From Our Current Caretaker

I consider myself the current caretaker of the woodenskis.com website. I have had the pleasure of meeting the site's founder, Greg Fangel, only once, but we have communicated often about various vintage ski-related topics. A few years ago, I started buying vintage nordic gear on Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace, with the intent of using some of it and selling the rest. I began selling on Etsy, and soon created my own Shopify site, skifabrikk.com. Very quickly I realized that in order to get the "good stuff" I had to go to the source - the Nordic countries themselves. I don't want to say that things have spiraled out of control since then, but I have spent a lot of time, mainly in Norway and Finland, buying equipment and bringing it back to the States to sell. It's not a way to get rich, but it's a fun hobby that pays for itself.

My interest in old Nordic gear started at a very young age. My father got swept up in the early 1970s fitness boom, becoming an avid runner in his early 30s. Because we lived in the Boston, MA USA area at the time, in the winter skiing was a natural activity to do. We would ski on weekends at our house on Squam Lake, NH and during the week (conditions permitting) at Boston-area parks. We would also travel to nordic centers such as the one at Waterville Valley, NH, to ski on prepared tracks and meet other like-minded people. These places would occasionally hold races, and to say that our family became dedicated racers would be an understatement.

My parents' first skis were Åsnes Tur-Langrenns for mom and Bonna 1800s for dad. These workhorse skis, which I am fortunate to have in my posession today, were great for forest skiing but became less than ideal for track skiing as our technique and fitness improved and we became members of the "go fast" crowd. Dad soon purchased a pair of Blå-Skia racers to compete against New England's best. His last pair of wood skis were bought in the fall of 1974 - a beautiful pair of red Järvinen racing skis with a narrow "javelin" tip. The fiberglass ski "revolution", with the first shots fired at the 1974 Nordic Worlds in Falun, was underway, and I think dad kept those boards for all of about a month before he went back to the store and traded them in for a pair of Fischers. Sadly, I don't have my dad's Blå-Skia racing skis; they reside in the vaults at the New England Ski Museum.

My skiing "career" is broken into 4 main chunks. The first would be from about 1971 to the mid eighties, when I was skiing and racing in New England. My first pair of skis was a pair of brown Åsnes Tur-Langrenns, likely purchased at EMS. This makes me a "native" wood skier, in that I learned to ski on wood. My generation would be the last to do so, I suppose.

The skis had cable bindings on them, which I considered similar to training wheels on a bicycle, so my second year of skiing, maybe in 1972 or so, I "went on strike" and refused to ski at all until I was outfitted with light and fast 3 pin 75mm bindings like all the cool people seemed to have. I was on those skis when I strode to victory in my first race (age 6!), called the "Klikitat Classic" or something like that, in a place in New England that I have forgotten.

I joined the fiberglass ski craze in about 1976 when I was given a new pair of Fischer Europas - the third place skis in the Fischer line at the time; the ones with the gray bases. I was on these skis a couple of years later when I won the class V division at the 1978 Bill Koch League Championships in Andover, Maine (think Akers Ski). I was so enamored with those skis that when Bill Koch switched from Fischer to Rossignol the season after his silver medal at Innsbruck, I swore never ever to own or ski on a pair of Rossignols. And to this day I have not!!

By the way, talking about Bill Koch, the ski league that was named for him after his Olympic medal, and the impact that he had on skiing in America and us kids in New England in particular would take several pages so I'll leave that for another day. Let's just say that to us the guy was a Big F&^%ing Deal.

The next few years consisted of lots of training and racing, through the rest of my Bill Koch League years and on the junior circuit for 3 years in my teens. I had a fair amount of success, winning another BKL "title" at age 13 and making two Junior Olympic (as it was called then) teams. I skied for a time at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA, where I was teammates with John Ogden, who became active in the Bill Koch League in his later years and fathered a couple of Olympians, including 2026 silver medal winner Ben. I also spent a season at Holderness School in New Hampshire, where I was coached by Phil Peck, who was at the beginning of his long tenure there. I was also teammates with future US Biathlon team member and current Toko USA boss Ian Harvey. Despite all this, my success was not based on athletic ability as much as hard work and having a lot of KMs under my belt, so when others started to catch up and my teenage mind began to get interested in other things, I quit racing.

