"Annie Coleman has written the first cultural history of skiing in the United States, recounting how this European sport evolved into an American industry combining recreation, tourism, consumption, and wilderness - along with a solid dose of exhilaration and a dash of celebrity. She reveals how the meaning of skiing changed over the twentieth century, how sport and leisure in American came to be about status and style as much as about physical activity, and how modern consumer culture merged the mythic West with real western places."
"Coleman traces skiing from its Norse roots and Alpine influences through the utility of ski travel in the winter Rockies to the rise of Colorado resorts. Much more than a history of the sport, her work explains how the recreation industry sold the experience of skiing and created mythic mountain landscapes with real problems - and a ski culture that exalts celebrity and status over the physical act of skiing."--Jacket.