#7: Brian Lindner: Stowe Historian and 51 years on Stowe Ski Patrol

Brian Lindner has a long history in and around Stowe. His family has deep roots into the early days of skiing on Mt Mansfield and served in the 10th Mountain Division. In fact, Brian grew up living in the Mt. Mansfield Base Lodge. He is currently a leading Historian for lots of unique Vermont history- including the 10th Mountain Division, Stowe Skiing and plane crashes across Vermont. Once the snow flies Brian will be kicking off his 52nd year as a member of the Stowe Ski Patrol. Join us for a nostalgic journey into the legendary history of Stowe Mountain Resort. 

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Welcome listeners to the Octagon Podcast. We've got a great guest today, Brian Linder, a local historian. He's got a long history in and around Stowe. his family has deep roots into the early days of skiing on Mount Mansfield and also 10th Mountain Division. In fact, Brian grew up living in the Mount Mansfield Base Lodge. He is currently a leading historian for lots of interesting, unique Vermont history, including the 10th Mountain Division, skiing at Stowe, and plane crashes all across Vermont. Welcome, Brian. Thanks. Great to be here. Yeah. So let's kick things off. How did you end up living in the Mansfield Base Lodge? the best way to tell that story is growing up when I was riding the lift, someone say, would say to me, so where do you live? Where did you grow up? I grew up in the base lodge. Oh, you mean your parents vacationed here a lot? No, I grew up in the base lodge. Oh, so your parents had a second home in Stoughton. No, I grew up in the base lodge. they didn't understand that's truly where I grew up. That where the ski patrol room is today was my bedroom as a child. And it's because my dad was the forest ranger for the Mount Mansfield State Forest. And that's where the ranger lived was in the base lodge. So when you say in the base Lodge, you said the ski patrol room or yeah, just to give us a visual of where exactly in the base Lodge. if you look at the Mansfield base Lodge, the Northern end from the parking lot is the ticket booth behind the other side of the building ticket booth is the patrol room where we bring patients down off the mountain. And that was actually built for myself and my brother as our bedroom. Wow. So how many years were you? I was there until I was 10, my parents brought me home from the hospital and then when I was age 10, we moved out. Oh, wow. That's so cool. So Brian, obviously this is a pretty broad question and we'll really drill down throughout the episode, but how did skiing all develop at Mount Mansfield and what is now known as Stonemount Resort? there was a degree of skiing because the loggers were moving back and forth through the forest on skis, but not Alpine skiing the way we think of it today. That really begins with a New York financier by the name of Roland Palmito. And he was looking for a place to develop as a ski resort because he had skied all over Europe. And, he was flying himself around Vermont just looking for places and he spotted Mount Mansfield from the air and said, boy, that looks promising. So as I understand it, he wrote a letter to the postmaster in Stowe and said, Hey, who do I contact here in Stowe to get things moving? And as I understand it, the Stowe Historical Society actually has. letter to this day. Oh, wo era? What year? I don't k but I would say 1932 33. come here and start to develop the very first trails. Palmetto did come to Stowe and he met with the locals, Bill Mason, who was making skis in Waterbury and Charlie Lord, a local civil engineer, and, probably met with some of the CCC boys, Al Gottlieb and his group, I would think. He was just the inspiration to say, yeah, let's get going with this thing. and they used his expertise. what did you see in Europe? What did things look like there? and that's really how the whole thing starts. Yeah. And so just, you did mention loggers using skis. That's super cool. Were they doing logging in that area in and around Mansfield at that time? Absolutely. Mount Mansfield was a key logging area. a guy named Horace Bruce from Waterbury was. Logging Mount Mansfield heavily, and jumping ahead in the story later, we'll, we have the CCC cutting the Bruce trail that's named after Horace Bruce. And if you think about it in today's world, could you name a ski trail off a logger politically? You couldn't do it. Yeah. But back then he was a hero. He was employing half the people in the town of Stowe. Wow. And was, so was the Bruce trail, the first trail? Yeah. Yeah. Cut on Mount Mansfield. Yes, if we can back up on that story a little bit. The answer is yes. But how did we get to it? And we got to it because of a guy named Perry Merrill, who was the state forester and head of the forestry department. And he had done a master's program in Scandinavia and saw what they were doing there with cutting trails. they were alpine trails, but you'd hike up and ski down. And when he came back home, he said, boy, that's something we should start doing here. And that is coupled with the coming of the depression, Franklin Roosevelt, and the creation of the Civilian Conservation Corps, the CCC. So a state forester. Perry Merrill really jumped on this bandwagon super early, faster than any other state, and started designing programs that the CCC could do in Vermont. And according to an author named Marty Podscotch, who's got a book in the CCC coming out next year, Perry Merrill got the most money per capita of any state for Vermont. Wow. Wow. Now, these are shovel ready projects, and the first, really one of the first ones, was to have Charlie Lord from Stowe, who was a laid off engineer