Chunk #2. It's the early 90s, and I have just graduated from Haverford College outside of Philadelphia, PA. Haverford is not exactly in the snow belt, so it was sort of funny when one of my friends at school ended up being a guy who had skied for John Caldwell at Putney School in Vermont. We'd occasionally go out when it would snow; I still vividly remember skiing at night near the lit walking paths at sister school Bryn Mawr, possibly one of the most beautiful college campuses in America. After college I decided that what I was going to do with the mid five-figure education that my parents had paid for was to become a ski patroller at the Jackson Ski Touring Foundation in New Hampshire. I spent a season there working for the legendary Thom Perkins, patrolling the trails and chasing down scofflaws who thought that Pisten Bullys were cheap to operate and that skiing on prepared tracks should be free. (This actually is true in most Nordic countries but I didn't know that then.)

The next season I worked at the Jack Frost ski shop adjacent to the JSTF office. We spent most of our time handing out rental skis to tourists, but occasionally someone would come in wanting their woodies to get a fresh coat of pine tar, and a scrum would ensue among the staff working that day over who would get to do it. I'm guessing that was my first experience preparing bases of wood skis; I certainly wasn't handed a torch when I was five when I was actually skiing on wood skis! After a couple of years in the Mt Washington Valley I hung up my boards again and moved to Washington DC for a "real job", or at least one my parents could brag about.

Fast forward another 7-8 years, and I am a recent MBA school grad (Go BLUE!) living in the Bay Area of California and working in the tech industry. I am not sure what got me back into the sport of skiing. I had been an avid runner and marathoner in my early twenties, and had to dial that back because of knee problems. So maybe I saw skiing as an outlet for my athletic obsessions. Whatever the reason was, for about 5-6 years after that I was a regular on the 80 interstate, driving to Tahoe pretty much every weekend from late November to early April. Lots of good memories. Tahoe is a beautiful place to ski, but for classic skiers it's a bit of a challenge because with all the sun the conditions change quite rapidly during the day. I managed to figure out how to handle the waxing (hint: get a pair of Crowns!) and did a lot of racing during a time that could be considered the Golden Age of Sierra Nordic racing.

This was a time when the famous Great Ski Race was run point-to-point from Tahoe City to Truckee, finishing on the downhill slope of a former ski lodge ski hill. I had some good results in that race and others, but put to rest any ideas that I missed out on Olympic glory as I would get my butt kicked whenever the good college or factory team skiers would be in the field. While I was one of the best classic skiers in the area at the time, I recall that when US Ski Team top dog Marcus Nash showed up at the Auburn Ski Club's Snowshoe Thompson 10k Classic early one January, he beat me by 6 and a half minutes, at one point effortlessly skiing by like he was in training mode.

Of course the best part of that time was the people I met, usually those who were able to put up with my overzealous weekend warrior approach to the sport. They included my (still) friend Leland, who is currently my neighbor in Finland, and the unforgettable "Captain Nordic", Mark Nadell, who left us too soon. Mark found great amusement in my intensity, unless I would beat him, at which point his perspective shifted. You see, flatlanders are not supposed to beat Tahoe locals. No, no, no. Paco Lindsay also deserves mention; as the founder of the eponymous Truckee ski shop, Paco could always be counted on to help with last minute race prep - unless a big NCAA wrestling competition was on TV, at which point he would disappear into his office at the back of the shop. Paco is from Iowa, you see, and wrestling is a religion there.

During this time I also began my pursuit of Worldloppet Master status, a goal that I have still not achieved! I completed early-ish versions of the American Birkebeiner and the Gatineau Loppet (then called "Keskinada"), the Norwegian Birken (no merket won), and for some reason TWO Kangaroo Hoppets. None of these races was completed on vintage gear, though.

Another 10 years go by, with the main focus being my young daughter and my work in the tech biz. I relocated out to New Jersey and soon realized that I was living in a place where it occasionally snowed! No more 4 hour drives to get on skis. Of course that didn't last long, because once you get the taste of being on skis you want more. So back I was on the road, heading to High Point in NJ (yes there is track skiing in NJ), Minnewaska State Park near New Paltz, Prospect in VT, and even Mt Van Hoevenberg. Side note: to many non-Norwegian cross-country skiers, the one place they want to ski before they die is Norway. I disagree - everyone needs to ski at Minnewaska after a storm, before they die. TRUST ME. And it's only $10 for a trail pass!

