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To complement Harriman’s ostentatious new chairlifts, a ski school was soon to be established, but not just any school. Harriman insisted on an Austrian school steeped in Hannes Schneider’s world‑renowned “Arlberg Technique.” Once again, he turned to Count Felix Schaffgotsch, who returned to his native Austria to handpick Sun Valley’s inaugural instructors.
Schaffgotsch came back with eight Austrian ski masters, the most notable being Hans Hauser, who would become Sun Valley’s first Ski School Director. Hauser hailed from Salzburg, Austria, where his family owned an inn. According to Otto Lang, himself a boyhood friend of the Hauser family and later Sun Valley’s Ski School Director in the late 1940s, Hans and his brother Max had grown into accomplished skiers and ski jumpers, teaching the sport to their local Salzburg community.
Hans quickly rose to prominence, becoming Austria’s finest alpine skier and winning the Austrian combined championships in 1932, 1934, and 1936. Yet his tenure as Sun Valley’s first ski school director lasted only three seasons. In 1939, leadership passed to Friedl Pfeifer, another of Schneider’s prodigies, who carried the school forward into a new era.
Hans Hauser and his autograph
Schaffgotsch and Hauser waxing skies 1937
Under Hans Hauser’s leadership, Sun Valley’s ski school struggled with both discipline and direction. Though Hauser was personable and an excellent teacher, he appeared to lack the administrative skills required to manage an “Arlberg” Ski School. His energies as director leaned more toward the playboy lifestyle of Sun Valley’s social scene than toward the serious development of the school itself.
Compounding these issues, Hauser founded a ski school in Portillo, Chile during the summer of 1939. Upon returning to the United States the following winter, he seemed to disregard the instructions of Union Pacific’s lawyers regarding his re‑entry papers. His immigration troubles, combined with his reputation for frivolity, fueled a rapid fall from grace with Union Pacific authorities.
Although Hauser’s tenure as director ended abruptly, he continued to teach at Sun Valley intermittently until the winter of 1950, leaving behind a complicated legacy as both a talented instructor and a figure whose personal pursuits undermined his leadership.
Sun Valley's first Ski School 1936 / Hauser far left
Sun Valley's first Ski School 1936
Alpine Touring in Sun Valley's Boulder Mountains
In the winter of 1936/37, Sun Valley possessed nearly all the attributes of a European destination resort. A grand hotel rose amidst a striking alpine setting, while two of the world’s first chairlifts offered an extravagance of mountain transportation unprecedented in skiing history. An Austrian “Arlberg” ski school instructed America’s rich and famous in state‑of‑the‑art alpine techniques, completing the aura of refinement.
Yet unlike Austria’s resorts of the era—where hundreds of high‑mountain hostels (bivouac huts) enabled alpine tourists and ski guides to explore serrated ridges and cirque basins—Sun Valley offered no winter means of reconnoitering its equally spectacular, though forbidden, mountainous heights.
This would soon change. Harriman’s attention to detail left few gaps, and in his ambition to make Sun Valley rival Europe’s finest, the popular sport of alpine touring was introduced. Between 1937 and 1940, high‑mountain hostels were constructed in the neighboring Pioneer and Smoky Mountains, with sites selected by Alf Engen (Utah’s Wasatch skiing pioneer), Walter Prager (Swiss Dartmouth ski coach), and Charlie Proctor. True to Harriman’s theme of pioneering ingenuity, Sun Valley’s alpine touring school developed a distinctive place in American skiing history.
These alpine touring beginnings first asserted themselves during the winter of 1936/37, with the launch of America’s first international alpine competition—the Harriman Cup. Just as Europe’s premier resorts promoted themselves with world‑class races, Harriman followed suit, ensuring Sun Valley’s place on the global stage.
Pioneer Cabin
Pioneer Cabin 1940
Pioneer Cabin / Early May 1996
Pioneer Cabin
Dick Durrance finishing his 4,100 foot vertical run to win the 1937 Harriman Cup
The Harriman Cup, held in March 1937, instantly drew the world’s finest skiers to the slopes of Sun Valley. The inaugural race was staged on an unnamed peak in the Boulder Mountains, just north of what is now the Sawtooth National Recreation Area. This site, without a lift service, was chosen over the lift‑served slopes of Proctor and Dollar Mountains because it offered the vertical drop required for a true European‑style downhill race. (At the time, Bald Mountain had yet to be developed.)