from the highway department, to take some CCC boys up and start cutting a ski trail on Mount Mansfield, and they started November 1 of 33. If you can imagine this, they cut that trail all winter long, and they finished it February of 1934. And they named the trail the Bruce. So that is the first purpose cut ski trail in the state of Vermont. And it's the same thing we ski today from, back of the quad straight down to the Matterhorn. The CCC boys would recognize it from top to bottom. And there's a very famous photograph that's been published a million times that shows that it was the 191st CCC company that cut it. It shows them standing there with Charlie Lord in the middle with a fedora hat and a black sweater. And off to the side is a guy eating a sandwich. Okay, normally you wouldn't think much about that. But that's Paul Barquin from White River Junction. And the day they finished cutting the trail, he had carried his ski boots, his skis, and his poles up. And when Charlie said the trail is done, Paul Barkman put his gear on and he skied down becoming now the first person to ski a purpose cut ski trail in Vermont. Wow. Had he ever skied, I wonder if he'd ever skied before. He must have. Yeah. He's going on the Brutes trail, it's your first trail. Yes. And then there's the CCC trail. that's on the backside. Exactly. So what's the connection there? it's a different CCC company on the backside of Mount Mansfield. It's obviously all part of the same operation, but that is a whole separate company over there. And a fellow this year has been researching that to death, the ski jumps, the rope toes, the telephone systems they have for ski patrol on the under hill side. It's pretty astounding. That is a whole, that's a whole story over there. Yeah. and also just thinking of, logistics back in that time, no chainsaws that were they hiking up, skinning up just two man saws. what did that all look like? That is rugged. the CCC, you gotta realize there's a make work project. It's to keep people employed during the depression, but yo, it was all hand labor. They weren't blowing stumps out of the ground with dynamite, even. They were hacking them out with saws and shovels and pickaxes and incredible manual labor, but they did it right. So now take us, so they built the Bruce trail. Do people start coming skiing it and they realize they need more trails or how does that grow from there? People had already been hiking up and coming down the toll road because it already existed. that goes back to the 18 fifties, but now you've got a purpose cut ski trail that takes much more talent. so yeah, people started to realize, wow, this sport is really something else. So they said, okay, where can we cut more trails? So then you start looking at, the nosedive, it really becomes the next trail. and that's not finished until 35 and 36. But again, that's Charlie Lord laying it out. And if you can imagine him back in those days, looking at Mount Mansfield and saying, this is where we should have a turn in the trail. That's where we should have a turn in the trail. And we're still using it because it was laid out so perfectly. Yeah. And the original nosedive went up. Higher because you know you can see where the old seven turns were up above. Yeah that was added in the 60s actually that was because I think I'm trying to remember the year 66 I think it was when we had the international races to meet FIS regulations. We had to have a longer trail Okay, that's when they cut that piece. That's still up. You can still see up there. Got it you got Bruce trail, you talk about nosedive, when did, CV star, the star trail, when did he come on the scene just as the mountain starting to grow. and you also mentioned Perry Merrill, just curious how all those trails we know started to, come onto the scene. The trail started blossoming, and we've skipped over one step there and that's the coming of Sep Rushb to Stowe. Okay. that's. In a way, that's the birth of true alpine skiing at Stowe. So the Mount Mansfield Ski Club had formed, incorporated January 9th, 1934. And in the wording on, that, Articles of Incorporation was the creation of the Ski Patrol. So that's the birth of your Ski Patrol here at Stowe. It doesn't really say anything about a ski school, but the Ski Club, MMSC. He wanted to really start promoting Alpine skiing. So the club started looking for who can we recruit to bring to Stowe to promote this sport in our town and make this thing boom. And they got Sep Rush from Austria and he arrived in Stowe December 10th, 1936. So now you've got a ski school here. and I say that a little carefully because the lodge. Which is just uphill from the toll house. It's now the lodge condominiums. That was a fairly expensive lodge. And they had their own ski school. they had a couple of individual instructors. but they were individuals. separize and he starts creating a ski school. And this is still before lifts? This is before any lift. Before any lift. Oh, wow. So you're still skinning up. Is it skin or is it cross country? they're not really skinning there. I'm just hiking up. Hiking up. Yeah. Yeah. Skis on the shoulder. Skis on the shoulder. Yep. The old Alpine backpack, goat skin with wine in it. so they did put in a lift at the toll house. They put in a rope toe. it as a used rope toe. They brought over from Jeffersonville, but there was no snow in Vermont or no snow at Stowe. until February, I think it's February 10th, 1937. Really? None. So SEP is here. Nothing significant. He's here. He's creating a ski school. He's got no lift. He's got no snow. So it's a pretty horrible beginning. So Sip starts teaching at Waterbury because they had a couple of rope tows down there. And he bridges the gap until we