In winter, all eyes are on the snow report, but it wasn’t always like that. When a record winter delivered abundant snow in January 1915, Norwegian brothers Ole and Pete Solberg introduced the wild notion of skiing. They had grown up on skis before immigrating to Flagstaff, so the brothers carried their homemade equipment up Observatory Hill and skied down.
The next day, the entire town turned out to watch the men. It caught on quickly. Cross country skiing evolved as the norm for years for utilitarian reasons, but in 1933, Arizona Teachers College, now Northern Arizona University, advertised snowmen and skiing to appeal to students by holding the first winter carnival.
A couple of years later, someone finally looked up at the San Francisco Peaks and linked skiing and the mountain. In 1938, Arizona Snowbowl invited the public to embrace recreational skiing. Naturally, food followed, and early on, Agassiz Lodge fed hungry skiers, according to Snowbowl’s marketing director Angelina Grubb.
Over time, the mountain lured nature lovers for hiking and cooler climes, but in the last several years, Snowbowl evolved as a year-round playground destination with multiple attractions. Foremost is the enclosed seating of the gondola, which premiered in 2021. “For the longest time, we had only the three-seater chair lift, but the Scenic Gondola offers a good experience despite the weather circumstances,” Grubb said.
Other entertainment includes the longstanding tubing hill, bungee tr.
