The Ski People

Time was when college boys went home for the holidays; these days, more and more are taking off with or without their girls and fraternity brothers for a bit of resorting on the cheap. Spring vacation, for instance, is Fort Lauderdale time (or Malibu, or Bermuda), where you can throw your sleeping bag on the beach and live on hamburgers and beer. From Christmas to New Year's, it may well be a ski resort, where you can bed down in a bunkhouse and live on hamburgers and beer.

In New England last week, they were braving gale-force winds and 20DEG-below-zero temperatures in the big old places such as Stowe and Bromley, as well as in a host of small new ones that have been sprouting on the hills each year. In the West, they were trying out the ski tows and warming huts at such new places as Big Mountain in Montana and Alpine Meadows in California. But the major mecca for college-agers at Christmastime is the town of Aspen, developed by the late industrialist Walter Paepcke high in the Rocky Mountains, 105 miles southwest of Denver.

Bums & Beats. Snow was far from plentiful in Aspen last week, but close to 1,000 young people crowded into town, augmenting the 3,000-odd other visitors. Aspen has 60 lodges, hotels, motels, guest houses and dormitories, and the youngsters mostly put up in the dormitories for about $4 a night, sleeping four or more in a room. Skiing is an expensive addiction ($45 million was spent on equipment alone in the U.S. last year), and one of the chief subjects of discussion was the $6.50 charge for a ticket on the ski lift.

To cover the high cost of schuss and slalom, many young people become what are known--not derogatorily--as ski bums. Ski bums work to pay their way; they make up a major part of the labor force at the winter resorts. They fare better in the East, where they get room, board, lift tickets and a little extra money, than in the West, where they get only money, and not much of that. A few are adept enough to work as instructors, but most of Aspen's ski bums work in the bars, restaurants and shops.

A new category of young ski people are the ski beats, a small, unwelcome group of drifters who are not so much interested in skiing as in having fun. Unwilling to work, they do their best to sleep for nothing--in cars when it is not too cold, or by sponging. And they have notoriously little respect for private property.

This year's record inrush of students, ski bums and ski beats produced a rash of fights, breakage and stolen equipment that led some irate Aspenites to call for a police crackdown on all young people. But the Aspen Times editorialized in favor of moderation: "Not having money is no crime, and the fact that some skiers may be temporarily out of work should not give the police the right to harass them." Bars and restaurants try to maintain a close surveillance of identity cards to avoid selling liquor to those under 21, or beer to those under 18, but with beer being sold by the pitcher, the law is hard to enforce.

For boys, Aspen has some reputation as the place where the girls are. "The basic thing here is the lack of supervision," says Student Steve Barinka of San Diego Junior College. "This explains much of the appeal of Aspen."

Alouette. If the snow was scarce, the beer was plentiful on New Year's Eve. At The Red Onion in the center of town, students, bums and beats sang along with dentists from Minneapolis, executives from Chicago and big spenders from Dallas and Houston. And, of course, Kennedys. Around a table near the center of the room sat Attorney General Bobby, Senator Teddy, plus their wives, and Sister Jean Smith.

"Heart of my heart," crooned Massachusetts' junior Senator from the middle of the dance floor. "Alouette," he began, jabbing the air with his forefinger like a President, to get everyone singing in the proper sequence. Someone struck up a limbo, and Teddy craned backward under a broom with the best of them. With or without benefit of Kennedys, it was like that in the bars all over town--conviviality rather than disorder, the young mingling easily with their elders and betters.

By 2 a.m. the bars were closing. The stars dazzled down out of the freezing sky, a few youths weaved along the street, steam rose slowly from the outdoor swimming pools, a tall ski instructor carried a ravishing blonde out of the Molly Gibson, and somebody slipped on the ice amid a roar of laughter.

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