SNOW Magazine Winter 2019

RB

BRENDRATTI Venezia

MADE IN ITALY brendratti.com

Free from the inconvenience of work, and no longer slaves to their children’s school holiday schedules, today’s seniors are super-skiers, logging more downhill hours than most other age-groups, sending it on the slopes and rocking the ritziest resorts.

With more spare time and disposable dollars, many have chosen mountain reinventions for an active third act, buying ski hill homes and inspiring younger generations into winter sports. And they’re doing it in style. No retro rags for these trailblazers, today’s seniors are fearlessly fashionable.

by LOUISE HUDSON

Watching Helen Roberds ski blacks and bumps at Solitude on a downhill day off, togged out in a fox-trimmed Skea jacket, sexy silver pants and matching Helmet Hugger, you would be hardpressed to guess her age. Same if you spotted her working all winter in instructor garb. It’s only up close that you realize this 81-year-old glamorous gram with a goggle tan may well belong to the pre-Boomer generation.

Whinge about age at your peril, for Roberds will quickly drop the 80-bomb if she hears any complaining. “They’re aghast, mouths drop open, and they quickly stop talking about being too old,” she says. “I’ve enthused so many over the years, thousands probably.” Including children, who are particularly bemused. One four-year-old asked why Roberds looked “kinda old,” unable to 70

compute wrinkles with such a rigorous role.

Technological advances in ski boots and skis take some of the credit, facilitating skier longevity. Like Roberds, who has boots customized for her stance, older skiers are buying better gear and heated accessories, as well as taking advantage of new ski technologies that decrease effort and enhance piste performance.

Increasingly, resorts are developing masters’ and seniors’ programs, epitomized by Aspen’s Bumps for Boomers, dedicated to imparting techniques and tips that support a ski for life mindset.

With 99-year-old Klaus Obermeyer still at the helm of Aspen’s Sport Obermeyer, and aiming for one hundred years on skis, senior skiers are making age all the rage.

“Dammit! I’ve been geezered,” is a familiar lament among

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“Just because I’m almost 60 doesn’t mean I can’t wear stretch pants or lipstick. I’m certainly not defined by my age”

clockwise from top 1. Klaus Obermeyer.

2. Aspen ski pro Chuck Tower.

3 & previous page - Solitude ski pro Helen Roberds.

4. Lynne Harrison and Alchemy of Ride .

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generations,” says Harrison, who clocks up to fifty days skiing in the Banff Lake Louise area.

As a designer, Harrison believes looking good also promotes performance. “If you feel great, then you’ll love what you’re doing. Excitement and passion translate into fabulous turns on the hill,” she says, adding that age and glamour are not mutually exclusive, that it’s more about aging beautifully.

“Just because I’m almost sixty doesn’t mean I can’t wear stretch pants or lipstick.

I’m certainly not defined by my age,” says Harrison, whose dazzling ski suits, emblazoned with multi-color mountain scapes, provoke considerable comment. “I get lots of smiles. Alchemy of Ride makes people happy. The colors are bold and the designs pop.”

Driving property prices up in many areas, resort retirees are redefining the word ski as an acronym for Spending the Kids Inheritance - dominating cafés and après, volunteering as ski hosts, patronizing the arts and influencing the cultural development of ski towns. Though it may be the winter of their lives, they’re maximizing every mountain minute. Kept partly afloat by this dollared demographic, resorts are in turn responding with enhanced amenities, targeted season passes, and part-time job opportunities for seniors. Where younger seasonal workers are increasingly discouraged by spiraling winter season overheads, the affluent older gen can afford to buy or rent property, run cars, and fork out for inflated grocery

prices and restaurant tabs.

From Sugarbush to Aspen, 52-year-old Kristine Shadek has been skiing since she was six. Notching as many ski days per season as her age, she plans to follow her own father’s footsteps and keep going into her eighties. “My ski regime is amazing,” she says. “I love to begin my day with a steam and some simple yoga. Lots of water, protein and a power drink with apple cider vinegar for my immune system, energy boost and overall incredible wellness.”

Embracing every opportunity to optimize her health and refine her ski technique, Shadek saves her risk-taking for après. “I think Aspen has the ideal blend of people who love the outdoors, health and wellness, community and culture,” she says. “This

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many of Aspen’s finest when seasoned pro Chuck Tower beats their best efforts in the annual ski school race. At age 76, Tower is still outskiing half the juniors, and says his competitors fear two types of trouncing, “being geezered, or being chicked.” At the top of the teaching tree, he runs race course inspections and helps out over the hectic holidays, teaching everyone from level one to level ten. “I’m there whenever they need me, around fifteen to twenty days per winter,” says Tower, a hardy Vietnam vet who trains in the off-season by biking, hiking and golfing. “I have regular customers whom I ski with during peak periods, and with free skiing I get over a hundred days on snow a year.”

Having fallen in love with Aspen while in college in the 1960s, Tower returned with a hospitality management degree to run several on-mountain restaurants where his biggest beef was not getting as many runs as he hoped. “It was a pretty good gig as far as making money though,” says Tower, adding he was able to retire at age forty-six to concentrate on skiing. With at least a decade of downhill still ahead of him, Tower aims to take part in the 85-plus masters’ racing category.

Beyond destination resorts, heli lodges have also become havens for baby boomers, who more and more are populating CMH’s million-feet suits. Alchemy of Ride ski wear designer and expert skier Lynne Harrison – aged fifty-nine - recently branched out into heli-skiing with Mike Wiegele. “There were definitely lots of older skiers for heli and cat skiing, but also second and third