Stevens Pass Ski Area: A Ford Engine and a Rope Tow
Near Stevens Pass Area, Washington
The ski area spread across these slopes began with a car engine and about six hundred dollars. In the winter of nineteen thirty seven and thirty eight, two skiers named Don Adams and Bruce Kehr secured a Forest Service permit and strung up a rope tow, powered by a salvaged Ford V eight engine, on the flank of Big Chief Mountain. In those first seasons skiers reached the area however they could, by hiking, by train through the Cascade Tunnel, or by rough bus.
The first lodge went up in nineteen thirty seven, burned down in nineteen thirty nine, and was rebuilt the following year by the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of the New Deal work programs. Adams eventually sold his share, but the Kehr family ran Stevens Pass from nineteen thirty seven all the way to nineteen seventy six. In two thousand nine, a year after Bruce Kehr died, the resort renamed the old Big Chief lift in his honor.
Today the terrain climbs onto Cowboy Mountain, where an experts only lift called Seventh Heaven opens double black diamond runs and gateways to the backcountry. The pass tops out at about four thousand sixty feet, high enough to catch deep Cascade snow.
