Pikes Peak Region Trail Finder

By John Meyer, The Denver Post

John Garnsey looked a lot more comfortable in blue jeans and a Vail 2015 parka at a U.S. Ski Team pep rally Saturday night in Vail Village than he did the night before, dressed in a business suit at a fancy Broomfield hotel for his induction into the Colorado Ski & Snowboard Hall of Fame.

When the spotlight was on the ski team and snow fell to get everyone in the right mood, Garnsey beamed in the background. Before his Hall of Fame induction, he seemed more nervous about his speech than a kid about to make his first death-defying trip down the Hahnenkamm.

A Vail Resorts​ co-president, Garnsey was a key figure in making the Vail Valley America's home of ski racing, with annual World Cup stops and world championships in 1989 and 1999. Another is coming in 2015.

He grew up in a skiing family and said: "(Skiing) was so much more than a sport, it was a way of life for us as a family. It does really help define who you are as a person, more than any other industry, or any other sport maybe. That's what's really unique about it."

Read more about Garnsey's work promoting Vail as a ski mecca and his early years on ski patrol in John Meyer's column at denverpost.com.

PHOTO:  John Garnsey feels most at home on the slopes, although he prefers groomers to bumps these days. Kristen Anderson, The Vail Daily