get snow and the rope tow opens. So now we've got a rope tow, we've got a ski school, and we've got a ski patrol. and it's all really starting to blossom. Now there's more than this. This is mainly at the toll house area. This is really happening at the toll house. That's the hub, the first hub. That's the hub. Got it. It's the second hub. The first time is ranch camp out in the Valley behind the Matterhorn. Yeah. that's an old logging camp. That's where you're really hardy people are there. They're hiking into their Friday night and Saturday morning. They're hiking up to Bruce to come down. And so there's a lodge in where Ranch Camp is. There was a lodge, yes, and you could get a great meal of baked beans there, and bacon fat, and they had a famous stove that I actually raised up and down in the center of the room to stay warm, a wood stove. Wow. That's the first place to stay in Stowe. Is it, I'm just curious, is this people coming from Boston, New York, taking the train? I know that, the train used to come and then somehow getting from there to Ranch Camp. Exactly. By 1936, you've got, Ski trains coming up from Hartford, coming from New York and they're bringing in literally hundreds of people into Waterbury and then busing them to stow, taking some up to, the ranch camp, others to local farmers are now starting to rent rooms out. It's the beginning of skiing. Yeah. A true commercial alpine skiing in style. Yeah, you've painted the picture of, that initial hub. What was really the next step? Was it the single chair? Or, what was the next step up from that, initial hub at Ranch Camp and Tollhouse area. they continued to grow the, the Tollhouse area. So it starts to look like an actual ski resort. and then the next truly major event at Stowe, as you've alluded to is the coming of the single chair in 1940. They started construction in June, finished it in November. It was a disastrous first day when the media was there, but they got everything fixed. So by opening day, everything was working great. But that single chair was the longest chairlift in the world. And it was an incredible feat of engineering. It was built by ship fitters. So those spidery looking towers you used to see, all that lattice work wasn't bolted together with nuts and bolts. That was all done with hot rivets, just like the Titanic was built. Wow. and they put that single chair up and that thing lasted until 1986, just marvel of engineering. And where was that located on the mountain? The single chair? Pretty much where the quad is. The 4Runner quad is today. and now this is on state forest property. this is leased to the Mount Mansfield company, Mount Mansfield lift company. And at that point, everybody realized. We're going to be putting hundreds, thousands of people up the mountain every day. We need ski patrol here every minute the lift is open and the company, the resort said, we can't afford it. We have no money. We just built this lift. And if you can imagine this, Perry Merrill said, you're on state land. How about if you hire a full time patroller, I'll put him on the state payroll. And so long as Charlie Lord here is his supervisor, because I trust Charlie. so our first patrol full-time, our, actually our first paid patrolman is Stowe as a full-time patroller. It's Fritz Kramer, an immigrant from Austria, and he lived in the Stone Hut for the winter 40 41. Amazing. Paid for by the Department of Forest and Parks. Wow. I can only imagine in those days, the equipment is much less, people are just learning how to ski. I can imagine Ski patrol in those days were probably. working very hard to keep people safe and get people down off that mountain? that's a great question because Charlie Lord was asked that I think in 1976 and what's the patrol do in the early years? And he said in the early years, our job was to keep people from killing them, meaning they would, have patrollers at the bottom of the mountain and people would walk up and say, where should I go? how good a skier are you? Look at their equipment and guide them to where they should be going. So with the single chair, we've got nosedive. are people doing the Bruce trail and somehow getting back to there? And then what's, what are some of the next kind of trail? you've got the ski Meister, that came along and then they built the Perry Merrill. which that, the original Perry Merrill follows the same footprint it does today, but it's unrecognizable because back then it was a goat path in the woods. it wasn't that big wide open trail that you see today. you had to dodge the trees and jump over the brooks and, Yeah, it was real New England skiing. But it started at the top of the single chair, then you cut across, nosedive, and that way. And then they built the octagon that year, 40 41, so now you've got, that's the ski patrol shack at the top, SEP is teaching lessons out of the octagon, but then that becomes the hub of the activity on top of the mountain. So what was the next lift after the single chair? you've got the rope toe that nobody today remembers. It was on North slope. Okay. Oh, wow. When you're at the base of the mountain and you look up North slope, it was on the extreme right hand side. Very cool. That then became the home of the Separush ski school. They basically moved from the toll house to North slope. There's no evidence of that lift today, but that was the next big step. And then came the T bar. Which is where the six pack, basically where the six pack is today. T line. T line was where the, yes, where the T bar used to go up. I assume so, but I hear it's a confirmation. Yep, yep. that was a great leap forward. Cause now you've got a rope tow at the Toll House. You got a rope tow at Mount Mansfield. You got a T