Chapter 6

SAN DIEGO COUNTY

San Diego is the quintessential Southern California city, with an abundance of sunshine and a location only twenty miles from the state’s southern border. This unpromising geography didn’t stop the city’s ski devotees from banding together to form a ski club. The San Diego Ski Club, founded in 1935, was very active in the Cuyamaca Mountains in San Diego County. It has the distinction of being the most southwesterly club in the United States and one of the oldest active clubs in Southern California. The club started with forty members, an amazing number given the year and geographic location of the club. It held its first race, a slalom, in San Diego County at Mount Laguna in 1938.

Club members had dreamed of skiing on a local San Diego County peak, so in the fall of 1938, the State Park Commission of California approved their plan to clear shrubs, rocks and stumps on Cuyamaca Mountain.¹²⁴

Christmas Day 1938 marked the culmination of nine consecutive weekends of work that resulted in developing a small portion of the mountain into suitable ski terrain. The Forest Service supervised the clearing of brush and undergrowth, and Milton S. Jackson and Arnold Cayser served as work party leaders. When all was said and done, one thousand man-hours of labor had been contributed to the project. An average of over 20 people per weekend was involved in the work parties, with a total of 160 individuals participating.

The ski-friendly Park Commission also approved the use of the Cuyamaca Rancho Fire Guard Station for the club to use as a ski hut. The hut was located about twenty-five minutes by trail from the ski slope. A fire road provided a nice downhill run from the slope to the hut. It was outfitted with a kitchen, fireplace, water heater, toilet facilities, running water and telephone. Most of these features were luxuries that other ski huts at the time did not possess.

Milton S. Jackson, vice-president of the San Diego Ski Club, and Arnold Cayser, San Diego Ski Club president, were responsible for discovering the ski terrain on Cuyamaca. Their efforts resulted in the development of the slope and facilities for the club. Because of Jackson’s efforts, the club resolved that the slope be named Jackson Meadow and spearheaded the effort to give that name official recognition.

In 1938, the San Diego Ski Club cleared ski runs on a portion of Cuyamaca Peak. Club members spent nine consecutive weekends clearing brush and other obstacles. Then, in 1939, they built a rope tow, tow house and shed to store ski patrol equipment, shown here. Courtesy of Karen Wullich Herbst.

One of the San Diego Ski Club’s priorities was to have a rope tow on Cuyamaca. This dream was realized when the club installed a rope tow in 1939. This tow operated until the late 1950s or early 1960s. Additional slope improvements and clearing continued over the years, described in an interesting account of the work that took place in November 1941:

Thrills galore were experienced by workers at Jackson Meadows last Sunday. Three large trees and two projecting rocks were blasted off the slope in a series of loud booms that sounded like a blitzkrieg. Trunks, roots and branches went flying through the air with the greatest of ease. 145 sticks of dynamite were used for the works. With all those moguls removed from the slope, skiing this winter will be lots of fun.¹²⁵

The San Diego Ski Club’s home slopes often presented quite a challenge. The conditions on one less-than-perfect 1942 weekend were reported in the club’s newsletter:

The weekend of Feb. 21 and 22 found nine hopefuls bunked in the back room of the Fire Guard Station, listening to the pitter-patter of rain on the roof. A sad situation. Came the dawn with more rain and more skiers. The doughty die-hards skied through rain, slush and an occasional snowflake until the slope was reduced to chocolate pudding. Fun in the snow a la Cuyamaca! Ski-Nooz is convinced that the San Diego brand of skier is the most versatile in the country. Haven’t we proven that we can ski on snow, water, pine needles and mud with equal facility!¹²⁶

The San Diego Ski Club was also well known for its strong skiers and ski patrol activities. One of its most acclaimed and decorated members happened to be a woman, Dorothy McClung Wullich. She learned to ski in 1939, inspired by ski scenes in a movie she’d watched. Only three years later, on January 12, 1942, she became the first female member of the National Ski Patrol.¹²⁷

Dorothy McClung Wullich, the best female skier in San Diego County in the 1930s and 1940s, was physically strong and able to hold her own among her male counterparts. On January 12, 1942, Wullich was named the first female member of the National Ski Patrol. She earned the honor through demonstrations of physical strength, first aid skills and skiing expertise on ski patrol missions with the San Diego Ski Club. Courtesy of Karen Wullich Herbst.

Dorothy proved her expertise and worthiness when she, with five other members of the San Diego Ski Club (all male), skied into Cuyamaca Peak to deliver 150 pounds of food to stranded rangers. Ordinarily, vehicles would carry supplies to the lookouts where the rangers were stationed to scan the skies for enemy aircraft. However, at this time, almost three feet of snow covered the trails, which were impassable to everyone except those on skis. The San Diego Ski Club was lauded for its accomplishment, and Dorothy proved her physical strength, first aid skills and proficiency on skis. After this feat, the American Ski Annual reported that Dorothy won her honor as the first female member of the National Ski Patrol based on “the strength of her record as a skier” and that her “enthusiasm has surmounted the difficulties of many arduous ski safaris.”¹²⁸

Dorothy was also a talented racer, and an injury in the 1941 San Gorgonio Downhill race motivated her to become involved in ski patrol work. Describing the mishap, she recalled, “I was going too fast, I guess, and tried to check my speed—that’s all there was to it. When it was all over, I had broken my right leg in five places. With six other skiers hauling me, it took four hours to get down the trail that night.”¹²⁹ She was on crutches for two months, and it was during this time that Dorothy concluded that rescue techniques in the Southern California mountains needed vast improvement. To help satisfy this need, she became a member of the San Diego Ski Patrol, the first in Southern California (established in 1941), and enrolled in Red Cross first aid courses.

