White Gold on the Ski Belt

"The dough at Stowe lies mostly in the snow," crooned a banjo-toting minnesinger before the inevitable open fireplace of that famed ski retreat in Vermont last week. And the same truth was self-evident in thousands of other resorts around the world from Aspen to Zermatt, where the ski slopes resembled a lavishly and gaily costumed flea circus.

This week, as skiers head snowward for the Washington's Birthday weekend, traditionally the busiest of the year, resort operators are celebrating the biggest year skiing has known since man first set out on barrel staves. Deep valleys and isolated mountainsides that only a few years ago had been as quiet as Coney Island on Ground Hog Day are now echoing with cries of "Track!" ''Attention!'' "Pista!" and "Achtung!" (In many U.S. spots, "track" has been supplanted by golfdom's "fore.'') Spanking new lodges in a variety of architectural forms range from swish chalets to high-wayless motels; ski tows and chair lifts whir upward through clearings in the fir trees, queues of skiers wait patiently in the valleys to take dizzying trips to the peaks, only to dash back down to do it all over again.

The New Snowmakers. Skiing, in fact, is probably the fastest-growing recreation on earth. In the U.S. alone, 30 new areas have been opened this year, ranging from Sierra Blanca in New Mexico to Stratton Mountain in Vermont, where a giant lodge and twelve slopes and trails have been built at a cost of more than $1,000,000.

And the invention of snowmaking machines has brought skiing even to such stately summering places as Virginia's Homestead hotel. At Cataloochee Ranch in North Carolina, man-made snow brings skiers from as far away as St. Petersburg, Fla.

In the north, snowmakers have become standard equipment at many resorts, taking a lot of the uncertainty out of skiing.

This year, 23 ski areas added snow machines, and in the Catskills in New York State, where the snowfall has been light, operators admit they would have gone broke without them.

An even newer trend is the skiing vacation in Europe. A skier who catches Alitalia's 8 p.m. Flight 603 at Idlewild Airport on Friday is in Milan Saturday morning at 9:20, ready to jump into a rented Fiat for the drive to Cervinia. At noon, he is schussbooming down the flanks of a 6,500-ft. Alp.

Swissair offers 20 different tours, ranging in price from $552.60 for 17 days at Sestriere and Grindelwald, including all transportation, hotels and meals, to $76.60 for 17 days at St. Moritz and Davos. The line maintains special ski desks at offices and terminals where prospective skiers can check on snowfall, temperature, and the hotel situation at every ski resort in Europe, reports sales up 34% over last year. Virtually every other transatlantic airline has some charter flights for skiers.

Second Season. Europe traditionally has two skiing seasons. The first runs from Christmas to Twelfth Night; the second is now under way. (In between, there is a thaw in both snow and prices, and the Alpine slopes are shunned by everybody who is anybody.) In late February, the snow again reaches powdery perfection, and the hotels in old established places in Austria, Switzerland, Italy and France are booked to the ridgepoles.

Pride of the Italian Alps is Sestriere (see color pages), a name relatively new to Americans. Its two circular hotels, La Torre and the Duchi d'Aosta, rear out of the snow like overgrown silos; the Duchi guest rooms are reached by a continuous ramp around a sunlit core, something like Manhattan's Guggenheim Museum with chambermaids. Both La Torre and the Duchi d'Aosta are moderately priced inns; their sister hotel at Sestriere, the Principi di Piemonte, ranks high in Europe's categorie luxe, is decorated with expensive taste and has rates to match: $22 per day, full pension.

New & Old. Still unrivaled as a picture-book resort is Switzerland's Zermatt, on the shoulder of the famed Matterhorn.

Some of its little, rough-hewn houses date back to the 16th century; its oldest hotel, the Monte Rosa, was opened in 1838, is a triumph of Gemuetlichkeit at $8 a day; full pension, in high season. But like many another old resort, it is caught up in the new boom; in the past five years, the amount of hotel space has doubled, so that now the village can take care of 12,000 winter vacationers at one time.

Most conspicuous monument to Europe's ski madness is Courchevel, a new resort built high (6,070 ft.) in the French Alps and already rivaling Chamonix.

