Some may kindly call it a throwback, an homage to simpler times. Others not so courteous may call it quaint or pitifully obsolete.

Locals like the two rope tows, one Poma lift Hurricane Ridge ski area just fine, thanks, and their evidence is that fact that it exists while dozens of other similar modestly-sized ski areas have disappeared.

At 5,240 feet above sea level - climbable within 45 minutes or so from Sequim, if the adventurer is lucky enough to find the road open - Hurricane Ridge is hardly a destination ski resort.

But don't expect skiers and snowboarders in Sequim, Port Angeles and other Olympic Peninsula communities to gripe. It's the only nearby skiing they've got.

For those who have seen ski area owners and, in 1986, members of the nonprofit Hurricane Ridge Winter Sports Club, keep it from closing altogether, the 50-year history of the ski area speaks volumes about small town life.



A rich ridge history

The first well-documented exploration of the Olympics occurred in the summer of 1885, according to the National Park Service. Army Lt. Joseph P. O'Neil led a small party of enlisted men and civilian engineers on a reconnaissance of the Olympic Mountains. O'Neil based his party out of Port Angeles, at the time a town of about 40 inhabitants, a hotel, a sawmill and two stores. On July 17, the party headed south into the foothills following a route similar to the present-day Hurricane Ridge Road, making slow progress cutting a trail through dense forest and windfalls. It took them about a month to climb to Hurricane Ridge.

From there part of the group explored the Elwha Valley while O'Neil and others headed southeast. O'Neil explored almost as far south as Mount Anderson before cutting the trip short.

While in the eastern Olympics in the summer of 1890, O'Neil met a small hiking party led by Judge James Wickersham. The two advocated establishing a national park in the Olympics.

"While the country on the outer slope of these mountains is valuable, the interior is useless for all practicable purposes," O'Neil wrote in his report of the 1890 expedition. "It would, however, serve admirably for a national

park. There are numerous elk - that noble animal so fast disappearing from this country - that should be protected."

President Franklin Roose-velt agreed after a visit to the Olympic Peninsula in the fall of 1937. He supported the movement for a national park, and the act establishing Olympic National Park was signed in June 1938.

Skiing already was part of the winter sports scene by then, but just recently. The Civilian Conservation Corps developed a ski area at Deer Park during the 1936-1937 winter and hosted a number of ski races for nearly 20 years before the Hurricane Ridge area was developed.

Hurricane Ridge Road was built in 1957 and the lodge and ski area opened the following year, and skiers saw the Deer Park operation close. Under direction of owners/operators Ted Simpson and Avon Miller, the Hurricane Ridge ski area began operations with Olympic Ski Lifts as concessionaires.



The early days

Bob Allman was a ridge user back in the early 1960s. He recalls that area had two rope tows - one beginner rope and one to the ridge's bowl - but no Poma lift yet. There were three runs, Allman recalls: a beginning short run, a shallow intermediate run and tougher runs in the bowl.

"The trick in the early days, you had to use strength and pizzazz to use the ropes," Allman says. "If you could survive the rope rides, you probably had enough fortitude to ski down the hill. Locals are pretty tough. They're high-energy skiers for the most part."

The trick about the area, Allman, says is the snow and the steepness.

"It's always been a difficult area to ski: always unpredictable snow, wet snow," he says.

And then there's Hurricane Ridge Road, a road often closed because of too much snow, making it impassable.

"It's a very difficult upper two or three miles when the weather's bad," Allman says. "It's hard to predict, in advance, the ability to ski a certain weekend."

Despite the difficulty of getting to the top, the ridge's popularity persisted. In fact, talk of expansion of the ski area - from ski lifts to opening of other bowls and even another road or gondola allowing access to Hurricane Ridge - have come and gone.

"We could not possibly allow large expansion," argued Olympic Park superintendent Oscar A. Sedergren, according to the Bremerton Sun newspaper in a 1960 article, "until we're convinced the skiers will come."

And since there was nothing to convince officials that skiers other than the locals would come, little has changed on that front besides the 1970 addition of the Poma lift.

"As a ski operation it will always be small," Allman says.

But how ridge users get downhill has changed, and that likely has helped Hurricane Ridge. Skiers gave away part of the hill to snowboarders while cross country skiiers and snowshoers have grown in numbers in the past three decades.



Keeping the

club going

In 1970, Olympic Ski Lifts opened as a for-profit company with investor parties buying interest in the company at $200 per share.

But the company struggled and, in 1986, the nonprofit Hurricane Winter Sports Club took over, with its sole purpose to keep the ski area alive and thriving.

And so it has.

Despite its simple rope tow and Poma lift operation, the ridge is home to about 400 inches of snowfall annually and 5,000 visitors, from downhill skiers to cross country skiers to snowboarders, snowshoers, sledders and those who simply want a romp in the snow.

Skiers and snbowboarders can take advantage of a gently sloping bunny hill rope tow and intermediate run and snowboard "snow park" accessed by another rope tow.

On the backside, the Poma lift gives snow enthusiasts access to more difficult chutes and 800 feet of vertical drop. Cross country skiers and snowshoers have even more terrain to work with.

Lift tickets alone don't cover the ridge's costs, so events such as Winterfest (see Page C-1) and other fundraisers - along with permission from the park service - keep the ridge open.