Q&A: Harris Hill jumps back into the action

After a four year hiatus to fundraise then rebuild Brattleboro’s Harris Hill Ski Jump back to International Skiing Federation standards, the 85th annual ski jumping competition was held in mid-February. With record crowds, a renewed enthusiasm and two days of blue sky mid-30s weather, jumpers and fans alike were delighted with the new jump and the enhanced festivities surrounding the weekend.

In two years, the Harris Hill committee raised $585,000 in order to rebuild the jump. Ron Bell of Bell Engineering of Spofford, NH. Did the engineering for the project, and in just 152 days, Jason Evans of J Evans Construction in Dummerston, VT, created what is now the newest 90-meter jump in the country and the only 90-meter jump in New England.

There were two United States Ski Association competitions over the weekend of the 85th event. On Saturday it was the Pepsi Challenge. On Sunday, it was the Fred Harris Memorial Tournament. Event organizers said that crowd count total for the weekend was a remarkable 8,300.

A total of 28 athletes competed at the 85th Harris Hill Ski Jumping Competition, with representatives of three countries - Austria, Slovenia and the US - and seven states - Colorado, Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Vermont and Wisconsin.

Seventeen year old Christian Reiter of Austria jumped the longest jump of the weekend and a new record for Harris Hill, 100.5 meters (331.65 feet), on his first competitive jump on Saturday.

The week of the event, Robert Smith interviewed four people who have been intimately involved with Harris Hill for many years: Pat Howell, Co-Director of the Harris Hill Ski Jump Organizing Committee for the past 15 years. Pat co-chaired the fundraising effort to raise the $585,000 to re-build the hill. Professionally, Pat was co-owner and President of Howell Martin Marketing & Advertising, Inc, in Brattleboro, for 23 years. Drew Richards, a former ski jumper and member of the US Ski Team. Sandy Harris, whose father, Fred Harris, built the hill. Sandy is a trustee of Harris Hill and has raced motorcycles. And finally Dana Sprague, a Harris Hill historian.

VBM: Perhaps we could begin with everyone here just introducing themselves.

Howell: I’m Pat Howell, co-director of the Harris Hill event.

Richards: I’m Drew Richards, a former ski jumper.

Harris: I’m Sandy Harris. My dad, Fred Harris, built the hill, and I’m a trustee.

Sprague: I’m Dana Craig, a Harris Hill historian.

VBM: To begin this, let’s go back and get some of the history of this hill. Let’s start with you, Dana, as you’re the historian, and then with you Sandy, as your dad started it.

Sprague: What happened was that back in 1921, there was a winter carnival in Brattleboro that attracted 5,000 people. It was such a success that the only thing that was missing was ski jumping. So in 1922 Fred Harris started looking for a piece of land where he could build a ski jump in Brattleboro. They found a piece which was a perfect contour of the European hills. They spent $2200 that year to build the hill, which was a lot of money. They had it ready for 1922.

The main objective in 1922 was to break the New England record for the longest jump. Fred Harris was determined to do that. He had a good group of jumpers, about 25, and they did it that year. They broke the hill record 15 times and they paid for all the construction costs with gate receipts that year. It was such a success that in 1923 they had the Vermont State Championship there. They just kept building on that. They had a big crowd that year and again broke the New England record, which they did for about 14 years in a row.

1923 was such a success that in 1924 they got the National Championship, which drew about 5000 people. From that point on it just grew and grew and it became bigger and better. Many different years they did construction on the hill and made it better. It was a constant project of Fred Harris’ to make the hill better every year. Better trestles, better landing hill. He tried to grow grass on the landing hill so that it would hold the snow better. That’s how it got started.

It evolved year after year. In 1929 they had the National Championship, and in 1938. At this point, it’s back to the way it was.

VBM: Sandy, maybe you could give us a little background on your dad. You and I talked about this earlier, his connection with winter sports.

Harris: I think his passion initially started as an underclassman at Dartmouth in college. He became interested and fascinated with outdoor sports. I was up at Dartmouth recently going through the archives and it appears that a lot of his interest came out of Canada where there were a lot of Europeans that had moved into the Montreal area and had brought with them an interest in skiing and winter sports. It was his idea that people get out of their houses and dorm rooms and get outside and enjoy winter sports. At that time he created the Dartmouth Outing Club and also the Dartmouth Winter Carnival.

As a resident of Brattleboro, he came back to this area with that same passion, to create a community effort for local people as well as for the national ski jumpers to come here. As his child, growing up, I was dragged endlessly to Harris Hill. My experience was that of playing with toys and occupying myself at the base of the hill while I heard him yelling at everybody at the top, with instructions on how to improve it. We’d be waiting for loads of loam and doing engineering schematics. He was just totally obsessed with making it a world class facility and bringing people to Brattleboro.

As a child, they had a lot of junior jumping programs in Brattleboro, where there was a great program for kids who grew up here. There were several other jumps in Brattleboro where we could learn and then move to Harris Hill. I never got to jump there. There were two smaller jumps at Memorial Park and another ski jump. They would bring in kids come from all over the country, often 100 or more for a weekend, and the local community would put them up, serve them dinner and have a banquet. They would move the program up to Harris Hill on Sunday, and the people who were deemed ready for it would jump.

It seems like Brattleboro was a kind of Mecca for jumping. It wasn’t just used for one tournament, it was used for several. The trophy went to the person that did the best at all of the tournaments.

After my mother’s death in 1999, the committee came to me and wanted my involvement. My mother had been involved over the years. It’s been an amazing privilege to work with this committee. I’ve seen this year the amount of time and effort and work and volunteer commitment that goes in to having this operate. There are hundreds of volunteers involved to help put this on. That was true even when I was a child.

VBM: When did your dad pass away?

Harris: He died in 1961.

VBM: How big is this hill in comparison to others?

Sprague: This is an Olympic-size 90 meter jump, which is one of the biggest in the country. I’d say that it’s one of the top five jumps in the country now, with the renovation.

VBM: How many jumps are there around here?

Sprague: Not many any more. Lebanon, NH; Salisbury, CT; Laconia, NH, and Lake Placid in New York.

Richards: Of this size there’s really Brattleboro and Lake Placid in the East, which are sort of the regional hubs, and when you get out West there’s Steamboat Springs, CO; Park City in Utah of course, because of the Olympics, and then there’s a few places in the Mid-west. But for hills of this size, you can count them on two fingers, Brattleboro and Lake Placid.

VBM: Was there a time that would be like a Golden Era of ski jumping?

Sprague: There were a couple of different eras. 1938 to 1951, take away the War years, was a huge time. In 1942 we had 10,000 spectators at the jump with 100 jumpers. In 1951, it was the biggest jump we ever had at Harris Hill. There were 150 jumpers. It started at 10 in the morning and got over at 4 in the afternoon with a steady stream of jumpers. And that was scoring by hand.

I think that the era for the junior jumpers from Brattleboro, was from 1965 to 1972. We had maybe 40 or 50 junior jumpers and over 20 jumpers that jumped at Harris Hill, and that’s just Brattleboro jumpers.

I think there are fewer jumpers now, but the quality of the jumping, the quality of the equipment, the coaching, is better than it was 20 years ago. Quality over quantity right now.

VBM: In the modern history, say over the last 30 years or so, what has been the story with Harris Hill. It has been closed for a few years recently. Has that happened before?

Sprague: In the early 1980s we had two winters without snow. That was when Haystack Mountain closed because there was no snow. That was the year they decided we had to have snow making. Mount Snow stepped up and decided to be our official snow maker. That’s made a huge difference, the confidence that we’ll have a jump every year.

There were renovations done in the early 80s to make it a little bit bigger hill. It went from an official 70 meter to an unofficial 90 meter. We added probably 20 to 30 feet to the length of the jump. The new hill this year is up to international specs, which is where it needs to be for everything that we need to have for jumps there. It’s an official 90 meter now, and the renovations are more than the jump has ever had in its history.

We have a 50 year plan now. It wasn’t done just to piecemeal it back together. It’s now going to be a destination for a lot of jumpers for years to come.

VBM: What was actually done with this renovation? How long did it take? What did it cost, that sort of thing?

Howell: At the end of the tournament in 2005, we realized that the hill was in serious need of renovation. It was unsafe and did not meet the United States Ski Association standards to be sanctioned. Because they love this tournament, and it’s one of the favorites around the country, the USSA basically for a few years turned a blind eye and said we’ll let you go this year, but next year you’ve got to deal with this.

What happened at the end of every tournament, because it’s an all volunteer event, everyone is exhausted. We’d say we’ve got to repair this and replace that, but it didn’t happen. So we’d reached that point where the USSA was saying, no more, you’ve got to fix this. We realized that it was unsafe as well.