Here, two weeks of skiing runs to around $250 (room, meals), with tow tickets and a dozen ski lessons thrown in. Its altitude ensures reliable snow conditions, plus a good six hours of bright sunshine a day (some Alpine resorts, snuggled in steep valleys, get less than three hours of sun), providing plenty of prime tanning time. For the skiing crowd insists on returning home with a tan, even if it is only on faces.

Terraces are lined with apres lunch sunners (both skiers and nonskiers), their boots loosened, their faces glistening with sun lotion.

From time to time, they open their eyes a slit, reach for a hot glass of Gluehwein (in Austria or Switzerland), vin chaud (in France) or vino brule (in Italy).

Steady at Home. Though an estimated 8,000 U.S. skiers will fly to Europe this season. U.S. resorts have no time or need to worry about European competition. This week New England alone braced for 2,000,000 skiers. Booked into The Lodge, at Smuggler's Notch in Stowe, were three Kennedy sisters: Pat Lawford, Jean Smith (with husband), and Eunice Shriver--Teddy Kennedy is expected next week. Already on hand as advance guard was Mrs. Pierre Salinger. Nearby Sugarbush, sometimes referred to as Mascara Mountain, is a favorite haunt of society as well as snow bunnies, the well-rounded sports girls who hang their stretch pants on a shapely limb but don't go near the snow.

In Aspen, Colo., which likes to think of itself as the U.S. ski capital. "No Vacancy" signs were up everywhere. The Aspen Ski Corp.'s gross for the last three months was 15% ahead of the same period last season. Long the favorite resort of the dedicated skier because of its constant supply of dry, powder snow, Aspen has been discovered recently by the snowbunny set. Grumbles William R. Dunnaway, proprietor of the Aspen Times: "The new people are the sort who don't get up until noon, ski for an hour, then start getting ready for cocktails."

Other Western ski resorts are on the rise. Squaw Valley, domain of Socialite-Entrepreneur Alec Cushing (TIME cover, Feb. 9. 1959), was crowded by determinedly elegant San Franciscans; Heavenly Valley, a new spot on the south shore of Lake Tahoe in California, has 13,700 ft. of chair lifts, slopes with a vertical rise of 3,650 ft., was jammed with customers.

Everywhere, the swarming ski fans were happily rediscovering that skiing was not all snow, chapped lips and bruises. There was the relaxation of the evening drink with its hot-buttered rumors, the gathering around the fireplace for a song (every skier is expected to sing), the twisting gaiety of the late-closing restaurants--all animated by the mystic camaraderie induced by dangers shared, ordeals undergone, and the virtuous feeling of having exercised long and well.

Stretchies & Pumpkin. And for the ladies, there was always the fun of following the changing fashions. Stretch pants --the garment that made skiing a spectator sport--are both tighter and brighter this season. Raspberry, pumpkin, grape, orange, lemon and lime stretchies whip by in combination with magenta, cobalt, ocher parkas of quilted nylon. Pour l'apres-ski, the smart girl's uniform is a Pucci silk blouse and tight (though nonstretch) velvet pants with matching flats.

As for men, the once-standard Tyrone Power scarf at the neck is passe; now most men wear turtleneck jerseys. In Europe, the new thing is the crash helmet made of vertical strips of padded plastic material pulled together with a button at the top and strapped under the chin. It makes wearers look like pointy-headed Space People.

The Return. This week many a secretary will get to the office late on Monday--tan of face, black and blue of limb; their bosses may get in even later (and tireder). Plaster caste-marks will be proudly displayed ("When I hit that icy patch . . . how did I know my safety binding was frozen?"). In homebound Volkswagens, with skis lashed to the top, families of neophytes will still hear ringing in their ears the novice's litany: "Put your weight on the downhill ski." Enough money has changed hands over the weekend to paper half the ski trails between Mount Mansfield and Mount Hood.

But the skier, whatever his aches, is happy with his proud sense of membership in a confraternity that takes him away from the harassments of steam-heated real life and translates him, briefly but gloriously, into a snowy never-never world of wind, speed and sunlight.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.