Spring Slalom

from Yankee Magazine March/April 2016

YANKEE classifieds

Harold Orne captured the thrill and the drama of skiing New Hampshire’s awesome Tuckerman Ravine.

n April 4, 1937, some 2,800 hardy spectators and a small number of ski adventurers, many of them members of the Dartmouth Outing Club, trekked the roughly 2.5 miles from Pinkham Notch, New Hampshire, to the base of the immense glacial bowl known as Tuckerman Ravine, seeming to fill the southeastern shoulder of 6,288-foot Mount Washington. Among the spectators was Harold Orne, a Massachusetts photographer who was making a bit of a name for himself in the nascent New England ski scene by lugging his Graflex Speed Graphic camera to mountains large and small, capturing the people who followed the snow years before ski lifts and ski resorts added comfort to the adventure.

On this day, ski history was being made, and Orne was there. A ski race named in honor of Franklin Edson, who had died a year earlier in a downhill race in Massachusetts, would for the first time feature carefully placed poles at strategic points to force skiers to control their speed: It was the first giant slalom race in America. “Tucks” had already been the scene of a daredevil race named “The Inferno,” and its steep, imposing walls tested even the most skilled skiers of the time. Today, on sun-splashed days from early April into June, hundreds of skiers and spectators still trek to Tucks, where 50 feet or more of snow greets them—challenging intrepid souls to climb as high as they dare, to find their line down, while everyone’s eyes look upward. —Mel Allen

The Pelatiah Leete House is one of the earliest surviving dwellings built in Guilford, CT in the early 18th century, by Pelatiah Leete, the grandson of Guilford founder, and Connecticut governor, William Leete. It is one of only a handful of properties in Guilford that is included on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1781, during the American Revolution, the Battle of Leetes Island was fought across the road from the house and its surviving 1705 barn, and Simeon Leete, who lived in the house at that time with his wife and three small children, was mortally wounded near the conclusion of the battle. He was brought back to the house, where he died, at age 28, the following day. His gravestone is around the corner from the house, on land owned by the Leete family since 1661, and an annual celebration of his life is held every June on the Sunday nearest June 19, the anniversary of his death date. The Sixth Connecticut Regiment of the Continental Line performs musket drills and live ﬁring at the event, which draws numerous neighbors and townspeople.

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