For 60 years, usually buried deep in my lifetime of accumulated stuff, I have kept a black-and-white framed photograph that captures a brief interlude in my College days. It embodies so much of my experience it has become a sort of time machine for me: Whenever it periodically breaks the surface of my life, should I happen to unpack the storage boxes hidden deep in the attic, I am instantly transported back to my 19-year-old self, ready for spring break. It is a picture of a group of Dartmouth skiers who have found their way into a Colorado realm of wondrous high mountains, powder snow and Coors beer—2,000 pre-interstate highway miles from Hanover.

As the break approached in 1954 I planned on repeating my freshman year spring break by skiing in Tuckerman’s Ravine on Mount Washington. But a couple of days before classes ended Bill Buchanan ’56 stopped by my dorm room in Gile Hall. I didn’t know him, but we had a lot of skiing friends in common. He told me he was driving his 1953 Ford station wagon out to Aspen for two weeks of spring skiing, and one rider had just dropped out. Did I want to fill out the carload of four? 

I was intrigued by the idea of skiing Aspen in the spring: It had hosted the 1950 FIS World Championships and was getting a well-deserved reputation for its fantastic snow and great terrain. After checking with my folks, I said yes. Buchanan figured we could make it to Denver in 40 hours, driving round the clock with each of us at the wheel for either two hours or 100 miles, whichever came first. We would stop only for gas or food, and we’d make it to Aspen in a couple of days. 

The driving routine was simple: The front-seat passenger was the navigator, responsible for tuning the radio, giving directions and keeping the driver awake. At driver-change intervals the car occupants would rotate counterclockwise, the driver moving into the back to sleep for two hours, navigator becoming driver and the right-side backseat sleeper being awakened to move to the front passenger seat. We loaded up on 15-cent hamburgers, bread, Coke and cold cuts at strategic stops along the way or whenever we stopped for gas, which usually cost less per gallon than a hamburger. Buchanan had driven most of our route on his way to and from Dartmouth from his home in Appleton, Wisconsin. 

We loaded four pairs of skis onto a rack on top of the green station wagon, layered a mattress in the back of the wagon over our suitcases and ski gear, threw in a supply of hamburgers and soft drinks and took off from Hanover. Somewhere in upper New York State, beyond Syracuse, we ran into a major blizzard and had to stop to put on snow chains, which cut our planned 50 m.p.h. average speed down a lot—the chains would loosen up, clang against the wheel wells and threaten to wrap around our axles. 

After swinging up into Canada at Niagara Falls, we picked up Route 2 through Ontario into Detroit. South of Cleveland we got on old U.S. 36, straight-lining it across Illinois, Missouri and Kansas and finally making Denver in just more than 40 hours, as Buchanan had forecast. After taking a short break for a much-needed shower, a home-cooked meal and a nap at the home of Chuck ’58 and Buster ’55 Lewis in Denver, we headed out on Route 40, up and over the 11,990-foot-high Loveland Pass toward Glenwood Springs and Aspen. 

Back then Aspen was not the “1-percenter” and “glitterati” mecca it has become. Most of the town consisted of empty lots and vacant buildings, remnants of the town’s glory days in the silver mining boom of the 1800s. The ski area consisted of Aspen Mountain and some open areas on adjacent Bell Mountain that were great for off-piste powder skiing and threading through the evergreen trees. There were only three chairlifts on the mountain and no grooming or snow-making facilities. A weekly lift ticket cost $25 and a glass of Coors beer was a dime. We soon found a motel just outside of town that would house the four of us for a week in a two-room bungalow—including a small kitchen—for $100.

Because of Aspen’s reputation, about 30 Dartmouth skiers made the endurance drive there across the country, and most of us usually spent our evenings at the Red Onion bar and grill. It was a Dartmouth home base and favorite hangout, where we arranged to have a group picture taken.

Reflected behind us in the big front window captured on film is the old single chairlift heading up Aspen Mountain toward Ruthie’s Run, Spar Gulch and all the other runs that made skiing there so memorable. Spring days were usually sunny with bright blue skies, fresh powder at the top, corn snow mid-mountain and slush at the base. Good for carving turns, but it could be a disaster when you fell.

The great old Onion featured a long, mirrored wooden bar in the front room. Behind a wall laden with photos of Aspen ski racing moments and mining old-timers was a great (and cheap) dining room. Most evenings someone would sit down and play the piano or bring in a guitar. We would meet there for lots of après-ski unpasteurized beer and swap tales of the day’s adventures: Who had found a new route down Bell or a great line down Silver Queen or Ruthie’s Run? Sometimes we’d talk about girls from Colorado University or Colorado Women’s College we had arranged to meet up with at the Onion that night.

Those of us who ventured into the Rockies that spring in search of corn snow and sunny trails felt we had paid our dues on icy cold and twisting trails back home at Suicide Six or Sunapee. We thoroughly enjoyed being able to luxuriate in Aspen’s glorious spring skiing—and the social life we found there.

The magic of the Rockies I discovered that spring in Aspen drew me back many times in the coming years at Dartmouth and afterward, for skiing as well as work and play. People and places in Colorado have been a periodic, reoccurring “hot spot” in my life, and I return to the fierce beauty of the mountains whenever I can. Even though my skiing days ended in a crash at Vail in 1991, my memories of Aspen spring skiing still evince thoughts of good friends and good times whenever I pick up that old photo.  

Sam Hull lives with his wife, Joan, in Arundel, Maine.