The only American woman to take home two gold medals in skiing from the same Olympics ­ at age 19 no less ­ Lawrence, now 69, has also been hailed by Sports Illustrated as Vermontt's greatest athlete of the 20th century.

This weekend the southern Vermontt native and daughter of the founder of Pico Peak ski area will again stand alone when she becomes the first skier to be inducted into the Vermontt Ski Hall of Fame as part of the Vermontt Ski Museum's Grand Opening weekend. Lawrence also intends to donate one of her gold medals ­ the slalom medal ­ to the ski museum. The other will remain out West where she makes her home.

From her home in Mammoth Lakes, California, Lawrence spoke this week about the changing face of the skiing industry, the importance of mountains, and, of course, the latest honor to be bestowed on her.

"I'm just hugely honored to be inducted," said Lawrence, whose image (in a race in the 50s) is used in the ski museum's logo. "Plus, I'm on the sign, in knickers at that. It's all too good to be true."

"Too good to be true" is also a good description for Lawrence's entrenchment in the skiing life.

As a child, Lawrence, who has five children of her own, spent her days on Pico Peak, the ski area her parents founded in 1937. Like the many firsts in their daughter's life, Andrea Mead Lawrence's parents had their own, including the first alpine lift in the U.S, which was installed in 1941 and drew 10,000 people to the area on its first day of operation.

The introduction of such technology at Pico, around the state, and around the country inevitably began changing the face of skiing. For Lawrence, the direction the sport has taken is not one she champions. She prefers the way it was.

"Of course, when I started skiing in Vermontt, there weren't things like grooming and snowmaking," Lawrence said. "Dealing with the natural conditions made you a better skier. When we learned to ski, we had to be in control. Skiing has to be a bit of a challenge, and I don't think we have very much of that today."

Learning how to ski in Vermontt's then unpredictable and difficult (natural) conditions made Lawrence good, very good. So good in fact that at the age of 14 she qualified for the 1948 Olympics in St. Moritz, Switzerland, as the youngest American skier ever to make the U.S. Olympic ski team. She didn't medal, although her teammate Gretchen Fraser took the gold in slalom and the silver in the combined.

But Lawrence returned in 1952, to the Oslo Olympics, taking golds in the slalom and giant slalom, and then in Cortina D'Ampezzo, Italy in 1956, her final Olympic foray, she placed fourth in the GS. Meanwhile back home she was national champion in ten events between 1949 and 1955, in giant slalom, downhill, slalom and the combined.

Her retirement from international competition coincided with great growth in the sport. Highways were being constructed carrying more and more people eager to slide on snow at new ski areas springing up around the United States. Companies improved skis and binding and clothing, making the sport a little easier and, most would say, more fun. But with all the innovations and fast lifts and slopeside lodging, something has been lost, Lawrence said.

"You can characterize skiing from back then as being ingenuous. Now it's high-tech and sort of a chic thing to do. The industry has really gone from pioneers who were creative and industrious to today with a climate of big business."

To a great extent the changes in the sport pushed Lawrence to become an environmental activist. From serving on the Mono County Board of Supervisors from 1982 to 1999 to forming the Sierra Nevada Alliance, a network of 50 community-based environmental action groups, her focus has moved from the slopes (snowshoeing and cross-country skiing instead of going downhill these days) to the landscape itself.

Lawrence saw first hand the toll skiing has taken on the environment, she said. From resort expansion on private land in the east to the growth of ski areas on public lands in the west, she is troubled by what she sees as a lost connection between skiers and the mountains that make the sport they love possible.

"Skiing is not a growth sport anymore," Lawrence said. "The growth is coming from snowboarding. We can't keep putting up ski areas for the rich and famous. Skiing has become a rich person's sport. It's the wrong tradeoff.

"People also need to realize that there is more to the mountains than just vertical feet. The mountain experience is a powerful thing. Mountains are one-fifth of the world's landscape and provide homes for one-tenth of the world's population. We need to move more toward mountains as sacred things. Mountains are presences. That's where we need to focus our energy, not at putting up more resorts."

Despite the problems Lawrence has with the modern incarnation of skiing, she will return to her home state this weekend to celebrate its cherished past and take her place as part of it.

by Ethan Dezotelle, 8/15/2002
The Stowe Reporter