WOMEN'S
ALPINE
WORLD
CUP
Observation, analysis, musing, discussion of
Alpine ski racing's highest level.
womensalpineworldcup.com
Hello! 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.
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.