Ski Jumping and the Original Winter Sport
Near Leavenworth, Washington
Before ski lifts existed and before Stevens Pass developed its alpine ski area, the winter sport of choice in the Leavenworth area was ski jumping. In the nineteen thirties, the Leavenworth Ski Club built a jump near town and began hosting national-level competitions that drew athletes and spectators from across the country. Ski jumping was among the premier winter sports in the Pacific Northwest at the time, and Leavenworth was on the national competitive circuit.
The club produced jumpers who competed at the highest levels of American skiing. The jump fell into disuse as downhill skiing overtook jumping in popular appeal and the economics of the mountain resort industry shifted toward lift-served terrain. Stevens Pass, to the west, developed into a major alpine resort drawing skiers from Seattle and Puget Sound.
But the tradition of winter recreation in Leavenworth persisted, and the Bavarian transformation amplified it. Christmas festivals and holiday lighting events turned the snowy months from an off-season into the peak of the tourist calendar. The Leavenworth Christmas Lighting Festival now draws enormous crowds across three December weekends, when the downtown and the surrounding hillsides are covered in lights and the Bavarian storefronts fill with crowds that the original railroad-era merchants could never have imagined.