bar at Mount Mansfield. And my God, you've got this world's longest chairlift on a single chair. And are hotels starting to blossom in Stowe? what sort of this town of Stowe embracing this? how does that develop? The motel situation and the restaurant situation gradually improved in those early years. Yeah, you came to Stowe hoping you could find some farmer or somebody that would take you in, let you sleep in the corner at night. Nothing like you have today. Yeah. That is so cool. So we touched on it briefly, but as far as the ski patrol at Stowe, it is my understanding it is the oldest ski patrol in the country. It is unquestionably the oldest and we have legal documentation that we rest our argument on. Yes. That's cool. and what was your father's role in, in the ski patrol? So my dad was in the 10th Mountain Division in World War II, and now he grew up on the Underhill side of the mountain. And when he came home from the war, he came to Stowe. Here you got a guy who's basically a medic in the 10th Mountain Division, expert skier. Stowe now needs a bigger patrol, so he became patrol director on the Stowe side. What year was that? That was, he actually started in 43. Okay. He's the patrol director, from then until 1946. And the patrol just, it gets larger. They get uniforms now, and now they got some World War II toboggans. They start to modify with those long handles out front and braking systems. And it's a huge leap forward. Wow. Yep. And so you're, now you're living in the base lodge. What was that like? are people coming in and out of there? Is it, it's not a, is it a base lodge? are people getting there, putting their ski stuff on and truly doing all of that while you're living in that side? Absolutely. It was the base lodge at Stowe. Yeah. it constructed in 1940, 41. My parents had zero privacy. when you're in the parking lot today and you look at the parking lot side, you see the nine windows. That was the living room. The next over, there's a bank of three windows. That was my parents bedroom. the extension to the right with the ticket booth that was built for my brother and I later. But yeah, growing up, we'd be having, lunch and the door would just pop open and people would walk in thinking they were in the base lodge. And that went on throughout the entire time we lived there. Wow. Wow. So looking at your life, you talked about your father in the 10th Mountain Division, ski patrol director. And I know you said a certain age you moved out of The base lodge. What was the next step in your life and your family's life? Once your father moved on from that position? he was promoted in the department of forest and parks to the bigger park in Waterbury. And later he became supervisor of all the state parks in Northern Vermont. So that was his career. We moved to Waterbury with that promotion. Then I started going to Harwood Union and my own skiing then started going towards the valley, Mad River, Glen Ellyn, Sugarbush. Cause that's where hardwood kids skied and that's where our ski teams, practiced over there. I was one of the original members of the VJRC, the Valley Junior Race Club, which eventually morphed, it was Al Hobart's idea, eventually morphed into the Green Mountain Valley School. Wow. Yep. during high school, that's where I skied, was over there. Yep. And so now back on the Stowe side, I think you brought up C. V. Starr before, so tell us how he gets involved. Yep, C. V. Starr is another, he's an insurance executive, New York. And he came here, I think, I could be wrong on this, but I think it was 1948 or 49 for the first time. Stayed at the Lodge, which is now the Lodge Condominiums. Took a private lesson from Sep Rush. And the two of them just instantly bonded. So now you've got CV Star wanting to desperately learn how to ski well. He's got the world's best ski instructor. Seth Parush was here trying to grow this ski resort. And he's got a guy with perch strings that are unbelievable. And they just bonded. And from there, we sounds like a good combination, a fantastic combination. Absolutely. this is the sort of thing that business arrangements you dream about. Yeah. their personality, there was no personality clash that I'm ever aware of, and it's a tremendous partnership. So the two of them now start combining things. Cause you had the Mount Mansfield hotel company, which. Ran the hotel on the summit and about Mansfield lift company that ran the lifts. You had five different entities and sep and cd start bringing them together And 49 and create the mount mansfield company. Okay. Now it's all consolidated. You got yourself a true ski resort And now you're into the you're going into the 50s when alpine skiing is starting to boom Coming into the golden age coming into the golden age. Absolutely. So so I do need to ask you did mention the hotel Yeah. At the top of the mountain. Can you maybe just give us a feel for that and, when it was built and just what that was like, that would seem very cool. Sure. The, I can't remember the exact year, but I think it was 1854, they built the first place to stay up there. And it was right across from where the chapel in the toll house is today. In fact, the spring for that first boarding place is still there. If you know where to look in the woods, that's the first place you can actually rent a bed on the mountain. It's stout. they kept pushing the toll road higher and higher up the mountain. It started as a horse trail, eventually got to be a carriage trail, eventually got to be antique cars. And they built another place where the octagon is today lasted a year. They tore it down and then they moved up underneath the nose, way up where the tower used to be up there. The radio towers. And during this time