Jim Thielen
Minneapolis Ski Club
Toronto, CAN
jp_thielen@yahoo.com
Central Division Training Camp
Mt. Valhalla; Washburn, Wisconsin
December 26-29, 1968
The Central Division conducted a ski jumping training camp between Christmas and New Year for a number of years. Year to year the camps were hosted at different hills including Madison, Ely, Minneapolis, and other locations. They were the first opportunity to get on snow and provided four days of intense training with outstanding coaches. One of those events was conducted at Mt. Valhalla in Washburn, Wisconsin. There were two ski jumping hills; a thirty meter hill and sixty meter hill that were constructed about 1935 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) and used until World War II after which they were neglected and fell into disrepair. Around 1960, Lloyd “Snowball” Severud, who had been on the original construction crew, cleared the hills and began using them again for organized training camps and competitions. The hill record on the sixty meter hill was 193 ft by Torger Tokle in 1941.
Attached is a copy of a document that included general information about a Central Division training camp held at Mt. Valhalla on December 26-29, 1968. It provided a framework for the four-day event. We slept on cots in the gymnasium of the DuPont Club, a facility built by E.I. Du Pont De Nemours and Company in 1918 as a Y.M.C.A., to service as the cultural and recreational center for its Barksdale Works employees and the Washburn community. The Club house included a basketball floor, shuffleboard court and four-lane bowling alley as well as a space for social functions. When operations at Barksdale Works (a plant to produce explosives owned and operated by DuPont and created to serve the wartime and industrial needs of the United States) wound down, DuPont offered the building to the City of Washburn in 1961 for the purpose of serving as a community center. The Club housed numerous activities including the 1980 USA Ski Jumping Team.
We left for Washburn on Christmas day. Upon arriving in Washburn after a very long day of travel, we learned that we had to boot-pack the landing hill because of a recent snowstorm. Arm-in-arm, we walked up and down the landing hill numerous times in waist-deep snow until we created a firm base for the next four days. I remember well the early morning workout running down the snow-packed main street of Washburn in the dark cold morning air. An early breakfast, then off to Mt. Valhalla for a day of skiing. At the end of the day, we would play soccer in the street. We watched 16mm film of the morning skiing. Russ Holte was very skilled with his movie camera. There were challenges finding a processing lab for 16mm silver-halide film but Russ always seemed to find a reliable source. We were fortunate to have Ed Brisson and Lenny Johnson as coaches, two of the finest coaches ever associated with the sport. They had a sharp eye for details and were prone to being brutally honest but that was only because they wanted to see athletes reach their potential.
It’s interesting to read the portion of the document, “Ride from Top to Bottom – How to Perform” and wonder how today’s competitors think about the process of competition. I’m sure there are parallels that are timeless.