So we started looking at engineering plans in 2005. There are no off the shelf plans for a 90 meter ski jump. I preface with that, because this was an arduous process. We could not come up with plans that we could afford that would give us all the things that they required and the International Ski Federation required. So we had the cost, the design and the requirements to deal with. To make a two and half year story short, we ended up with plans that met all these criteria last summer, after having worked with a couple of different engineers. It was going to cost about $500,000. We started the, we were told, almost impossible task of raising that money. But we did it. It was an amazing feet. The people of this town dug deeply into their pockets. In the process of raising the money we found that the community loves the event, loves the history of it, and feels an ownership and pride in having the ski jump.

We raised about $280,000 from the local community, and then had a fairy tale story. A foundation found us through an AP story picked up in a Massachusetts newspaper. They called us out of the blue and I can remember the conversation word for word. They said, "If we were to give you all of the money that you needed to complete construction, could you hold a tournament this year?" That was in November 2008. I told them there was no way that we could and does that jeopardize the gift. They said no, but it takes the pressure off. They gave us what we thought we needed to complete the project, which was $130,000. As we got into the construction and the budgeting, we found that we were short.

What had happened between the time that they gave us the money and when we really finalized our plans and got our approval and sanctions, the cost of steel had doubled. And other costs had gone up. So we went back to the foundation and told them that story. It was clear to them that these new costs were out of our control, that we had not misjudged our plan or made any mistakes in our budgeting. They reached into their pocket again and gave us the balance, another $188,000. The jump was completed last week.

VBM: And the final cost?

Howell: About $580,000, The people in the town gave close to $280,000, the town itself gave us $30,000, other foundations gave us some money, and we also sold the steps to the top of the jump. One of Harris Hill’s distinctions is that spectators can walk up to the takeoff and literally watch a jumper as he launches. I don’t believe you can do that anywhere else. You’re really up close to the jumpers. So we had 300 steps up to the top that were replaced with steel steps. We sold them for $1,000 apiece. Individuals, families, groups of friends, bought them. We’ve sold 104, and we’re continuing to sell them.

VBM: Drew, can we get your view as someone who has jumped there?

Richards: Well, no one learns to jump at Harris Hill, you learn to jump and then work your way up to a Harris Hill. The history of ski jumping in Brattleboro and the facilities that it has to offer that other communities don’t, like the smaller jumps where little kids can get involved, is how I got plugged in. The Winter Carnival is always a big week here in Brattleboro. When I was growing up there was an event called the Ski Meister, a four event competition of ski jumping, cross country skiing and two alpine events. I was an alpine racer and got involved in the Ski Meister, and as part of that I got to go off the small jumps at Memorial Park. I loved it and couldn’t get enough of it. That’s when I got connected with some of the local former jumpers and coaches.

VBM: This was when?

Richards: This was when I was 9 or 10 in the mid-80s. That’s how I got involved in ski jumping. From there you go to more regional jumps throughout New England. There are a lot of prep schools that have jumps, and Dartmouth has a facility that I jumped at. But Brattleboro always had a jump in my hometown that I could never jump because it was, a, only open once a year, and b, it takes a certain level of experience before you can go off it. When I was 16 I’d finally gained enough experience where I could come back home and jump in Brattleboro. That was a real rush for me because it’s my hometown and it’s a jump that you drive by all the time, you can see it from places all around town. What makes Brattleboro unique from a jumper’s perspective is that it has a very European feel. It’s a very festive environment. When I compare it to the other facilities I’ve jumped at, and I’ve jumped in Europe and all the major jumps in North America, there is a very sterile feeling about jumping in an Olympic facility when it’s not the Olympics. It’s a big venue and it’s typically empty. But you come to Brattleboro and, like Pat mentioned, you’ve got spectators climbing on the hills, they are playing music, it has a very festive, European feel to it and as a jumper, you respond to it. It becomes part competition and part show. I really enjoyed that about jumping in Brattleboro, not to mention being in front of family and friends when most of the winter I was away. I went to school in Lake Placid during the winter.

VBM: Did you make the Olympic team?

Richards: I progressed as far as the US Ski Team. After high school I had a left or right decision as to whether I wanted to continue with ski jumping and defer college or do I want to continue my education, and that was the route that I took. Unfortunately, ski jumping is not a very recreational sport, so it’s hard to do in your spare time, it’s hard for me to do it now, having not done it for 10 years or so. You’re either in it or your out and there is no in between.

