|
For some time Walter had been talking to
the owners of a large ski area in Japan - Mount Shiga. They were interested
in offering his teaching method at their mountain and wanted him to make a demonstration
tour. Arrangements were made and the trip was planned and approved for early
1968, after the Christmas rush. In the old days Walter would simply have made
up his mind and gone. After all, he had built up an organization (and besides
his other assets, Walter was acknowledged by many to be a superb organizer and
manager) and the mountain staff could manage while he was away. This was too
important, he felt, for the prestige and growth of Natur Teknik and Jay Peak.
At the eleventh hour, he was told the plans must be changed, and that he could
not go. Unswayed, Walter kept his commitments to his Japanese hosts, and accompanied
by his number-one ski demonstrator, Ellsworth Moore, headed west to Japan. And
the rest, as the saying goes, is history. When he returned in a month's time
his role in shaping Jay Peak had come to an end. And so would much of the record
of his accomplishments there.
 |
| Detail
from a hand-painted mural on
wall of ‘Föger Haus’
(Dutchess Mt. logo) in Jay,
VT. |
| -
Photo Courtesy Chuck & Cathy
Norton |
Except for a short stint managing and directing the ski school at newly formed
Dutchess Mountain in New York State in the early 70's, and briefly, but seriously,
investigating the idea of opening a cross border (US-Canada) ski area, Walter
had left the ski world. The ski teaching association he had founded, ASTAN (American
Ski Teachers Association of Natur Teknik), operated admirably by its
new president Marilyn Hertz (Natur Teknik ski school director at Jack
Frost, Big Boulder, and Camelback, PA) and original Jay Peak, Inc., secretary
Alice Lewis (Derby's Top-of-the-Hill Lodge owner and Foeger's key office associate
in running Jay Peak day-to-day), continued for many years, as did many of the
other ski schools he had founded. At Jay Peak the Natur Teknik Ski School,
the original, without its founder, had quickly metamorphosed (in name only,
at first) into the 'Jay-Way' ski school by the '69 -'70 season with George Stepanek
(a Foeger protégé) at its head. Walter's other ski schools were
later operated for a time under the name of 'The American Parallel System' (soon
Weyerhaeuser, wearying of running a ski resort in the 1970's, sold Jay Peak
to the Mont St. Sauveur group from Quebec).
Walter's true love had been Jay Peak, but he had lost her. His heart was there,
forever entwined with skiing. He sat down and wrote an autobiographical book
about his life up to that point - "Through Heaven and Hell on Skis."
Then, in his typical fashion, Walter turned the page and focused his energies
elsewhere - becoming Vermont Seniors' Tennis Champion many years running. During
this period he enjoyed many happy hours with his old friend Sepp Ruschp, and
his son Peter, and playing tennis at the Stowe Motel. A short afterwards he
returned to Austria to become the Director of the Austrian National Tennis Association
(which he had co-founded after the war) guiding the careers of many future champions
for many years, as well as continuing to paint and write (he has written more
than eleven books to date).
|
