instructed Pat Rogers, Sun Valley’s general manager, to promote spring and summer skiing.
Within a week, two jeeps were made available to shuttle skiers up to Boulder Basin. For a few weeks, summer alpine touring enjoyed a renewed burst of popularity, a fleeting echo of Sun Valley’s pioneering past.
On July 4, 1948, slalom races were even held in Sun Valley, covered by Seattle Movietone News. To further encourage this revival of alpine touring, Andy Hennig, at the request of Averell Harriman, began work on Sun Valley’s first—and still most comprehensive—alpine touring guidebook. Published in 1948, the Sun Valley Ski Guide detailed the many regions around Sun Valley suitable for both alpine skiing and alpine touring. Such publications were common in the Alps, and Harriman hoped this manual might rekindle interest in the sport. However, alpine touring in Sun Valley never regained its former momentum.
By the winter of 1952, the alpine touring school met its unofficial end. Avalanches in Baldy’s Lookout Bowl claimed the life of Victor Gottschalk, while slides on Bromaghin Peak destroyed the Owl Creek cabin—tragic events that symbolized the close of a historic chapter.
Afterward, alpine touring continued only in small circles. Florian Haemmerle, with his “old gentleman’s club,” and Hennig, with his “seasoned ambitious clients,” occasionally ventured out, but without the support of the Sun Valley Company. Hennig, along with fellow instructors Fred Iselin and Willie Hemling, co‑authored another guidebook describing skiing and climbing routes in the Sawtooth, White Cloud, Lost River, and Salmon River Mountains. Without Sun Valley’s financial backing, however, the book saw only limited publication.
Meanwhile, Fred Iselin and his wife Ellie Staller spent many summers in Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, working for Austrian clothing manufacturer Josef Lanz, owner of the Idaho Rocky Mountain Ranch. In winter, Iselin directed Aspen’s ski school and went on to become one of the most published ski authors in the United States.
Meanwhile, back in Austria, Stefan Kruckenhauser—Professor of Biology and Sport at the University of Innsbruck and the dominant authority over the training, examination, and certification of Austrian ski teachers from the early 1950s through the 1970s—pioneered the first true scientific study of skiing’s evolution in response to advances in equipment. Using multiple cameras and thousands of feet of film to analyze the world’s best skiers (including Sun Valley’s Christian Provda), Kruckenhauser reached groundbreaking conclusions.
He observed that the driving force in Hannes Schneider’s stem turn was not shoulder rotation or the traditional Down‑Up‑Down motion, but rather a simple transfer of weight from one ski to the other—an edge change.
From Schneider’s Arlberg Technique to 1928, when engineer Rudolph Lettner patented the first steel edges and ski bindings became tighter, distinct changes in technique emerged. Skiers gained far greater control, allowing them to rise from the deep Arlberg crouch. By the mid‑1930s, innovations by Toni Seelos (parallel rotation turns, faster and more elegant than any stem) and Émile Allais (the side‑slipping, skis‑together Ruade) further transformed skiing.
Kruckenhauser concluded that the more upright a skier stood, the more relaxed they became, and the closer they kept their skis together, the less effort was required to turn. This insight reshaped ski techniques worldwide. The new style involved thrusting the heels in one direction while rotating the shoulders in the opposite direction as a counter‑force—a method coined “wedeln” or reverse shoulder rotation.
By the late 1950s and early 1960s, American skiers embraced wedeln with enthusiasm. Kruckenhauser’s New Official Austrian Ski System, published in the early 1950s and later in 1958 in the United States, laid the foundation for the American Ski Technique and Ski System—methods still used by most U.S. ski institutions today.
As before, Sun Valley became the proving ground, attracting the world’s best skiers to test and refine these revolutionary techniques.
As Sun Valley’s first American-born ski school director, John Litchfield faced the daunting challenge of succeeding Austria’s legendary instructors—Friedl Pfeifer, Otto Lang, and Hans Hauser—while also pioneering new techniques to modernize the aging Arlberg Method in the rapidly evolving skiing climate of the 1950s.
