WOMEN'S
ALPINE
WORLD
CUP
Observation, analysis, musing, discussion of
Alpine ski racing's highest level.
womensalpineworldcup.com
Hey! So Glad You're Here.
Joe Leiper (lee-per) Scottish name. Birthday May 26th.
I first skied at Ski Stony Point, New York, exit 15 on the Palisades Interstate Parkway. Don’t look for it, it’s not there anymore. The area featured a double chairlift and a state-of-the-art rope tow. Two trails and a tilted pasture; 400 mind-blowing vertical feet. Schlitz on tap for later in the afternoon…or so I heard. I was ten and didn’t see the beer place. For the next twenty years Vermont was the primary stomping ground, with occasional trips to Colorado, Utah, California, Montana. And a dozen or so Catskill and Berkshire hills, some of which are extinct like Ski Stony Point.
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The second half of my life has been in Oregon and mostly in Colorado with my wife Catherine, whom I met in Eugene while in graduate school. (Mt. Bachelor is great, definitely worth thorough exploration. I climbed Mt. Hood several times but didn’t ski there. Willamette Pass and Hoodoo are fun day jaunts.) We live near Denver; I ski primarily in Summit and Eagle Counties: Copper, Vail, Breckenridge, Beaver Creek, Arapahoe Basin, Keystone. And though life’s complexities often hamstring our desires—you may snort at my seasonal ski-day average—I’ve sustained my chops and truly enjoy this locale.
Beaver Creek, CO - 2022
Living in Westminster with Catherine. Married for thirty years and she still likes me! Semi-retired after fatuous stretch in telecom. Work weekends at a nearby front range hospital. Have learned of specialized refrigerators, and that toddlers occasionally eat guinea pig food. Miss the ocean big-time; Rockies are a fine consolation, though. Grateful for sound body, resilient psyche--and for being more fortunate than about 7.5 billion people are.
Alpine Meadows, CA - 1989
Living in NYC, managing a West Village co-op and re-writing a novel draft, which unfortunately did not bear fruit. Previous job: managing rental shop at Catamount, MA, a ski area in the southern Berkshires. On busy weekends we'd send out 600 pairs by 10:00am. Shop workforce mostly high school students--problematic to govern. Realizing I should have studied much harder in college.