The course stretched 3.5 miles with a staggering 4,000‑foot vertical drop, leading ski luminaries Walter Prager, Alf Engen, and Charlie Proctor to declare the 1937–1938 Harriman Cup downhill course the longest and most challenging in the world.
To reach the starting line, competitors had no choice but to ski or hike up the snow‑covered slopes. Hans Hauser, Sun Valley’s ski school director, was heavily favored to win. Yet when the final times were tallied, it was former Dartmouth ski team member Dick Durrance who claimed victory. Durrance went on to win the Harriman Cup again in 1938 and 1940, becoming the first racer to retire the trophy. In recognition of his triumph, the mountain whose slopes hosted the inaugural race was named Durrance Mountain in the winter of 1938.
Dick Durrance with the 1937 Harriman Cup / Averell Harriman in the rear.
Walter Prauger / Coach of Dick Durrance and Dartmouth Ski Team
Dick Durrance
As the winter of 1936/37 gave way to spring, Averell Harriman sought to round out his eight‑man Austrian ski school to a full complement of ten. On the advice of Dick Durrance, Harriman hired Florian Haemmerle, a Bavarian skier and painter who would soon lead America’s first European‑style “alpine touring” ski school.
Born in Markt Oberdorf, Bavaria, in 1909, Haemmerle learned to ski along the Austrian‑German border. In 1929, amid worsening economic conditions in Germany, he emigrated to New York, where he worked as a painter. While living there, Haemmerle occasionally rented skis and competed in local races at Lake Placid, where his skill quickly drew the attention of Dartmouth College’s coaching staff.
He was soon hired as an assistant to Walter Prager, Dartmouth’s head coach and former instructor under Hannes Schneider. In this role, Haemmerle helped train America’s top racer of the 1930s, Dick Durrance, cementing his reputation as both a gifted skier and a capable teacher.
Florian Haemmerle
Pioneer Cabin Spring 1948 abovePioneer Cabin May 1996 below
Florian Haemmerle arrived in Sun Valley during the winter of 1936/37 and was immediately placed as an instructor in the resort’s new “alpine” ski school. His association with Hans Hauser’s Austrian staff, however, quickly deteriorated into friction. As a southern German among Austrians in 1937, Haemmerle faced suspicion and hostility. German Nazism was then exerting aggressive pressure on Austria, and though Haemmerle shared none of Germany’s nationalistic ambitions, his Austrian colleagues unfairly associated him with such aggressions. Alienated and discouraged, Haemmerle was ready to resign after only a month of service.
Fortunately, this schism coincided with Averell Harriman’s vision of complementing Sun Valley’s already famous alpine facilities with an “alpine touring” center of equal stature. Not wishing to waste Haemmerle’s talent, and recognizing the need to expand beyond the lift‑served slopes, Sun Valley officials reorganized the ski school in the spring of 1937.
Hauser continued to lead the existing alpine school, which focused its instruction on the lift‑served slopes of Dollar, Proctor, Ruud, and Bald Mountains. Haemmerle, meanwhile, was appointed head of the newly formed alpine touring center, whose classroom was nothing less than the seemingly limitless vertical grandeur of Sun Valley’s surrounding wilderness.
Pioneer Cabin, the first mountain hostel built, stood at 9,700 feet amidst the jagged encampment of the towering Pioneer Mountains. Its counterpart, Owl Creek Cabin, was nestled below the spiraling dominance of Silver Peak, the highest summit of the Smoky Mountains. From the late 1930s through the early 1950s, both cabins epitomized the true European‑style “alpine touring” bivouac huts, offering weary skiers and climbers shelter from the remorseless elements after long days among the crags.
The Sun Valley Company, together with Florian Haemmerle and his guides, even added touches of luxury. Most excursions into the cabins enlisted the services of an experienced chef and several ski patrol boys, who portered guests’ gear up the slopes.
Though rugged compared to the million‑dollar lodge in Sun Valley, the cabins offered pleasurable amenities: double‑decker bunks, plush zippered sleeping bags, green Pullman car curtains for privacy, a wood stove, and even maroon carpet salvaged from the lodge, all of which softened the bite of roughing it.
By the winter of 1938/39, the alpine touring business was brisk. The rolling, treeless slopes surrounding Pioneer Cabin, combined with its spectacular alpine setting, proved a tremendous draw. It soon became clear that an additional cabin and more personnel would be needed to meet the growing demand.
Back Country Skiers 1981 looking at the slopes of Silver Peak
Owl Creek Cabin below Silver Peak Smoky Mountains
Back Country Skier heading up to Pioneer Cabin
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