Litchfield’s solution was bold: he hired the world’s best skiers. Almost immediately after the 1952 Oslo Winter Olympics, Sun Valley welcomed an extraordinary roster of talent. Among them were Christian Pravda of Austria (silver and bronze medalist), Stein Eriksen of Norway (the first male non-European to win alpine gold), and Toni Spiss of Austria (bronze medalist). Under the direction of Litchfield and Sigi Engl, these champions elevated Sun Valley’s ski school to new heights.
The roster grew even stronger with Jack Reddish, American ski great and 1948 Harriman Cup winner; René Lafleur, Canadian Olympian and Ski Hall of Fame member; and Rudi Matt, former head instructor under Hannes Schneider. (Matt would later return to Austria to lead the Austrian Association of Professional Ski Teachers.)
Together, this unprecedented assembly of talent ensured Sun Valley remained at the forefront of international skiing innovation and prestige.
Not to be outdone by foreign triumphs at the 1952 Winter Olympics, Andrea Mead of Sun Valley—who had played a supporting role to Gretchen Fraser’s brilliance in 1948—rose to dominate the Oslo Games. She captured gold medals in both the slalom and giant slalom, securing her place as America’s leading female skier.
Mead’s dominance had already been evident in 1950, when she swept all three events at Sun Valley’s prestigious Harriman Cup. She returned in 1953 to claim the trophy once again. At the 1956 Olympic Games in Cortina, Italy, she earned a highly respected fourth place in the giant slalom, though no American medals were won that year. (Sun Valley’s alpine racers would not see another Olympic medal until 1972.)
Throughout the late 1940s and early 1950s, Mead trained extensively on the slopes of Bald Mountain, honing her skills under the guidance of Sun Valley’s greats: Friedl Pfeifer, Otto Lang, Gretchen Fraser, Rudi Matt, and Sigi Engl.
Christian Pravda was among the first skiers to stand upright on his skis and rely on edge pressure rather than upper‑body rotation to initiate turns. This stance became the cornerstone of modern skiing techniques, placing Pravda years ahead of his time in both teaching and racing. As an instructor, he was a man of few words—his students learned by simply following and imitating his graceful, flowing carves.
Though Pravda dominated the skiing world on paper throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, it was Stein Eriksen who captured the public’s imagination. Following his double Olympic triumph at the 1952 Oslo Games, the American public—and indeed the global community—embarked on a common quest: to “Ski like Stein.”
Eriksen’s distinctive style—hips angulated, reverse shoulder rotation, and lock‑kneed turns—became a worldwide obsession for men and women alike. His technique, though revolutionary in its popularity, was deeply rooted in Stefan Kruckenhauser’s Austrian Ski System, which had already begun reshaping the fundamentals of alpine skiing.
Following his introduction to American skiing at Sun Valley, Stein Eriksen went on to direct ski operations at Heavenly Valley in California, Aspen Highlands in Colorado, Sugarbush in Vermont, and Deer Valley in Utah. Yet Eriksen’s true genius lay not only in his technical mastery but in his pioneering role as skiing’s first “free agent.”
Rather than remain tied to a single world‑famous ski school like Sun Valley, Eriksen charted a new path—leveraging his Olympic triumphs into personal brand power. His model inspired a generation of Olympic champions, who followed his lead by transforming their victories into lucrative endorsements and independent careers. In doing so, Eriksen reshaped the relationship between elite athletes and the ski industry, setting the precedent for the modern era of professional skiing.
With the outbreak of the Korean War in 1953, John Litchfield returned to service with the U.S. Army, and another of Austria’s international skiing champions stepped into the role of Sun Valley ski school director. Sigi Engl, from Kitzbühel, would lead the school for the next quarter‑century, ushering in yet another epoch of alpine skiing excellence and instructional innovation.
Through his worldwide racing prominence, Engl mirrored his Austrian predecessors as one of the greatest skiers of his era. Yet his true legacy lay in his 21 years as Sun Valley’s director, during which he became the innovative principal in teaching not only the United States but the world how to ski.
For his unprecedented contributions, Engl was inducted into the American Ski Hall of Fame in Ishpeming, Michigan, in 1971. Four years later, in 1975, he was awarded Austria’s Gold Medal of Honor for distinguished service to alpine skiing. That same year, at the request of his longtime friend and colleague Konrad Staudinger, Sun Valley Company renamed “No‑Name Bowl” on Bald Mountain to “Sigi’s Bowl.”