skiing is not a thing, really? Nope. Okay. Nope. Got loggers maybe moving around. This is like a mountain getaway This is where, when they built that hotel up there. That's where, if you're from New York or Boston or Hartford and you want, you're very wealthy and you want the cleanest, freshest air in the world. That's where you go. Yeah. No air conditioning. And you come to Mount Mansfield, it's air conditioning, it's natural air conditioning. Bingo. And I would assume it's ballroom dancing and that's what I imagine, right? It's a fancy place to stay. In its day, yes. It was very expensive, very fancy. and to get there was a journey. You take the train to Waterbury. You take the electric train that went from Waterbury to downtown Stowe, right? And then you take a carriage from downtown Stowe to the summit of the mountain, right? So depot street in Stowe, where the malt shop used to be, that was the old train station. Yeah. Yeah. Wow. That is amazing. So you mentioned when it was built and then how long was it in operation at? Burned down at some point the hotel. I can remember as a child playing on the porch and you were afraid of falling through it But it had gone into disrepair. I mean it was very hard that Electricity is from an old generator. There's no real running water. There's no real heat. it's an antique by the 1950s and At some point the mountain company decided they need to just get rid of it And it's a pretty cool story. They put it out for bid to have it torn down and moved. And a ski instructor, Clem Curtis, came in with a bid way underneath everybody else. And as I understand the story, Sepp said, can you do it for that price? Of course I can do it for that price. I wouldn't have bid if I couldn't have done it for that price. And then on a really cloudy, rainy, foggy day. The place suddenly burned to the ground and all you had to do is clean up what's left over. And I think that was, I want to say it was 1958, but I could be wrong on that. just to go back to the CB star, he's now investing, he sees, all right, there's a big business here, he has it as his own playground as well. And that is leads us to modern days, though, in some ways, it actually leads directly to it, because SEP coming from Austria is used to these really wide open, broad ski slopes, lots and lots of sunshine. Mount Mansfield does not have a lot of sunshine. It's on the wrong side of the mountain for the setting sun. So SEP is looking across what's now Route 108 at Spruce Peak saying, there is sun over there. And I believe it was 1949, the Burt Lumber Company put that whole track, the whole Spruce Peak side up for sale. And with, backing from CV Star, the Mount Mansfield company bought it and that's the future of the ski resort right there. When was that? What year? I believe it was 1949. 1949. They buy that and then what did the next, handful of years, decade look like over there as far as development? Larry Hess designed the Spruce House Base Lodge, the only major base lodge at any ski resort in the United States with not a single door on the ski, on the trail side. All doors were on the parking lot side. a little problem there. So then we had a big baseline. So they had a nice T bar, the Alpine T bar. 1954, they put in the Big Spruce double chairlift. Another feat, another marvel of engineering. They built that thing to open it up. And I remember as a kid, they completely clear cut Big Spruce. There were just no trees anywhere. And they learned almost instantly the next winter, it wouldn't hold any snow at all. So they built these enormous snow fences all up and down Main Street, and if you know where to look, you can still see pieces of those fences even today. And that's why they've been letting it grow back since 1954. and so now snow's become a destination, right? And now you've got hotels, you've got a true resort, the 70s, the 80s, leading us all the way, really, through till today. today where you look at Spruce Peak today, would you ever have imagined what today is, connected to those early days? Growing up, I would have never predicted what we have there today, ever. Yeah. Now there used to be a campground there, where Spruce Base is today. That was a CCC built campground that my dad ran in the summer times. And we'd never envisioned that'd be anything except a campground. And today it's an incredible development, right? It really is. Yeah. you mentioned, you and your family, you were in the valley, at some point you came back to stow and became integrated. Tell us a little bit about that timeline and just your role with the ski patrol and all that. Yep. as soon as I graduated from Harvard, I started at UVM. trying to earn my own way through. So I went to see Kerr Sparks, who was director of the ski school at Stowe. And it was pretty interesting conversation because Kerr looked at me and he's, I've known you since you were a little boy, by the way, Kerr's another 10th mountain veteran. And he said, I would give you a position in the ski school. He said, but I don't think you should tie your future to either this resort. Or to this sport because statistically they are both in the decline. Now this would be 1973 and they were statistically skier visits were going down, but he said, I'll give you a job. So I took a lowest possible level instructor stationed myself at the toll house. I would have been stationed there anyway, teaching a one classes and making all kinds of money. Okay. And just loved it. we taught at 10, 12 and two privates in between. I was making a killing as a freshman in college teaching skiing to dollhouse and end up paying UVM from ski instructing. And so it was wonderful. and I instructed until 1988 and I switched over to patrolling and I've been there ever since. Still there. Still there. 