“I got this before I’d ever been to Sun Valley. It means so much to me because my dad plays a big role in my passion for skiing.”—Jann Wenner Photo: Wenner Family Archives J ann likes to ski fast more than anything. Sure, he’ll spend a few days every winter in a helicopter skiing untracked powder and will go on to finish this particular season up in Haines, AK. Annual trips to the European Alps are also part of the program, but what he really loves is banking turns while going “mach schnell,” which is probably somewhere between 50 and 60 mph. It’s why he loves Sun Valley so much. That singular combination of long, uninterrupted fall lines and precision grooming create an ideal playground for speed freaks like Jann. It’s a life-circle of sorts. In his home office in Idaho is a framed postcard with an old photo of Bald Mountain, sent to Jann by his father in the early 1960s. On the back of the postcard the senior Wenner has written, “Dear Jann, wish you were here. Best skiing I’ve ever had.” It wasn’t until the late ’80s that Jann found his way to Sun Valley during a stopover from Aspen to Blue River, BC on a heli-skiing trip. He immediately connected with Terry Palmer, an Olympic racer and stylish bon vivant at the time, and fell in love with Sun Valley’s small-town feel, friendly group of hot local skiers and unbroken fall lines. Having skied all over the world, Jann doesn’t take Sun Valley for granted. After one particularly good day, high on skiing and life, he sent a case of champagne and a heartfelt thank you letter to the snowmaking and grooming depart-ments, in recognition of their “peerless perfection in the art of snowmaking and maintenance.” Skiing isn’t the only thing he likes that involves speed. The fast motorcycles in his garage speak to that. So do a few totaled sports cars during his wild past. Nowadays though, it’s mostly skiing and we spend the short lift ride discussing the cosmic nuances and celestial thrill found while gliding at high speed. The Warm Springs Cadillac cruiser is next and the feel-ing continues, a three-minute, 60 mph buzz of top-to-bottom goodness that turns us into blithering bags of stoke. The most absurd part being that we get to do it again and again and again, a beautiful hamster wheel of privileged recreation punctuated by moments of pure bliss. As we slide onto the lift after one particularly outstanding run, Jann, full to the brim with skiing’s potent elixir of freedom and adrenaline, along with a subtle dose of THC, exclaims to no one in particular, “WHAT AN AMAZING FUCKING FEELING!” His unbridled, stoke-filled statement makes perfect sense to me and every other skier within earshot. O ccasionally the real world crashes the party. A phone call from New York would come in while he was on the lift or in the lodge. Jann, the powerful and mercurial business mogul, would rear his head and I often felt sorry for whoever was at the other end of the call. The conversations were always brisk and usually involved Jann saying no. He didn’t like it. They needed to do it again. The cover image was wrong. The story didn’t make any sense. Fix it. I don’t think he ever actu-ally fired anyone on these calls, but there were a few times when it must have been a near thing. Running a media empire in New York from a ski mountain in Idaho came with a unique set of challenges, but Jann was adamant and skiing all winter was non-negotiable. He installed a satellite phone in his house to ensure uninterrupted WiFi and cell service and his iPhone is never far from his hands. Frequent trips to the Big Apple were required as the business mogul and ski bum learned to play nicely with each other. In the city, Jann was known, and sometimes straight-up feared, for his intense “my way or the highway” leadership style—a brazen and unrepentant risk taker at the helm of one of the most successful and recognizable media brands in the world. 040 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume 12, Issue 3: Page 40
