Franklin Edson Memorial Race Poster

Franklin Edson Memorial Race

April 4th, 1937

The first Giant Slalom race in the United States was held in Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington, New Hampshire.

Photograph by Harold Orne.

20" x 24"

In April 4, 1937, some 2,800 hardy spectators and a small number of ski adventurers, many of them members of the Dartmouth Outing Club, trekked the roughly 2.5 miles from Pinkham Notch, New Hampshire, to the base of the immense glacial bowl known as Tuckerman Ravine, seeming to fill the southeastern shoulder  of 6,288-foot Mount Washington. Among the spectators was Harold Orne, a Massachusetts photographer who was making a bit of a name for himself in the nascent New England ski scene by lugging his Graflex Speed Graphic camera to mountains large and small, capturing the people who followed the snow years before ski lifts and ski resorts added comfort to the adventure.

On this day, ski history was being made, and Orne was there. A ski race named in honor of Franklin Edson, who had died a year earlier in a downhill race in Massachusetts, would for the first time feature carefully placed poles at strategic points to force skiers to control their speed: It was the first giant slalom race in America. “Tucks” had already been the scene of a daredevil race named “The Inferno,” and its steep, imposing walls tested even the most skilled skiers of the time.

Today, on sun-splashed days from early April into June, hundreds of skiers and spectators still trek to Tucks, where 50 feet or more of snow greets them—challenging intrepid souls to climb as high as they dare, to find their line down, while everyone’s eyes look upward.   —Mel Allen, Yankee Magazine March/April 2016