During this time I dabbled a bit in racing, but soon discovered that not only was I an average athlete, at this point I wasn't a very good skier. So it made sense to take my interest in skiing in another direction.....

For some reason I have always been intrigued by the thought of restoring items from yesteryear. I come from a family of academics and history nuts; my sister is an art museum curator and my dad was a museum director and history professor, as well as a collector of many things. So maybe it's in the genes. I recall being in 2nd grade (about 7-8 years old) and trying to put back together this slot car kit that we had in the toy bin at my homeroom. There were parts missing so I scoured my town on my bicycle trying to find the bits to make it whole. Not sure if I succeeded.

My restoration urges lay dormant as I made my way through school, but in my early 30s I had some extra cash and became enamored with mid-century bungalows in Detroit. My grandmother grew up in the city, so it wasn't a completely random choice. I ended up acquiring several homes there with the goal of fixing them up and renting them. As we all know from watching home improvement shows, it takes about 1/2 an hour to restore a house, so I was not daunted by the challenge. Let's just say that the whole experience ended up being an interesting one: I learned I knew next to nothing about home improvement, and that making money off low-tier rentals is a tough biz. I did get called a "slumlord" at one point, which I consider one of my professional high points. (I wasn't a slumlord!)

Vintage cars, particularly 1960s and early 1970s BMWs, also held some appeal to me, so I quickly became obsessed with buying and restoring a 2002. I owned a couple of nice examples, but ended up in the same place I did after owning the houses - little skill to accomplish my goals, and out of cash. So back on eBay the cars went. I wasn't quite done scratching my restoration, itch, however. I started focusing on something more in line with my history - you guessed it - wood skis. They were cheap, available, cool-looking, and I knew how to use them. Plus, given that they are made of wood and paint, you can use logic to addresss most problems - sand, glue, lacquer, scrape, etc. I began researching the history of wood Nordic skis, and of course one of the first sources I found was this site.

Since that epiphany I have bought and sold hundreds of skis, poles, boots, and related items. I defend myself from being labeled a "collector", as everything I own is for sale. However, one wouldn't be faulted for looking at the contents of my basement and garage and concluding I do more buying than selling! One of the best aspects of this hobby is that I have started occasionally "racing" on vintage gear. I don't really consider it racing, given my age, but more like doing "events" that involve skiing with others. Aside from the vintage-only events that I do (see Events on the home page), any event I enter is fair game for assault with vintage gear. However, I'm rational enough to always have a quiver of Salomons waxed up and ready to go. You don't get points for suffering...

Of course the best part of this sport, and this hobby within the sport, is the people you meet. I am fortunate enough to have the flexibility to spend a lot of time at a home in Finland, where I have been able to experience an immersive ski culture as well as connect with a few like-minded hobbyists. From a vintage gear perspective, places like Norway and Finland are gold mines! Most people you buy things from there are not really sure why you're paying anything for grandma's old skis - they are essentially worthless to them. More for me! I have also connected with some passionate people at vintage races, and learned a lot from them.

My goal as caretaker of the woodenskis.com site is to continue with the work that Greg started. Maintain and add to the ski encyclopedia, and offer occasional articles about vintage gear-related topics. I feel like the format of the site works well, and given that I am blessed with very limited 1990s HTML coding skills, and I don't want to pay anyone to do web design, the appearance will remain largely unchanged. One thing I do plan on doing is bridging woodenskis with sister site skifabrikk.com, my Shopify site for selling gear. This is not because I am a money-grubbing Capitalist looking to profit off a brand that was started as a labor of love. I AM a money-grubbing Capitalist, but I play that game with other businesses in which I am involved. The point of building a closer connection between woodenskis and skifabrikk is to get the gear that I acquire out to more people who want it. The businesses together will generate a small profit, but any surplus will be used to maintain woodenskis.com, or help offset some of the travel costs that I incur in my pursuit of the coolest gear ever to originate from a tree.

- Moose