Engl passed away in 1982 at the age of 71. His ashes were placed on the run that now bears his name, cementing his legacy alongside friends Hannes Schneider, Friedl Pfeifer, and Otto Lang as one of skiing’s greatest teaching‑racing innovators.
Like Litchfield, Engl understood the value of his staff. He maintained the eminence of Sun Valley’s ski school by surrounding himself with the best talent in the skiing world. His first rule of order was to select assistants and head instructors of equal caliber, including Austrian champion Sep Froehlich, American ski great Bill Butterfield, and Professor Kruckenhauser’s prodigy Konrad Staudinger.
As the team of Sigi Engl, Sep Froehlich, Bill Butterfield, and Konrad Staudinger (a prodigy of Professor Kruckenhauser) ensured the strong foundations of Sun Valley’s ski school, the resort itself began to falter. Its founding father, Averell Harriman, no longer cultivated Sun Valley’s global acclaim, as his energies shifted toward politics.
Following the Second World War, Harriman resigned as Union Pacific’s Chairman of the Board and accepted a position in President Harry Truman’s administration as Secretary of Commerce. Though he occasionally involved himself in Sun Valley’s affairs, it was clear that his talents—and successes—lay increasingly in diplomacy and politics.
In 1954, Harriman succeeded Republican Thomas Dewey as Governor of New York. As governor, he played a pivotal role in the development of Whiteface Mountain near Lake Placid, strengthening its skiing operations. Lake Placid had hosted the 1932 Winter Olympics (which did not yet include alpine skiing) and later the 1980 Winter Olympics, with Whiteface Mountain serving as the venue for most alpine events. To this day, Whiteface boasts the greatest vertical drop of any ski mountain in the eastern United States.
Harriman served only one term as governor, defeated in 1958 by Republican Nelson Rockefeller. He also sought the Democratic presidential nomination in both 1952 and 1956. Endorsed by former President Truman in 1956, Harriman was defeated on both occasions by Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson.
With Sun Valley’s founding champion Averell Harriman no longer actively promoting the resort, its amenities began to lag behind competitors such as Aspen, Colorado; Lake Placid, New York; and Squaw Valley, California. Yet the reputation of Sun Valley’s Austrian Ski School Director, Sigi Engl, his instructors, and the brilliance of his godson Anton “Tony” Sailer restored international recognition of Sun Valley’s instructional supremacy.
Born November 17, 1935, in Engl’s hometown of Kitzbühel, Austria, Sailer—nicknamed the “Blitz from Kitz”—is regarded as one of the greatest alpine skiers in history. Destined from birth to join his godfather’s ski school in America, Sailer instead made his mark on the world stage. At the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina, Italy, he became the first skier ever to win gold medals in all three alpine disciplines: slalom, giant slalom, and downhill.
Two years later, at the 1958 World Championships in Bad Gastein, Austria, Sailer again dominated, capturing three gold medals and one silver, cementing his legacy as a transformative figure in the sport.
Developing his skills in an Austria shaped by the instructional genius of Professor Stefan Kruckenhauser, Anton “Tony” Sailer and his teammates reasserted Austria’s dominance in world alpine skiing—an ascendancy not seen since before the Second World War. At the 1956 Winter Games, Austrian skiers captured more than twice as many medals as any other nation.
Sailer’s gold‑medal technique closely mirrored the style of Christian Pravda of Kitzbühel and Sun Valley, marked by a more vertical stance and turns initiated through weight transfer and early edge changes.
Though Sailer never fulfilled the prophecy of joining his godfather Sigi Engl’s Sun Valley ski school as an instructor, he pursued Hollywood stardom, appearing in several ski films. Yet he remained tied to Sun Valley, visiting Engl on multiple occasions. In 1959, he dominated the Harriman Cup, sweeping the slalom, downhill, and combined events, further cementing his reputation as one of skiing’s greatest champions.
Moving into the early 1960s, American ski resorts beyond Sun Valley began flexing their developmental muscles. Across the country, ski areas made bold moves to capture a larger share of the rapidly expanding American alpine skiing market.
Aspen, Colorado, under the vision of Friedl Pfeifer, had already established itself on the global stage. In 1950, Aspen hosted the FIS World Championships, the first ever held outside of Europe—a milestone that propelled the resort into international prominence and signaled the growing influence of American skiing destinations.