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As ski school director, Friedl Pfeifer harbored ambitions that rivaled those of Averell Harriman himself. Under his leadership, Sun Valley’s ski school expanded in just one year from nine instructors to more than 100, making it the largest ski school in the United States, and possibly the world.
Pfeifer was equally instrumental in shaping the development of Bald Mountain, whose over 3,000 vertical feet of terrain would become Sun Valley’s crown jewel. In Europe, Pfeifer noted, ski lifts typically ascended only halfway up the mountains. With Baldy, however, he envisioned something greater: lifts that would carry skiers all the way to the summit.
In the summer of 1939, Union Pacific engineers, working under the joint direction of Harriman and Pfeifer, constructed three chairlifts that indirectly scaled the 3,400‑foot frame of Bald Mountain’s River Run side. This bold innovation transformed Baldy into one of the most complete ski mountains in the world, setting a new standard for destination resorts.
Bald Mountain summit chair-lift
Lower College Bald Mountain 1939
Bald Mountain 1939
Roundhouse under construction 1939
Bald Mountain as viewed from Ruud Mountain
Friedl Pfeifer engineered the plans for Bald Mountain’s new runs, and in the winter of 1939–40, the world was introduced to a lift‑served giant that pioneered alpine skiing into a new realm of vertical proportions, terrain previously accessible only through alpine touring methods.
Pfeifer’s inventive vision did not stop with the lifts. At mid‑mountain, he oversaw the construction of a warming hut, the now‑iconic Roundhouse, which provided skiers with a place of respite amidst the grandeur of Baldy’s slopes.
With such an unprecedented lift‑served colossus at his disposal, Pfeifer also refined the teaching of Hannes Schneider’s “Arlberg Technique.” By shortening the phases between progressions, Sun Valley’s ski school accelerated the learning process, ensuring that instruction kept pace with the revolutionary technology of Baldy’s new lifts.
From 1939 to 1941, Friedl Pfeifer’s ski school thrived, attracting some of the finest skiers in the world, until the outbreak of the Second World War abruptly ended their historic endeavors. With Austria and Switzerland’s schools shuttered under German aggression, Sun Valley quickly became the world’s premier destination for ski instruction.
Yet Pfeifer’s story, unlike that of Haemmerle, Hennig, and the alpine touring school, took a more forceful and unsettling turn. In December 1941, the FBI descended upon the small community of Sun Valley and Ketchum, searching for suspected German spies. When they departed, they did not leave empty‑handed. Arrested as possible Nazi informants were Friedl Pfeifer, Hans Hauser, and Sepp Froehlich, a shocking moment that underscored the tense wartime atmosphere even in the remote mountains of Idaho.
Sep Froehlich
Hans Hauser
All three men were taken to Salt Lake City, where they were interrogated. With Friedl Pfeifer’s unscheduled departure as ski school director, another of Hannes Schneider’s top instructors, Otto Lang, briefly assumed leadership until Sun Valley shut down for the war effort in 1942.
When it became clear that these three “outspoken members of Sun Valley’s ski school” posed no threat to national defense, each was given a choice: serve in the U.S. Army or spend the war in an internment camp in North Dakota. Pfeifer and Sepp Froehlich joined the Army’s famed 10th Mountain Division, while Hans Hauser, who fared the worst, chose internment.
Other prominent German‑speaking members of Sun Valley’s ski school escaped the FBI’s scrutiny for various reasons. Florian Haemmerle held American citizenship, which granted him immunity. Andy Hennig and Sigfried Engel (who would later serve as Sun Valley’s ski school director from 1952 to 1975) enlisted immediately upon America’s declaration of war. Otto Lang, meanwhile, was protected by both his citizenship and his marriage to the daughter of a U.S. Navy admiral.
Sigi Engl
Sun Valley’s Austrian ski instructors served the U.S. Army with distinction during the war. Friedl Pfeifer joined the 10th Mountain Division as a technical adviser on winter warfare, training at Camp Hale in Colorado. On weekends, he traveled to Aspen, exploring its picturesque peaks, an early glimpse of the mountains he would later help develop. As the war neared its conclusion, Pfeifer was deployed to Italy, where he was wounded on Mount Belvedere just two weeks before Germany’s surrender. The injury cost him a lung, and his recovery was slow, but in October 1946, he was finally released from duty.
Pfeifer returned to Sun Valley that same year to restart its ski school, though his ambitions soon shifted toward the development of Aspen. For a short time, he directed the schools of both resorts, but by the winter of 1947–48, Pfeifer departed Sun Valley for good. He would go on to direct and develop Aspen’s surrounding mountains for nearly two decades, leaving an indelible mark on American skiing.
