Sugar Bowl

In 1937, after Bill Klien invited champion skier Hannes Schroll from Yosemite to Donner Summit, Schroll saw Sugar Bowl and urged that it be developed for skiing. As Hitler took control of Austria in the Anschluss, Schroll lost the family money he had hoped to use to buy the land, so he turned to friends from Yosemite and their wider circle, and Sugar Bowl was built as the first California ski area developed as a destination resort. It featured the first chairlift in California and the second in the nation, a single-seat lift to the top of Mt. Disney, along with a lodge designed by a famous architect, rope tows, a skating rink, and ski jouring. Skiers came by train and then traveled to the Bowl by horse-drawn and later tractor-drawn sleighs. Schroll was known as a larger-than-life daredevil whose yodeling runs were famous, and Walt Disney, an initial investor, was part of Sugar Bowl's early story.

California · United States