VBM: Did ever have one of those "thrill of victory, agony of defeat” moments, like the old beginning of Wide World of Sports where the ski jumper falls on the jump?

Richards: Yes. It’s inevitable. They would tell you that it’s safer than a lot of other sports, and it probably is, but when you take 1,000 jumps a year you’re going to fall. When you’re going 50 miles an hour and you’re 10 or 20 feet in the air, it’s not going to be a soft landing. The worst that ever happened to me is that I broke my collar bone and had a few concussions. But over the span of 10 years, it could have been a lot worse. It comes with the territory.

VBM: Let’s talk a little about the event this week at Harris Hill, the first after the renovations and having been closed since 2005.

Sprague: We’ve had meetings all through those four years to decide what’s going to happen. This is a huge volunteer process. There’s a core group of about 10 of us that do the work year round, some people more than others. Then there are another 100 volunteers that do everything from marking on the side of the hill on how far the jumps are to parking cars to selling t-shirts to running a silent auction. The day of the event there are a lot of people there. Then there are a group of people that prepare the hill, that really become involved as we get closer to the event.

VBM: What’s involved with that? Do they have to bring in special equipment?

Howell: There is a group of technical people who are very knowledgeable about snow making. They come in from Mount Snow. Back in the 1980s we put in snow making pipes and every year Mount Snow comes down with their equipment. We get water from the town and we pump it up to the hill and the Mount Snow crew gets the jump ready. There would be no jump without them. The renovation of the hill that we just completed makes snow making much easier. It concentrates the flow in one area and makes it easier. The technical crew that comes down from Lake Placid do the chemicals and final grooming to make the surface absolutely perfect, and they do this on a volunteer basis.

I think one of the really truly unique things about Harris Hill is that this event is 100 percent volunteer. Getting it ready for the competition and running it. I’m very, very proud of that. I don’t think there is anything else like it around. We have a history of being recognized by the state of Vermont as one of Vermont’s Top 10 Winter Events five years in a row. I think we’ll go back to having that status.

The event itself is a two day event. Since 1986 we’ve had sponsors which gives us the operating cash to run the event. Interestingly Pepsi Bottling of Brattleboro has been the leading sponsor. Entergy, which used to be Vermont Yankee, has also been a major sponsor since 1986, as has C&S Wholesale Grocers. They are all still involved, except C&S.

VBM: What do you expect for the size of the competition and the crowd?

Howell: This is an international competition with about 26 jumpers, including five women, and we’re very excited about that. We have six Europeans.

Sprague: We pay for the Europeans to come here, and Holiday Inn Express is our hospitality sponsor, they put the jumpers up for three nights. Without them we’d be looking for families to host the jumpers.

VBM: So somebody could come and jump and just say, "I’ve never jumped before, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night!"

Sprague: Very good!

VBM: Now, who was chosen to be the first jumper off the new hill?

VBM: Spencer Knickerbocker, a 16 year old Brattleboro native, is going to be the first person off the hill on Friday. Conditions are perfect.

VBM: What would you like to see for a crowd?

Sprague: I think we’re going to have 2,500 paid customers each day, which would put us in the black. There are some things that we still plan on doing, like putting electricity on the hill.

Howell: Our public relations and marketing committee this year has outdone themselves in terms of getting coverage for this tournament. With regard to getting power to the hill, right now we run the tournament on generators and it’s important to get in that Entergy has given us a $20,000 grant to bring power to the hill, but it won’t happen until the spring.

Sprague: It would have happened this year except we’re going to put the wires under the ground instead of having poles through the field. My hope is that within the next five years, we’ll have the National Championships here again.

Howell: Another important piece of this is that, as we go forward with this brand new half a million dollar plus hill, we need to begin taking a serious look at long term funding planning for how this facility will be used and maintained in the future. We want to be able to look at the possibility of doing more than a two day event every year. Making it possibly a training facility, having international competitions that go beyond our two day traditional competition. Those are some ideas that are on the table, but we don’t know exactly where we’ll go with that, but that long term planning is a key thing going forward.

Robert Smith is the editor of The Message for the Week, a weekly paper in Chester, VT, and a freelance writer and photographer living in Westminster, VT. He can be reached at robfs52@yahoo.com.