Ski Springing
Art: Don Weller
Have you ever heard the name Alf Engen? Calmar Andreasen? Mel Fletcher? Nearly 80 years ago, these young adventurers, and many others, filled Park City’s skies with their skis, jumping at Ecker Hill while the world watched.
Ski jumping came to America from Norway in the 1880s, and over the next five decades, wherever there was a mountain covered with snow, young men launched themselves skyward. Utah’s first jump was built behind the University of Utah in 1915 in Dry Fork Canyon, followed by Becker Hill in Ogden Canyon, and The Spruces in Big Cottonwood Canyon. But none achieved the worldwide fame and notoriety of Park City’s own Ecker Hill (named after photographer and jumper Peter Ecker in the late 1920s).
In 1927, Park City’s Rasmussen brothers let jumpers build a wooden scaffold and jump, next to their well-known Wellcome Inn at Kimball Junction. Local jumper Mel Fletcher remembers jumping there. “We’d jump until we were physically unable to jump any more,” says Fletcher. One day, “I saw Frank Rasmussen cross the hill right in front of the takeoff. The tails of my skis actually hit his shoulders.”
“We had a little jump on Creole Hill in Park City,” continues Fletcher. “You could get up there on the ore tram. It was good for about 125 feet, but it was lots of work. We used to have to boot pack it, sometimes on the way to school. If it wasn’t solid, you’d land on your head.” The jump drew skiers from around the West, but the jumpers were looking for a bigger hill.
During the not-so-Great Depression, Jack Walker was ambling down the street in Park City with a new pair of skis over his shoulder, when a young Norwegian approached him. “He tapped me on the shoulder,” says Walker, “and told me that I should join them at the new jumping hill at Ecker Hill.” It was just the news Walker was looking for.
It wasn’t easy to get to Ecker Hill, though, especially in mid-winter. “We’d start out at three in the morning,” says Walker, “We’d hike up east Millcreek to the mouth of Parleys, and thumb up the canyon. Later on, we caught a ride with a milkman in the back of his truck.”
As a teenager, Walker had built his own ski jumping scaffold in his backyard, but now he wanted a steeper hill and bigger challenge. He found both, and lifelong friends, at Ecker Hill, the undisputed center of American ski jumping for three decades. “It was a thrill, I tell you,” says Walker, his voice still filled with excitement decades later.
Ecker Hill was built by the jumpers themselves on a steep hillside in a small side canyon. On February 22, 1929, Alf Engen flew 164 feet during the first tournament held at Ecker Hill. Soon Alf, and brothers Corey and Sverre, seemed to own the hill. A wooden sign below read, “Ecker Hill. The world’s largest ski hill. A world record 247 feet was established by Alf Engen here January 14, 1931.” Three years later, Alf flew almost 300 feet in front of thousands of spectators.
Over the years, Ecker Hill was rebuilt again and again for longer jumps. In 1930 it had an 800-foot run, with a 20-foot high takeoff. Jumpers had to fly at least 150 feet to clear the knoll and land on a 300-foot outrun. In 1937, more than 9,000 fans watched Alf jump 237 feet in a blinding snowstorm at the National Ski Jumping Championship.
“All the jumpers waved their arms in those days,” says Jack Walker. Only a couple would go with a forward lean and arms behind them, steering with the palms of their hands. “Sometimes if they got going the wrong way, their hands would go the other.”
Alf Engen, a member of Norway’s 1928 Olympic team, described jumping as “just plain work, mixed with thrills induced by the knowledge that you might break your neck at any time.” And the prize money was good, especially during hard times. The jumpers traveled from Ecker to California to Wyoming to Minnesota by car, plane, trains, and even skis.
But there were mishaps. Calmar Andreasen, the Utah amateur jumping champ in 1934, said of his first run from the Class A, or highest, Ecker Hill jump, “It was the biggest thrill of my life.” But his next run ended his life.
Sverre Engen wrote of that day, “I jumped just ahead of him. I was on my way back to the transition of the hill when I saw him go over the takeoff and land upside down on the knoll of the hill, a distance of about 125 feet. As he tumbled the rest of the way to the bottom, it was plain to see that he was badly hurt.”
Jack Walker was there that day as well. “I had a ringside seat. Calmar wasn’t used to that speed coming down that runway for the big jump. He got in the ‘backseat’ and couldn’t get forward again before he transitioned to the jump.”
In 1947, after having been away from ski jumping for a decade, Walker jumped in the Mormon Centennial ski jump at Ecker. “I was all over the sky, but I didn’t fall,” he says. But 1949 saw the last National Championship at Ecker Hill as bigger hills lured the jumpers away.
Ecker Hill’s graying timbers and steep dirt slope now make a backdrop to a neighborhood park in Pinebrook. A monument and plaque tell everyone what happened here. But just a few miles to the south, the Utah Olympic Park’s jumps of nearly 450 feet, spotlighted during the 2002 Games, have turned Park City into a ski jumper’s paradise again.
Once again, jumpers ride the winter wind in Park City.
A frequent Park City Magazine contributor, Patrick Cone is a longtime resident, photographer and writer. He remembers watching the jumpers at Ecker Hill when he was a very young lad.
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