51st year of this season. Wow. Amazing. Nice job. And I'm second in line. Dave flag. I think it has 58 years in the patrol. what was the ski community like in the 70s and 80s? we see pictures and movies, Warren Miller movies, and it looks like an amazing time, right? To be a skier. The 70s and 80s were, the 70s especially were very interesting because to be cool, you had to super tight race pants with a stripe down the side and you had to have the newest laying plastic boots and you never skied with a helmet. That was for sissies. And you had to have the right Moriarty hat. Yeah. yeah, the 70s was pretty interesting and it was all about going, for me anyways, as our race teams was just going as fast as you possibly can. And then when I switched to the ski school, it was, oh no, how slow and how elegant can you ski? What made you switch over to patrol? you mentioned ski instructing, having a great time doing that. How did that switch come to be? It reached a point in the ski school where I felt like I was standing around more than I wanted to stand around. And I had been an EMT for a few years with Waterbury Ambulance. And I said, boy, I should just switch over and do patrol. Cause I know the patrollers are skiing all the time. And, Switched over and have loved every day of it ever since apparently 51 years. Yeah. Yeah I don't think you'd be doing it that long if you didn't like it. Oh, nope the day I don't like it I'm out of there It's so much fun. Awesome. So rewarding What are your favorite trails on the mountain? What are some of your favorites? My favorite is Centerline. It's a good one. I like it because there's so few people on it. It's almost always bumped up. There's no two runs on that trail that are ever the same. Yeah. And I can just go there and ski by myself. I love it. That's so cool. I usually only ski Centerline in November, December, and April because then a lot of the rest of the time I feel like it's sketchy and hard and it is, it's gnarly, it's never the same line, you're right, it's one of those trails that keeps coming and coming. And I can tell you that rock band has been there since the trail was cut. Yeah, that's an awesome trail. I like Hayride. Hayride's beautiful. I think that might be my favorite. That or Chinclip, I'd say. Yeah. I'm Star. And I love Star. Something about the fall line and the way Star skis. On a good day, it's just, there's nothing any more fun. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, that's super cool. So you've given us so much, just amazing history about, Stowe Mountain Resort, the mountain up there. I know something you are very into is, local airplane crashes and, maybe just give our viewers a feel for that. I was actually talking to you about one crash that I stumbled upon in Lowell, but I know that's one of your hobbies that you're passionate about. Maybe just tell us about some of that. It's a really long story. So trying to cut it down to. Less than 15 hours. as a 12 year old, a friend of mine took me up Camel's hump for the first time. And we saw the wreckage of the World War Two bomber up there. And there was something about that wreckage that just caught my 12 year old attention. Nobody could tell me what happened. And I just started researching it hooked ever since. It's been part of my life ever since I got to know all the families, the survivor. And I would go around giving talks about the history of that crash. People would mention other ones in the audience, and they'd say, did you know about this one? Did you know about that one? And I started accumulating lists. I have one list of just all military crashes in Vermont. I have one that's airplane crashes inside Vermont ski areas. There's a lot of them. I just did a talk at the ski museum. They're going to put it out on their website on all the plane crashes inside Vermont ski areas. and cutting to the chase scene, just last week. A family has been wanting since 1986 to go to a crash site where they lost a relative, but they didn't know where it was, how to get to it. And I was able to mark a trail and they went in and they had a serum and they said they spent three hours there finally getting closure. From 1986 so it pays dividends in the end. Yeah, totally. Are there certain mountains that have more crashes than others? I don't, does Mansfield have old plane crashes on? I know Camel's Hump, but Camel's Hump has four. Mount Mansfield has one. October 6, 1966. It was a big twin engine. They had come down from, Mary Pert was a radio personality in Montreal. She had flown down with some guys just to take a flight around and they accidentally flew right into Mount Mansfield. that wreckage is all gone, but that's the only one on Mansfield. Over in the valley at Med River Sugarbush, there's three plane wrecks still in the woods all along that ridgeline there. do you have some crashes that you're still gathering information on that you're, waiting to head out in the wilderness and check out? How does the whole, investigation process, what's that like? There's one down on Mount Tabor, where all of the family is wiped out except for a little boy. I know the wreckage is in the woods. I have all the official reports and the plane wreck is not where they place it. And we've been in with some friends of mine and I've been in. We can't find it. We know it's there, but someday I'm going to find that crash site. How many times have you been there? Probably five or six at this point. And you'll keep trying. I'll keep trying. Yeah, that's awesome. How do you do the research? these are plane crashes from a long time ago. how do you become an investigator to do this research? You develop an expertise as you go