There’s a special aura waiting in the early morning hour for first tram at Snowbird. Across the canyon, the glinting sunrise reflects off Mount Superior, creeping along the ridgeline separating Little from Big Cottonwood Canyon. Below the concrete floor of the Snowbird Center, the sound of heavy machinery sends anticipatory vibrations through your ski boots.
Soon, the morning chatter became more focused as skiers of all ages maneuvered their places in line to talk with a legend.
Junior Bounous was in the house!
Junior is, indeed, a living legend. A prodigy of the late Alf Engen himself, and a snowsports instructor who literally rewrote the book on teaching, Junior Bounous has probably taught more people to ski than anyone in the world.
Today, as you read this, he’s pushing 70 days this season at Snowbird and Alta. Oh, and he’s 98 years old!
Junior Bounous is a walking, talking history book of skiing in the Wasatch. He grew up in a fruit farming family from Provo, and Mom gave him skis at 11. He loved wandering around the mountains of Provo Canyon in the 1930s and ’40s. But it was his connection with Alf Engen that set him on his career path at Alta.
Engen’s mentorship helped Bounous learn how to convey his own love of the sport to others. In an era during the ’50s where European ski school directors each had their own way of teaching, Bounous was among those who helped standardize instruction.
But as his career took him from Alta to Sugar Bowl to Timp Haven to Snowbird, what he and his wife, Maxime, carried with them was a true love of being on snow.
As our red tram car pulled out of the station, Junior grabbed the left front corner window. His eyes remained transfixed on the runs below, peering down on the cliffs of Silver Fox where he used to initiate instructors, rumbling over Tower 3 and smoothly sailing over the fabled cirque.
This was his ski resort — the one that visionary Ted Johnson had him design in the spring and summer of 1971.
After seven minutes of memories, we stepped off the tram onto the top of Hidden Peak. Junior pointed to the narrow slot down the face of Twin Peaks in the distance. That’s where, back in the ’70s, he and Jim McConkey skied the first descent of the 700-foot vertical couloir called Pipeline.
Just for the memories, Junior did it again at age 80!
He took a minute to sit on the memorial bench to honor his wife of 67 years, Maxime. Fast Max, as she was known, had no problem keeping up with Junior. During a famous first-descent shoot for SKI Magazine on Mount Timpanogos in 1962, she’s the one leading the pack through a powder-filled bowl in the key photograph.
Blue skies were popping through the whipping clouds as a storm started coming in. Bounous surveyed the scene and led us down the ridgeline to Upper Chip’s, linking perfect turn after perfect turn. Given the option, he would tend for slightly tougher drops along Chip’s, always carefully checking surface conditions before pointing his tips into the fall line.
A day on the mountain with Junior is about more than skiing. It’s about pauses to absorb the scene, saying hello to friends, and storytelling.
Chip’s Run was Junior Bounous’ creation. As a longtime Alta skier, he and friends had often dropped through the Keyhole into Peruvian Gulch — long before Ted Johnson’s vision for Snowbird came to the fore — making big sweeping turns in the powder before finding their way back to Alta.
Being on the mountain for a morning with someone like Junior Bounous brings joy to your day. And while the skiing is great, it’s much bigger than that. It’s a sense of companionship with the outdoors and alignment with Mother Nature’s majesty.
As I linked turns down him down Who Dunnit heading back to the base, I gazed up at Mount Superior. There was a sense of quiet peace around us, punctuated by the sounds of our edges carving rhythmically into the snow, and mixed with the melodic tones of Junior’s voice as he guided us in a sing-songy manner down the mountain.
“Ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump, ba-dump.”
Want to learn more?
You can pick up a copy of “Junior Bounous on the Joys of Skiing,” written by his daughter Ayja Bounous. And you can listen to an in-depth conversation with Junior Bounous in the latest episode of my Ski Utah “Last Chair” podcast: