it setting aside the section prescribed in that legislation for creating a winter recreation facility in the upper reaches of the San Gorgonio Wild Area to answer the growing need for Southern California winter recreational facilities and to enhance the unique esthetic and natural qualities of the area for all citizens.

While congressmen met in San Bernardino last week to hear testimony on opening a portion of the San Gorgonio Wild Area to lift skiing, snow fell on the Sierra Nevada. Snow, too, farther up on San Gorgonio, perhaps above the 9100-ft. elevation, where skiers would like to have their ski area located.

As congressmen listened to "conservationist" vs. "skier" arguments in San Bernardino, the skiers packed boards on transportation and headed for Mammoth Mountain (carrying chains, of course).

Yes, chains! Buy yours if you haven't already. Every skier, though his byword is spontaneity, plans ahead when it comes to safety.

Chains for tires, safety straps for skis, proper adjustment for bindings-all these things have been checked out for weeks waiting for snow by true skiers. Well, it's here. Get off the prayer rug-unless "summer" returns, your room investment at Mammoth or June Mountain for the traditional Thanksgiving holiday trek was a good one. Both are about 40 miles north of Bishop, California. Local skiing depends on a storm with low enough temperatures to deposit snow rather than rain.

For the week end, Mammoth, which opened Tuesday with two feet of powder, is packing its runs by cat. The area is operating three chairs and two T-bars. For latest information call (213) 894-6466.

June Mountain opened this week end with 18 to 30 inches of packed powder from its 10,212 summit to the Chalet Schweizerhof atop the first ski lift.

But what's happening in our back yard in regard to San Gorgonio? The congressional hearing will continue in Washington, D.C., and results will eventually be brought before Congress as a whole for vote.

On Oct. 4, 1965, the Ski Writers Association of Southern California adopted its long-considered resolution related to opening the controversial area.

Since the document was formlated by press, radio, and television writers as well as photographers who have made it a point to become aware of the issues involved, it is of importance to readers.

The gist, included in the summary section, reads as follows:

"THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, by the Ski Writers Association of Southern California, that the Congress of the United States approve the legislation now before it setting aside the section prescribed in that legislation for creating a winter recreation facility in the upper reaches of the San Gorgonio wild area to answer the growing need for Southern California winter recreation facilities and to enhance the unique esthetic and natural qualities of the area for all citizens." When and if San Gorgonio is opened to lift skiing, there must be restrictions built into the legislation if the latter part of the SWA of SC resolution is to be guaranteed. And it must be guaranteed to protect the interests of both conservationist and skier.

Skiers want to ski and would be satisfied with any one of several locations within the area requested, but investors would push for the heart of the Wild Area, which is the unique section which must be protected.

This writer believes it can be protected with Congress guaranteed restrictions laying out basic requirements for the United States Forest Service to include in

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the prospectus it develops for bidders on development and additionally that the legislation should be amended to include them.

The area could then be of benefit to "all citizens" and the USFS aim of "multiple use" would be a reality rather than an ideal.

These restrictions are respectfully suggested to be as follows: (1) entry to be by rapid transit subway with no roads or parking lots within the boundaries of the present Wild Area; (2) comfort facilities and other constructions to be below ground at the inside terminal with only a stairway or ramp entry shelter above ground; (3) these minimum facilities and particularly the subway to be closed except during the ski season, and (4) lift towers to be designed portable for use only during the ski season and to be removed at its close.

If such requirements discourage some bidders, they would not discourage all those we have heard whose only wish is to open the area so skiers can ski and Olympic hopefuls can train.

Let's have some reader comments on this.

We wouldn't recommend horseback riding to improve skiing, but we're told the bowed legs one is supposed to get from the sport is a skiing asset. Yes, that's what veteran June Mountain ski instructor Gary Rogers told us last week end. Bow-legged skiers can edge their skis more positively and with less effort than straight-legged, and certainly knock-kneed, skiers. So Gary builds up his instep a bit in the direction of a "bow."

Can't you see this as a topic for apres-ski talk? Instead of, "What are you skiing on this season?" it will be, "What instep-builder are you using?"

We can picture a whole new industry growing up on a par with skis, boots, and poles. Varieties will be designated for pleasure skiing or racing, with the latter in slalom, giant slalom, and downhill models. Length and camber of the "builder" will be very controversial, of course, as will be degree of flexibility versus stiffness in design, with better models an intricate combination of the latter two, naturally.

Manufacturers will be vying to get their models on the top racers, with the thing the more mysterious because only the racer himself will know what he really has down there inside his boot! How would you know? Maybe he was born with those efficiently curved legs and only claims instep-builders for snow appeal!

Well, anyway, lessons are a great asset in themselves to the skier, and we enjoyed ours with Gary. At the start of the season, they're especially helpful to any skier to build confidence and remind one of bad habits and how to eliminate them.

The June Mountain ski school is directed by Toby Von Euw and includes a number of competent instructors who teach the American technique.

June Mountain itself, north of Bishop, Cal., has a number of improvements to report.

The Hutson Haus snack bar and comfort station in Hutson Meadows allows skiers to remain on the Back Mountain all day and still have hot food and a place to relax. There also are 20 acres of new and widened runs.

We skied the whole of the area, including the challenging Face with its expertclass terrain. The snow conditions were excellent, and all runs completely covered with packed powder.

Chairlift One, which services the Face and also carries skiers to the Grand Chalet Schweitzerhof, had no waiting line throughout the day, so skiing this area could be continuous.

This lift also has a 37% increase in downhill capacity to the parking area. Though some skiers ski the Face to the bottom, most ride Chairlift One, and the increase eases bottlenecks at day's end.

Other runs had either no lift lines or very short ones.

The parking area has been increased by 21⁄2 paved acres, allowing parking for a total of 600 cars.

In town, a discotheque and restaurant is a new addition, plus a bed increase of 150. Almost finished is a new luxury dining spot, something June Lake has needed to round out evening entertainment.

All in all, there's a new look to the whole area, and it's worth a visit.

The skier can look southwest from the 10,212 ft. crest of June Mountain and see Mammoth Mountain, pinpointing most of the runs. There's also a tremendous view of Mono Lake, that weird geologic wonder.

Cool weather in the Sierra promises continued excellent skiing for this week end, which should also prevail at neighboring Mammoth.

We've received several answers to our editorial on San Gorgonio of two weeks ago, which generally question the economic feasibility of an underground rapid transit subway.

We had, of course, considered economic problems in our proposals, but wish to submit that economics is not the main consideration when matters of recreation and beauty are concerned.

These "amenities" are, after all, the vital requirements of man which lift him above the animal necessities of food and drink, clothing and shelter. Without them, he is only a human machine.

It is important to remember that any access is going to be expensive, but if we can fly to the moon, we can surely get the short distance into the heart of the San Gorgonio Wild Area without marring its wild surface beauty for present visitors as well as posterity.

Underground access seems the only way.

SKI CHATTER

Pioneer ski area Badger Pass in Yosemite National Park is open, and boasting a chairlift expected to be in operation this week end!

Some thought they'd never see a chairlift in a national park. Here it is. Palm Springs Aerial Tramway inaugurates Christmas programs with a visit from Santa Claus tomorrow.

Full details are available from Jeri Taylor at the tramway at Palm Springs. Phone number is 324-4615.

Mammoth Mountain is featuring weekly standard races Wednesdays at 1 p.m., qualifiers to receive gold, silver, or bronze pins.

HESPERIA CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,

Hesperia, Calif., October 26, 1965.

Hon. WALTER S. BARING,

Chairman, Subcommittee on Public Lands,

House Office Building,

Washington, D.C.

MY DEAR MR. BARING: After considering the pros and cons regarding the opening of San Gorgonio to winter recreation on the upper slopes, the Board of Directors of the Hesperia Chamber of Commerce endorsed the plan.

We are interested in the preservation of wilderness areas, but believe that with the right kind of supervision and with specific safeguards, this area could be used by a great many more people and still retain its natural beauty. In apprizing you of this endorsement, we request that this information be included in the testimony of the hearing.

Respectfully yours,

Representative WALTER S. BARING,

R. W. E. THOMPSON, President.
DECEMBER 6, 1965.

Chairman, Land Committee of Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: I will appreciate it if you will read the enclosed column at the forthcoming hearings on San Gorgonio. It was written by me November 16, 1965, published in the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, and in other newspapers that subscribe to my column with King Features Syndicate.

I wish to emphasize that the winter sports project for San Gorgonio is strongly supported not only by my newspaper, but by hundreds of thousands of other sports fans in the Southern California area.

With best wishes,

MELVIN DURSLAG.

[From the Los Angeles Herald-Examiner, Nov. 16, 1965]

GORGONIO: A PLEA FOR 10 PER CENT

(By Melvin Durslag)

SAN BERNARDINO. To understand fully the Southern California psyche, you go back to the sewer problem in Los Angeles.

With each moderate rainfall, the streets used to flood. Worse yet, water would cascade into housing developments in the flatlands, sending people and their pets to the roof.

There was one intersection in particular, not far from the airport, to where city editors would dispatch a photographer with each rain. People in that area manned rowboats, often to rescue motorists marooned atop their cars.

Still, the citizenry wouldn't vote for sewers, the dissenters reasoning that it rained around here only a few times a year. Then people defeated a bond issue to construct the Coliseum. If the newspaper publishers hadn't formed a private group to underwrite the costs, a stadium never may have been built in Los Angeles.

And once the stadium was there, its commissioners were to reject professional football. The pros got into the place only after a big argument.

Nor was major league baseball welcomed with open arms. First, it was barred from the Coliseum, after which obstructionists blocked every plan to build a municipal ball park.

THE NEW BATTLEFIELD

You recall this enviable record of progress in taking note of the fascinating battle for a mountain now occurring in San Bernardino County where a congressional hearing will eventually lead to a settlement, one way or the other.

The fight matches the skiers against the nature lovers, and their battleground is a handsome piece of real estate called Mt. San Gorgonio, some 80 miles east of Los Angeles.

Rising upward of 11.000 feet. San Gorgonio is the only place in Southern California where snow is assured during the winter sports season. Skiers in the area number upward of 300,000, and they are forced to travel to the High Sierra, a minimum of 650 miles round-trip, in order to find the stuff on which to roar down the hill on slats.

San Gorgonio embraces some 35,000 acres. The skiers are asking for only 10 per cent of the land, which happens to belong to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The request would seem reasonable enough, except that the nature lovers, which includes bird watchers, butterfly collectors, rock hunters, campers and the like, want the whole blasted mountain for themselves.

They claim that skiing will commercialize and ruin their arcardian wonderland, and even though their group is small by contrast, it is vocal enough to have frightened the Government for all these years.

The war between the skiers and the nature lovers has been going on for maybe three decades, but it wasn't until three or four years ago that the embroilment captured the fancy of a gentleman named Vincent X. Flaherty, a prominent journalist with wide experience in fighting obstructionists.

He spent 13 years trying to bring big league baseball to California. The roadblocks he encountered were so many and so diverse as to be almost laughable. But he won.

And now that three teams inhabit the state-and they drew upward of 41⁄2 million customers this year-he reflects with amusement his trials attempting to get only one here.

THE SAME TYPE

Vincent finds it hard to explain why he got into the San Gorgonio fight, except that he detected the same type of counteractants in it that he found in the baseball battle, and he got mad.

The first thing he did was visit the late President Kennedy in the White House. Although skiing on San Gorgonio didn't take precedence over everything else

on his list of things to be accomplished, the President agreed that the birdwatchers didn't have the right to the whole mountain and he arranged an interview for Flaherty with Secretary of Agriculture Freeman.

Had Mr. Kennedy lived, Vincent feels that winter sports buffs already would be rolling down the slopes of San Gorgonio, rather than sweat out the results of a congressional hearing.

The case is interesting and very much of national concern, because it will serve as a test of whether a comparative handful of nature lovers can conserve for themselves vast public lands requested by groups infinitely larger.

Exploring the woods, searching for a golden-throated finch, may be an admirable pastime, but Flaherty insists that one doesn't need more than 90 per cent of a mountain in which to do it.

APPLE VALLEY-VICTORVILLE JUNIOR CHAMBER OF COMMERCE,

Hon. WALTER S. BARING,

Victorville, Calif., November 4, 1965.

Chairman, Public Land Subcommittee, Interior and Insular Affairs Committee, Longworth House Office Building, Washington, D.C.

DEAR CONGRESSMAN BARING: This is to transmit to you, for inclusion in the official records of your subcommittee, a recent resolution of the Apple ValleyVictorville Junior Chamber of Commerce, favoring, with certain restrictions, passage of HR 6891, recently introduced by our representative, Hon. Ken W. Dyal.

The membership of the Apple Valley-Victorville Jaycees represents the Victor Valley Area of Southern California, which area centers approximately 40 miles north and west of the San Gorgonio Wilderness Area. One of the purposes of Jaycees, locally and nationally, is community development. In line with this purpose, and believing that the opening of a portion of the wilderness area for family winter recreation will be a stimulus to economic and recreational development of Victor Valley, the Apple Valley-Victorville Jaycees urge your subcommittee's support of HR 6891, with the reservations stipulated in the attached resolution.

Respectfully yours,

PAUL R. POTTER, Secretary.

RESOLUTION BY THE APPLE VALLEY-VICTORVILLE JUNIOR CHAMBER OF COMMERCE Whereas, the Apple Valley-Victorville Junior Chamber of Commerce feel that it is their civic responsibility to comment on matters of importance to their communities; and

Whereas, the opening of a certain portion of the San Gorgonio Wilderness Area to family winter recreation, would benefit members of the communities served by this Jaycee Chapter.

Now, therefore be it Resolved that the Apple Valley-Victorville Junior Chamber of Commerce supports passage of the bill introduced by Hon. Ken Dyal (HR 6891) with the following reservations or restrictions:

That the area be limited to 3500 acres, which represents 1/10 of the total San Gorgonio Wilderness Area.

That no roads shall be constructed in the remaining wilderness area.
That the existing or future roads be closed during the summer months.
That no motor vehicles be permitted off existing or proposed roads.

That 2.50 percent of the gross revenues from commercial ventures in the recreation area be placed in a trust fund for improvement and extension of hiking, camping, and other outdoor facilities in the remaining wilderness area. That no public overnight accommodations be permitted in the recreation area. That the proposed ski facilities shall in no way interfere with existing water sheds.

That all sanitation facilities be of a type approved by local and State Department requirements.