Stowe's Ski School Turned 90 Last Winter. The Lifts Turn 90 on Feb. 7.

Last December, Stowe Mountain Resort marked 90 years of its Ski and Ride School with an instructor recognition event, anniversary pins, a custom print and a special 90th logo. This fall, Vail Resorts announced that the 2026/27 season marks 90 years of skiing and riding on Vermont's highest peak.

The two celebrations mark two separate events from one winter on Mount Mansfield, 1936 to 1937. The first was a ski instructor stepping off the boat from Austria. The second was a rope tow powered by a car engine. Between them, those two events turned a mountain with a few hand-cut trails into a ski area. This winter's calendar happens to follow that first winter almost day for day.

Two Anniversaries From One Winter

The Stowe Historical Society calls 1936-37 the generally recognized start of Stowe's ski industry. It ties that start to two things, the Toll House rope tow and Sepp Ruschp's arrival from Linz, Austria. Each one now has its own 90th.

The ski school counts its seasons from the date Ruschp arrived, so Dec. 10, 2025 opened its 90th season. The resort counts lift service from the tow. It used that same count when it called 2021-22 its 85th season of lift service, "Since 1937." Run both counts forward and the dates line up. This Dec. 10 is exactly 90 years since Ruschp arrived, and Feb. 7, 2027 is exactly 90 years since the tow first ran.

A Letter, Then a Car Engine

Ruschp's part of the story started with a mail campaign, as Mark Aiken tells it in his "Stowe Ski & Ride School at 90" feature in Mountain Living. In September 1936 he sent about 90 letters to ski clubs across the United States, offering himself as an Austrian state-certified instructor for the coming winter. One of the replies came from Frank Griffin, president of the Mt. Mansfield Ski Club. The club offered to pay his passage across the Atlantic, plus a $500 salary and half of lesson sales. Less than three months after he mailed those letters, Ruschp was teaching in Stowe. The copy he sent to the Washington Ski Club in Seattle is now in the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum.

The lift was going up on the Toll House slopes at about the same time. According to the Stowe Reporter's history of the rope tow, Craig Burt and Wesley Pope installed a 1,000-foot tow there in the autumn of 1936, powered by a 1927 Cadillac engine. A thin early snowpack meant it didn't start running until Feb. 7, 1937.

That delay is why Stowe's lift anniversary falls on Feb. 7 instead of in the fall. A tow built in the fall sat waiting through December and January for enough snow. The ski school, meanwhile, had its instructor in town from Dec. 10.

The Trails Came First

The tow and the instructor came to a mountain that already had trails and a club. Civilian Conservation Corps crews cut the Bruce Trail in the winter of 1933-34. Charlie Lord laid it out, and Paul Barquin made the first descent in February 1934. Nose Dive, also cut by the CCC, was finished in the spring of 1935. In local historian Brian Lindner's account, published by Stowe Today, Charlie Lord was the first person to ski it.

Teaching started before Ruschp, too. According to Aiken's feature, Mt. Mansfield Ski Club newsletters from 1934 and 1935 offered a 10-pack of lessons for $4, taught by an instructor named Jim Trachier, and the Toll House served as the ski school's base for the 1934-35 season. Craig Burt had already turned his logging camp into the area's first ski lodge. He also helped start the Stowe Ski Club, which became the Mount Mansfield Ski Club and, in 2023, renamed itself Mount Mansfield Academy.

The winter of 1936-37 marks a change in kind. Before it, Stowe had volunteer-cut trails, club lessons and people who climbed on foot. After it, Stowe had a professional instructor and a lift, and that pairing is the version of the town that both 90th anniversaries celebrate.

Where That Winter Still Shows

Most of the 1930s footprint can still be found, if you know which names to look for.

1. The Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum, 1 South Main St. The building sits at the intersection of Route 100 and Route 108. It holds the Ruschp letter. Its current exhibits are listed as Beginnings – Snurfing to Snowboarding 1965 to 1985 and Hubert Schriebl – From the Alps to Vermont. The museum is closed Oct. 26 through Nov. 26 and on Thanksgiving. Its regular hours are Thursday through Sunday, noon to 5 p.m., with a suggested $5 donation per adult. Extra parking is behind the Green Mountain Inn and along Main, Depot and Park streets.
2. The Toll House Base Area. This is where the Cadillac-powered tow ran and where the early ski school taught. Resort directions put the base area on both sides of Route 108, just past the Cross Country Center. The lift there today is the Toll House Double.
3. Nose Dive. It's still a Stowe Mountain Resort trail and still one of the Front Four. Today it's wider and groomed, so it skis very differently from the narrow trail the CCC cut.
4. The Ranch Camp sign on the Bruce. A sign marks the spot where Craig Burt's Ranch Camp stood on Mansfield's first ski trail.
5. The CCC stone hut. According to the Stowe Historical Society, the stone hut the CCC built still stands at the top of Mount Mansfield.

This Winter, on the 1936-37 Calendar

Line this season up against that first winter and the main dates come within a day or two of their originals.

The resort's event listing for the 90th Anniversary Celebration describes "an evening full of music, food, fun, and memories" from 5 to 8 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 6. That's the evening before the tow's 90th anniversary, which this year lands on a Sunday.

Vail Resorts' October announcement mentions the ski school alongside the lifts. Its 90-year message for Stowe names the "storied Ski & Ride School," the "long-standing Ski Patrol tradition" and the Front Four trails. This winter, group-lesson students at Stowe will also get digital check-in, updates and photos during the day, and a record of their skill progression in the My Epic app.

Aiken's feature lists four directors for the school between 1936 and 2021: Ruschp from 1936 to 1948, Kerr Sparks from 1949 to 1975, Peter Ruschp from 1976 to 1995, and Dave Merriam from 1995 to 2021. The 90th Anniversary Celebration on Feb. 6, 2027 sits at the end of that same 1936-37 calendar, one night before the tow's 90th.

At Carlson Real Estate Group, we follow Stowe's calendar the way our neighbors do, from opening day at Toll House to the Feb. 6 celebration and the trail names that date to the CCC. If you'd like to talk about life near the mountain this 90th winter, Speak with a Local Stowe Expert.