A few days ago I ran across some old photographs that have absolutely no value to anyone in the world except me, for they trigger memories of where my filming career started.

One of the photos is of a 1950 Chevy panel delivery truck in a snow-bank behind the Palisades Tahoe Lodge. The lodge burned to the ground a year or two later.

This panel truck was my home for several years as I traveled and made my first four feature-length ski films. It was an ideal set up for me. There was no large overhead to apply against (any) earnings. That was nice as I sold one dollar tickets to my ski films in those days. My only real costs for the truck were gasoline and an occasional oil change. On top of that I had to buy groceries.

Hidden in the back of my truck was a complete bachelor apartment. I had a very comfortable bed, a Coleman stove, and all the cabinet space I needed for food, clothes, camera equipment, portable typewriter, movie projector, screen, and my hat to pass around at any screenings I did. That’s how I got enough money to buy gas to get to the next resort and also buy some more film.

Often it was as cold inside the truck as outside. But getting up in the morning was a lot easier than earlier when I lived in a small trailer in several ski resort parking lots for two winters. In my truck, I had designed and built my mobile apartment so I could just sit up in bed in my sleeping bag, pump up the Coleman stove, light it, and in a few minutes the frost inside the truck would start melting. Within about ten minutes the truck was toasty warm, and my ski boots that were in a rack in the ceiling would be warm enough to start thinking about putting them on.

In the meantime the water was boiling for oatmeal and milk was thawing out; I was more than comfortable. But the temperature gradient from the floor to the ceiling ranged from about zero to as high as 110 degrees Fahrenheit!

After my breakfast, the real work began as I would try and talk the owners of whatever resort I had parked in the night before out of a free lift ticket. I had a semi-refined sales pitch about how many times I would show their resort the next fall, e.g., late 1951, and how I could make their ski school director world famous.

In those days, the ski school director was almost always the best skier on the hill, and since there were less than 15 chair lifts in America, it wasn't too hard to make someone famous. Skiing was a small market in the ‘50s.

I had a small rucksack that held my hand-wind camera, half a dozen 100 foot rolls of 16mm film, boundless enthusiasm, and an extra peanut butter sandwich for lunch. No one ever told me that I should be cold and tired because I was living in a truck.

Back in 1951 it would be fifteen years before Johnny Carson would appear on late night television. President Truman was wrestling with the Korean war. (I had done my tour of duty in the Navy during World War II.) Later-to-be President, Bill Clinton, was three years old.

But back to filming, while living in the back of a truck in Palisades Tahoe in 1951. At that time there was only one chairlift, two rope tows, and maybe six ski instructors. Skiing was already underway in a big way in California! This brought the number of chairlifts in the state to three. That's right, three chair lifts in California. And I was lucky enough to have already ridden and filmed every one of them.

Living in a truck presented some challenges. When you live in a truck, showering is a problem. I solved it at Palisades Tahoe by simply using the shower of one of my old ski instructor friends, who had a job there. Parties are a little difficult. Occasionally I had a road-kill dinner party in the truck. I could comfortably seat four people; six uncomfortably.

The parking lots that I stayed in the most that winter were at Mammoth. It was a seven hour drive from Redondo Beach (L.A.) without a single mile of freeway I would supply the truck and four or five of my friends would ride with me and buy the gas. My passengers and I would take turns at piloting the truck for the seven hour drive. I always drove the first hour so I could sleep most of the way.

When we finally got to Mammoth at two or three A.M., we would park in the campground. I would just stay asleep in the bed in my truck and my four or five passengers would sleep outside.

I managed to convince Dave and Roma Mc Coy, the founders of Mammoth, that "yes I was a ski, motion picture maker.” So Dave would ski for me in his T shirt in-between hauling cans of gasoline up to power the engines on one of his two rope tows.

It was great to make and film turns then, and it's great to make turns today.


Editor’s Note: This is one in a Tahoetopia series written by Warren Miller, legendary ski cinematographer. For other columns by Warren, click on Warren Miller.