Radcliffe Probes Ski Boom; Blames Snow, Clothes, Men

Skiing's sudden popularity at Radcliffe, 35 years after the Norse sport's invasion of New England, is credited by its new enthusiasts to reasons as various as the heavy 1948 snowstorms and the fact that Harvard men have just gone in for it in impressive numbers.

Above three representatives prepare to ascend the slopes at North Conway to ply Radcliffe's new pastime.

Last year's genuine ski enthusiasts at the Annex could have been transported to North Conway in a jeep. This year finds a Radcliffe Ski club, chartered by the Student Government Association; extra storage space set apart in the Quadrangle dormitories for ski equipment; entryways stacked with waxed lumber, and northward-bound parties large enough to fill a special bus.

There is reason to believe that Radcliffe's interest is part of the payoff for New England's nationwide advertising of its winter sport. Sally Leavitt '49 is sure of it. The daughter of the headmaster of Vermont Academy, whose Winter Carnival 40 years ago gave a Dartmouth junior the inspiration for Hanover's first similar event, she has seen skiing history made in her own state.

Fashion Motif

The late great growth of schussing she attributes to fashion. "When department stores took ski clothes for girls out of the sporting goods shops and stocked the ski suits where they could be seen," she says, "they became part of the college wardrobe."

Radcliffe students from cities as flat as Philadelphia came to Cambridge this year equipped with all the gear to take to the hills. She swelled a delegation which already included New Englanders like Alice Sizer '50, Nina Emerson '50, and Anne Richard '49, all experts and European-born veterans like Maja Weisl '50 of Prague, Czechoslovakia, who took up the sport when she was five.

Study Cramp Motif

The most widely held theory, to explain this year's spurt, is a search for outdoor sport to break the winter grind with the books. "Studies are cramping," says Grace Tuttle '49. "Even on a nearby ski slope, college seems miles away." There's nothing like it to restore tired tissues after a round of examinations, says Betty Crowley '49. And Georgette Haigh '49 thinks that skiing provides the balance between study and recreation that is demanded by the new type of college girl.