along. Like, where are the files? there aren't any files because the state of Vermont threw them all away. and I'm not exaggerating, what they hadn't didn't throw away they've lost. So there's almost no plane crash investigative files in the state of Vermont. Wow. Yeah. the NTSB actually threw almost all of theirs away in 1996 too, so you go back to newspapers and local sources. Got it. Got it. Interesting. So you mentioned the one on Mount Tabor. Are there any other just pending ones that you're, wanting to check out? Yeah. There's another one down in Woodford. The family, everybody survived that one, but, one of the survivors, he's 73 or 74 now, and he said he just wants to go to that site. he still can do it and I cannot find it. I'm not even sure that plane is still there that might've been taken out. Yeah. So some of them get taken out and some, it's just all over the map. Until 1996, a lot of them just got left right there. If you go up to JP, for example, and you're, it's a bit off trail, but you ski right over the top of a big World War II, Royal Canadian Air Force twin engine, that wreck is still in the woods. It's it's like a treasure hunt. It is a treasure hunt. Now, I was reading some articles about it and I, I look for moose antlers in the spring just very similar and I'll go to some areas five, six times, not see anything. And then when you do find it, it's a very cool feeling. It's can be hard to explain. It's an awesome feeling. I've had. Probably five or six instances where I found the wreckage, had no cell coverage, had to hike back out at nighttime, call the family and say, found it. Wow. and that holding that in for several hours, it's pretty tough cause you want to call them right off and say, I found it. I found it. Yeah. I was reading one, one article or, what you had first heard about it began, I'll just call it your investigation 30 years later. After. many hikes up. You finally found it. That's cool. Persistence. Yep. That was one I actually, that was actually a guy that was on the Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol, Herbie Sachs, a friend of my dad's. And he crashed in 1969 down, he took off out of the Sugarbush Airport and vanished. And I had on that one, I had state police reports, I had aeronautics reports, I had everything. Not one of them had it on the right mountaintop, newspapers, nobody had it on the right mountaintop and it took me 32 years to finally find the wreck and that's still there in the woods. Almost sounds like Bermuda Triangle where like you've got these planes and no one can find it, right? There's no records. Almost there's mystery, right? It can be. Yeah. Definitely can be. That's what keeps you coming back though. I'm sure, just challenge cracking the code. I'm sure that is part of the draw of the process. Absolutely. another thing we wanted to cover is 10th Mountain Division history. I know you've got descendants, family members that served in 10th Mountain Division. we've all seen the statue that, exists both in Vail and in Stowe are the two that I know of, maybe there's others. what's the history of the 10th Mountain Division and what's the connection with Stowe? as a historian, I think I'm the only one thus far that I say the 10th Mountain Division begins. It's earliest seeds with the Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol on Mount Mansfield at Stowe, Vermont. and it takes a bit of an explanation to get to it, but, it, the Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol and now comes C. Minot Dole, Mini Dole, an insurance executive from Connecticut who comes up to help with the Stowe Ski Patrol. The Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol gets deeply embedded with them. And now along comes, World War II. Finland is invaded by Russia. And Minnie Dole, Mount Mansfield ski patroller, and also starting to work on ski safety and the concept of National Ski Patrol, sees what's happening and he sees the fins Whipping the Russians, they come out of the woods on skis, they defeat the Russians, they disappear back into the woods, and they're gone on skis. And Minnie Dole starts lobbying, America needs ski troops. Now he's got the National Ski Patrol system that he's created, and he starts lobbying Washington. And eventually, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, George Marshall, said, you In essence, yeah, we like the idea, why don't you create a division for us? And the 10th Mountain becomes the only division in World War II recruited, by civilians. So who does Minigold recruit? National ski patrollers. People that are ski, instructors, game wardens. He's going on all these people live and make their will. They're living out in the wilderness in the wild in the cold. And he creates the 10th mountain division. the, they started with the 87th regiment and then the 85th and 86. They eventually built Camp Hale, Colorado, which is an entire complex. It doesn't exist anymore for training the 10th mountain division. And it's America's only troops trained to fight in mountains and cold weather and snow. And that all started in snow. It starts with Mini Dole as Mount Mansfield ski patrol. Wow. If he hadn't been a ski patroller at Mount Mansfield, would he have ever paid any attention to the Russians and dating Finland? No. what a piece of history. Yep. Yep. And then the statue that you refer to here in Stowe, Chuck and Jan Perkins. Yeah. funded that. That is the second and the only one because the mold can't be used again. Okay. So these two statues are very, the Veil and the S Stove, those are the only two ones cast from the same mold? Yes. Yeah. Which of your family members were in the 10th Mountain Division? My dad and all my uncles were all in the 10th. And