‘If you can ski here, you can ski anywhere’
Fox Hill celebrates 100th anniversary
By GAY GRIESBACH • For the Daily News
Sliding over snowy landscapes has been a passion for members of the Milwaukee Ski Club for the past century. Now based at the Fox Hill Ski Area on the eastern shore of Big Cedar Lake, the club had several venues before settling on the current one, hosting ski jumping tournaments that drew scores of competitors and thousands of spectators. “Before organized skiing took off, this club was the only game in town,” said Tom Weinand, a member of the club for 53 years. The club, which began in December 1910, reorganized
in 1923, and a brief history lists Fredrick Pabst Jr., son of the Milwaukee beer baron, as the club’s secretary. “He developed this club,” said board member Steve Sundquist. “He developed clubs all over, east of the Mississippi and into Canada. He was the Johnny Appleseed of skiing clubs.” Sundquist took a break from skiing, sorting through photos at a long table in the club lodge on New Year’s Day. In the 1940s, ’50s and early ’60s, membership approached 400. Now, the club has about 35 member names on its roster, which includes families, couples and singles. “(Families) are the salvation of this club,” Weinand said. “As you look around, a lot of these guys grew up around here and bring their kids back here for a similar experience.” Although an outline of the club’s history doesn’t give an exact date that the group took out a 99-year lease on the Fox Hill property, Weinand said in the 1960s the club bought the property from John Timmer. In 1949, a homey chalet was constructed from an army-surplus barrack. The chalet still provides a place for skiers to warm up, feed the wood stove, take in a meal, visit and glean club history from trophies, photos, signs and antique equipment that decorates the chalet. The barrack kit was shipped to Slinger by rail, but the hill has been used as a ski area since the late 1930s; first by informal clubs and skiers that would walk across the road from Timmer’s Resort, Weinand said. The unpretentious chalet, mismatched furniture and simple tow ropes are all part of the hill’s charm. Skiing Fox Hill is like a taking a trip to a back-country ski area, Sundquist and Tom Schoenauer said. Schoenauer has been a member since 1978, taking time off while he attended college and then lived in Charlotte, N.C. for eight years. When he and his family settled in Delafield, the Schoenauers signed up for a family membership. “It’s the best skiing in Wisconsin. It’s old school. There are not many places like this anywhere. It’s as close as you can get to out-west skiing – no grooming, no chairlifts,” Schoenauer. “If you can ski here, you can ski anywhere.” “There’s no amenities, no chairlift, no snowmaking machine – just a tow rope and natural snow,” Sundquist said. Very little has changed with the facilities in Weinand’s halfcentury of membership, but the number of sports at the club has broadened to include snowboarding, cross-country skiing, snowshoeing and skate skiing. The surge in popularity of cross-country skiing has brought about 100 Nordic skiers who use trails that are linked to a cross country system on 176 acres of adjacent Cedar Lake Conservation Foundation property, Weinand said. Although most members have had parents who belonged to the club, Dave Baldus, who raced competitively in high school, is usual in that his parents never skied. Still, his name is engraved on the club’s White Stag Trophy in the second place position under the year 1964. The trophy was a traveling prize awarded to Fox Hill and other area club members from 1947 to 1979. Now, the joy of Wisconsin winters and easy camaraderie has replaced competition for Baldus. “It’s good to be outside. We have winter; why not enjoy it,” Baldus said. Weinand, 70, said many winter sports can become a lifetime pursuit if you keep the habit. “I wouldn’t want to miss a year,” said Weinand.
Gay Griesbach/For the Daily News Staff Milwaukee Ski Club member Tom Schoenauer of Delafield guides his daughter Veronica, 5, down a slope at Fox Hill Ski Area near the shores of Big Cedar Lake on New Year’s Day. Members of the century-old club are fond of its family atmosphere and back-country ski conditions.
Gay Griesbach/For the Daily News Staff Skiers take a lunch break at the Fox Hill Ski Area lodge. The Milwaukee Ski Club, which owns and operates the hill, is celebrating its 100th anniversary this year.