In 1941, three years after the National Ski Patrol had been established, there were five hundred men in the organization. The nomination of a woman was a precedent-setting move and was not an easy one to overcome. Walter H. Clemmons, section chief of the southern district of California, took up Dorothy’s cause. In a letter to Charles “Minnie” Dole, founder and chairman of the National Ski Patrol, Clemmons wrote:

Where women skiers are possessed of unusual skiing ability and where their stamina on skis, particularly on cross-country tours, indicates that they would be able to handle the heavier demands of rescue transportation, I have felt that they should be seriously considered for a place right alongside the male members of the National Patrol. Ability in the application of first aid can, of course, be equally as efficient in the case of women as well as men, perhaps even more efficient. Other qualifications of personality, tact and interest in patrol work can be just as desirable in women. Granted that women skiers so completely qualified are unusual, it still seems to me that where they meet all requirements they should be awarded full honors and considerations.¹³⁰

Clemmons concluded his letter with the following recommendation: “I would like to respectively request that the appointment of Dorothy McClung to the National Ski Patrol be fully considered at this time before rejection because of sex, even though hers might be the first woman appointment.”

Dorothy received acknowledgment that she possessed all the physical and technical abilities required to be a member of the National Ski Patrol. A letter dated January 16, 1942, from the National Ski Patrol Committee proclaimed: “The National Committee takes sincere pleasure in presenting you with Special Badge Number 1 together with your Certificate of Merit. This badge is conceived as an honorary award in recognition of the certain talents that have marked you eligible to receive it.” The letter went on to state, “A Special Badge has been created for you and the National Committee looks to you to carry yourself that all women skiers and young patrolmen will aspire to the honor you have been given.”

She had the opportunity to again prove her worthiness of the honor when, in 1944, the San Diego division of the National Ski Patrol was called upon for a rescue on Cuyamaca Peak. This time, fourteen skiers, including Dorothy, scaled a steep slope on two trips to carry fuel to stranded men on two snowbound federal forestry lookouts. The snow was seven feet deep, and the men had only five days’ of fuel remaining when the rescue team arrived.

Five cylinders of bottled gas, each weighing 140 pounds, were transported almost a mile up the snowy slopes of Cuyamaca Peak on the patrol’s toboggan. The toboggan had to be hauled two and a half miles from the fire guard station on Highway 79 to the location where the cylinders had been cached by forestry crews that had bogged down in tractor-drawn sleds the previous week. The men on this rescue included Arthur Wullich, Hughes Hobart, Henry and Norbert Mandolf (father and son), Harold Stark, Anthony H. Tenbroek, Bob Seebold, Ed Bushman, Jack Hopkins, Robert Nelson, Hubert Brooks, Walter Munk and Dick Reynolds.

In January 1949, when the higher elevations in San Diego County received unusually heavy snowfall, club members were called upon for two rescue operations. Julian, the historic mining town, had been without power for three days. Authorities had difficulty negotiating the deep snow to find the break in the line. “The San Diego skiers were called upon for snowshoes to assist in the repair work. Despite the warnings of impending danger the group donned their trusty skis and led the repair party to the trouble spot.”¹³¹

That same weekend, January 16 and 17, 1949, the club was contacted by the San Diego County sheriff. A ninety-year-old Indian was snowbound in his cabin on Volcan Mountain. The skiers made the arduous nine-hour trip, moving the man to the road on an improvised rescue toboggan. The four skiers involved in the rescues were Art Wullich, Sandy McMaster, Joe Levine and Henry Mandolf.

San Diego County’s only commercial downhill ski area, Palomar Mountain Ski Area, was developed by Charles H. Darby in the fall of 1966. Based on fifteen years of snow studies, the area opened with two two-thousand-foot T-bars plus a pair of rope tows covering the beginners’ slope. Just in case Mother Nature didn’t cooperate, he installed enough Larchmont snow-making equipment to cover at least ten acres. The area had beginner to advanced terrain with slopes 10 to 25 percent incline. The brochure announced over ten acres of man-made snow on four runs. Darby, a La Jolla contractor, acted as president of his Palomar Mountain Corporation, with his son Martin serving as vice-president and James Murray as secretary-treasurer.

Situated a mile and a quarter south of the renowned Mount Palomar Observatory, the ski area had a number of advantageous amenities: a paved parking lot for more than one thousand cars, a day lodge with a restaurant and ski shop and a good county highway—Palomar Mountain’s Highway to the Stars—for easy access to the area.

A familiar scene at 5,600-foot Palomar Mountain Ski Area. These skiers, at the base area of the rope tow, would not be skiing were it not for man-made snow. Courtesy of the San Diego History Center.

When Charles Darby opened Palomar Mountain Ski Area, he was confident that the area would succeed in spite of its southern location and marginal elevation. Even man-made snow was not enough to keep the area operating for more than its inaugural season, 1966–67. Courtesy of the San Diego History Center.

The senior Darby spoke optimistically of his new area: “Our longest run measures 3500 feet and eventually we hope to have snowmaking equipment available for this as needed. We’re sheltered and cold, and even though our top elevation is only 5600 feet we’ve studied this area long enough to know what we’re doing.”¹³²

Darby’s daughter, Robin Howell, recalled that the ski area only operated about ten days that winter. San Diego skiers were excited about the prospect of a local ski area, and many flocked to the Palomar Mountain Ski Area when there was snow. Unfortunately, the temperatures were often too warm for snow making, and Howell recalled that there was only one snowfall that year and it was only a few inches.¹³³