at Stowe, by the way, we had 16 men that have worked at Stowe that were 10th Mountain veterans. One of them was Fritz Kramer. Who came over from Austria. He was that first paid patrolman I talked about. he was at Stow before the 10th was formed. He's the only one of the 16 that left Stow to get into the 10th. Cause he was already here. And, I don't even know the history of the 10th Mountain Division actually in World War II. what was their involvement? were they in battles? Yes, the, 87th Regiment, was sent up to Alaska because the Japanese occupied, the Aleutian, parts of the Aleutian Islands. They occupied American soil and the 87th was sent up as the ski troops to push them off. And it turned out to be a horrible lesson, of rookie soldiers and lots of friendly fire killing each other. They learned a lot of hard lessons there. They came back to Camp Hale. In the Army, the general staff is looking at it saying, we have no use for ski troops. Why do we need ski troops? So they sent them to Texas, which was an incredible place. morale crushing move for the 10th Mountain, because they've been training in the mountains for two years, and now they're in Texas eating watermelon. and it was horrible. And finally, General Mark Clark in Italy, the commanding 5th Army, said, hey, we've got these guys at Camp Hale, they're mountaineers, they're skiers, let's get them over here to Italy, because we're fighting Germans up in the mountains. We need help over here. So the 10th moves over, and It's a very long story, but it starts at, Riva Ridge with the 10th Mountain Division attacking a position that the Germans thought completely, impossible for anybody to attack. And at nighttime, I, the, I think it was the 86th Regiment scaled these cliffs and at sunrise they pop over the top, they defeat the Germans, and then we started pushing up the Germans And continually north from that battle on all the way up through the spine of Italy until they got to the Po River Valley. 10th Mountain Division in a way won the war in Italy. That is awesome. What equipment are they're on skis, they've got a gun, what else? goggles? Gloves, white suits. I think I'm like James Bond. I know some of the James Bond movies, they're on skis and stuff. it's a pretty fascinating story. And my uncle here in Stowe, Leo Bartlett, he was telling me cause he was one of the original members of the 10th Mountain. So he was doing a lot of the testing and he said, we had nothing to start with. We had no clue. Most of us are skiers, but okay, now I put a 90 pound pack on my back. How much longer does my ski have to be? Does it have to be wider? Do I have to have metal edges now? Do I need one pole? Do I need two poles? How am I going to carry my rifle? what do I do for waxes? What do we do for clothing? and they were up at, in British Columbia in the first couple of years just testing everything. They had no clue. Yeah. And they were inventing as they were going along. And he said, one thing, a snowshoe. He said, here at home, you just grab a pair of snowshoes, he says, throw a 90 pound pack on. Throw, add your rifle in, add your ammo in, and he said, now how big does that snowshoe have to be? Does it get wider? Does it get longer? So they're just, they were learning everything. Everything. So as a historian, do you collect some of these artifacts? Do you have a collection? I took all of my uncle's and my dad's 10th mountain gear. That is all at the, ski Vermont skied snowboard museum here and stuff. Oh, okay. pretty impressive looking stuff. Yeah. I have one item that I bought off eBay. The 10th Mountain Division had their own very unique jackknife because it had a little tiny Phillips screwdriver on it from those old metal edges. And a guy in Italy, some Italian, had found a complete new all stock box of these things and was selling them on eBay. and his first ones went for very cheap. reasonable price, like a hundred bucks. now they're 250, 300, 350, but I had to own one of those. So just coming back full circle, we talked about your early days living in the lodge. now just to today, what keeps you in Stowe? what makes Stowe unique? Oh, Stoat, Mount Mansfield, the resort, it's home, literally quite literally. there's never been a day that I didn't want to come in and either instruct or ski patrol or in the summertime I work as EMT up there. It's just fun to be here. It's just fun to be here and in retirement I have the ability to come here four and five days a week. Get paid to be entertained. Get paid to be entertained. you've seen Stowe change quite a bit. what's your hope for Stowe the next 10, 20 years? what do you hope to see? I think we're on the right track. people say you must hate all the new development. no, it's the real world. this is, we're advancing, we're moving forward. I guess my biggest hope is, that global warming goes away. I see that as the biggest threat we're looking at and you can only make snow to a certain point. So that's, that bothers me. So we're just about ready to wrap up, but we have one more question and we ask all of our guests this. If Stowe didn't exist, where would you live, Brian? I would still live in Waterbury. which is actually where I live today. I'd still be content in Waterbury, Very cool. thank you so much for joining us. I know for me, it was such a, what a cool trip down memory lane. You have so much awesome information and stories to share, so thank you so much for taking your time. I appreciate you guys ask really good questions and I appreciate that. Hope you all enjoyed that episode with Brian Linder. Remember to follow us on Instagram at the Octagon Podcast o and remember to subscribe on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. See you next time.