Sigi Engl and Sepp Froehlich also enlisted in the 10th Mountain Division, where their skiing skills—like those of their fellow Sun Valley instructors- were put to use training troops. Engl spent the final years of the war in Italy, while Froehlich concluded his service in the Pacific.
Meanwhile, Sun Valley Lodge, used by the U.S. Navy as a rehabilitation facility for nearly four years, was officially decommissioned in 1946. That December, the resort reopened for the 1946–47 winter season, with Otto Lang, and briefly Pfeifer, resuming control of the ski school. Lang himself had grown up in a small town near Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, which before World War I had been part of the Austrian Habsburg Empire.
Sigi Engl and Sepp Froehlich also enlisted in the 10th Mountain Division, where their skiing skills—like those of their fellow Sun Valley instructors- were put to use training American troops. Engl spent the final years of the war in Italy, while Froehlich concluded his service in the Pacific.
In 1946, after serving nearly four years as a U.S. Navy rehabilitation facility, Sun Valley was officially decommissioned. That December, the resort reopened for the 1946–47 winter season, with Otto Lang and, briefly, Friedl Pfeifer, resuming control of the ski school.
Lang’s story was itself remarkable. He grew up in a small town near Sarajevo, Yugoslavia, then part of the Austrian Habsburg Empire. When the First World War broke out, his family fled to Salzburg, Austria, where Lang learned to ski alongside boyhood friends Hans and Max Hauser. After graduating high school, he secured a ski instruction position at Semmering, a resort outside Vienna, and in 1929 achieved his ultimate goal: certification as an instructor in Hannes Schneider’s ski school at St. Anton.
In 1935, Lang brought Schneider’s revolutionary “Arlberg Technique” to Sugar Hill, New Hampshire, and the following year opened a ski school on Mount Rainier, Washington, where he taught future skiing greats such as Gretchen Fraser and influential figures like Nelson Rockefeller. It was at Mount Rainier that Lang was first introduced to filmmaking, assisting in the production of the short ski film Thin Ice.
By the winter of 1938, Lang had arrived in Sun Valley as Rockefeller’s personal instructor. A year later, his colleague Friedl Pfeifer offered him the position of assistant ski school director. Lang’s pre‑World War II years in Sun Valley proved highly prosperous, both in ski instruction and in film. He produced ski training and lesson films on the surrounding summits, blending alpine pedagogy with cinematic artistry and helping to cement Sun Valley’s reputation as a hub of innovation in American skiing.
Pfeifer teaching the Arlberg Method on the slopes of Dollar Mountain
Gretchen Fraser
Having two of Hannes Schneider’s finest instructors in one school was an unprecedented achievement, part luck, part Harriman’s ambitious hiring practices. The result was that Sun Valley’s ski school rapidly became the world’s foremost learning center for alpine skiing.
Unlike Schneider’s original “Arlberg Technique,” where alpine touring fundamentals were essential for transporting skiers uphill, Otto Lang and Friedl Pfeifer embodied a new era. They were Renaissance men of modern skiing, adapting instruction to match technological advances that carried skiers up the slopes, while introducing biomechanical refinements for the descent. Their adjustments to Sun Valley’s teaching sequence ensured that Schneider’s method evolved to meet the demands of lift‑served skiing.
Lang’s influence extended beyond instruction into cinema. His big break came when he was invited to direct the skiing sequences in Sun Valley Serenade, showcasing the expertise of Hans Hauser (doubling for John Payne) and Gretchen Fraser (doubling for Sonja Henie). Lang’s skillful direction of skiing on film caught the attention of Hollywood producer Darryl Zanuck, who, during the Second World War, oversaw productions for the Army’s Signal Corps.
During World War II, Otto Lang was commissioned to produce a series of training films designed to lure recruits into the ranks of the 10th Mountain Division. After the war, Lang returned to Sun Valley as ski school director, soon joined by numerous 10th Mountain Division veterans who picked up where they had left off. Among the notable returnees were Sigi Engl, Sepp Froehlich, and John Litchfield, each bringing wartime experience back to the slopes.
Hans Hauser also returned, though his postwar story carried a darker edge. He became romantically involved with a mysterious woman whose alleged connections to organized crime may have directly or indirectly played a role in the untimely death of Sun Valley’s first ski school director.
Bugsy Seigel developer of Las Vegas
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