R E T R O V T THE ORIGINAL SKI AREA MOGUL A t o n e t im e , F r e d t h e P a b s t B lu e R o w n e d 2 5 sk i a re R e so rt w a s t
P a b st, J r. , ib b o n b r e w a s . B r o m le y h e o n e th a t
t h e s c io n o f in g f a m ily , M o u n t a in stu c k .
Photo courtesy Bromley Mountain Resort
F
red Pabst Jr. is a pale, mountainous, cantankerous fellow with a white mustache and a habit of massaging his bald head with his fingertips when he talks, which he does most of the time. He is, in all likelihood, the only man who ever built, owned and operated 17 different ski areas, with all of them going broke at the same time. He is certainly the only man who ever washed his hands of a family fortune in beer to do so.” That’s how Arthur Zich started his 1962 Sports Illustrated profile of Pabst, Jr. What Zich and many others went on to note was how much hard work (and fun) Pabst put into doing it and the legacy he has left behind. Growing up in Wisconsin as part of the Pabst Blue Ribbon brewing family (his grandfather had started the company), Fred Jr. started skiing at three and would skijor behind the sleigh when the family’s coachman drove into town for groceries. He built his first ski jump at 18, started the first intercollegiate ski team in the Midwest and later headed to Norway to learn to jump from the experts there. He eventually went to Harvard Business School and joined the family business. But not for long. A tinkerer and DIYer, Pabst began designing and building rope tows and J-bars. He built his first ski area in St. Sauveur, Quebec and founded Ski Tows Inc., the first true ski area “conglomerate.” It would install some of the first ski tows in towns and villages around New England, the Midwest and Quebec. At one point Pabst owned and operated 25 different ski areas with lifts. Bromley, in southern Vermont, was the ski area that stuck. In 1935 John Perry, David Parsons, and Rolando Palmedo (who helped found Stowe and Mad River Glen) had flown over the mountain and traced out potential runs. Pabst first set up a tow on Little Bromley but eventually bought and developed the area across the road – at the time a dirt cow path —but only by convincing the farmer who owned it to move to another parcel Pabst purchased for him. Pabst bought a farmhouse at the base of Bromley, a
spread named Chanticleer, moved in, and Bromley opened for business in 1938-39. A few years later, Pabst moved two of his J-bars and strung them end to end to make a mile-long tandem lift serving 1,300 vertical feet, one of the longest at the time. The farmhouse evolved into a base lodge and the Wild Boar Tavern (still there today). Before machines groomed the trails, Pabst cleared them of stumps and rocks, planted rye grass and mowed so skiers would enjoy smooth turns on as little as 4 inches of snow. One expert trail was named “Pabst Blue Ribbon” in recognition of his family heritage. Recognizing how inconsistent snowfall impacted his business, he invested three-quarters of a million dollars in 1966 to install a top-to-bottom snowmaking system, a first in Vermont, which left him wondering “whether this kind of expenditure can ever pay for itself.” By 1968, Bromley had more than 50 snowguns, 18 miles of snowmaking pipe, and 9 million gallons of stored water Pabst also implemented state-certified slopeside childcare as part of his goal for a family ski mountain. No detail was too small for Pabst, he’d wake up at 4:00 am to personally call in Bromley’s snow report to various media outlets. Pabst served as president of the ski area until 1971 and died of a heart attack six years later at age 78. n
P a b st m a y h a v e sta rte d t h e m u lt i- r e s o r t s k i r e s o r t t r e n d , b u t t o d a y B r o m le y M o u n t a in R e s o r t is o n e o f t h e f e w r e m a in in g in d e p e n d e n t ly - o w n e d s k i a r e a s in V e r m o n t . A f t e r c h a n g in g h a n d s s e v e r a l t im e s , it w a s p u r c h a s e d b y J o e O ’D o n n e ll, w h o s t ill o w n s it , t h o u g h t h e m o u n t a in is n o w r u n b y T h e F a ir b a n k G r o u p .
Fred Pabst was inducted into theVermont Ski & Snowboard Museum Hall of Fame posthumously in 2013.To watch the tribute film made to him, visit the museum in Stowe.
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