University of Wyoming
Bill Briggs was the Owner/Director of the Snow King Great American Ski School at Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a mountain guide for eighteen years, and a renowned skier of difficult mountain descents. In 1953 he left Dartmouth College to become a professional skier and mountain guide. He led the first alpine group packing into the Bugaboo Range, British Columbia, was the director of the ski school at Sugarloaf, Maine (1956), and the director of the ski school at Suicide Six in Woodstock, Vermont (1958). He made the first verified ski descent of Mount Rainier (1961) and Grand Teton (1968). In 1966 he bought Snow King for three thousand dollars and founded The Snow King Great American Ski School, where he required all of his ski instructors to study a ski instruction manual fashioned on the principles of Scientology. He also taught several of the teachers in Jackson Hole public schools his communication course based on the Scientology certaint y teaching method.
The Bill Briggs papers contain his "Orders of the Day" which kept the staff informed of executive intentions, organizational expansion and progress, ethics based on Scientology beliefs, and daily activities scheduled at the ski school (1978-1980). The collection also contains "The "Skiers Manual" by Bill Briggs (1976), "The Great American Ski School Ski Dictionary" by Bill Briggs (1978), and an article " Bill Briggs Mountain Buster " by Morton Lund (1980).
There are no access restrictions on the materials for research purposes, and the collection is open to the public.
The researcher assumes full responsibility for observing all copyright, property, and libel laws as they apply.
There are no known other archival collections created by Bill Briggs at the date of processing.
Item Description, Box Number, Folder Number, Collection Name, Collection Number, American Heritage Center, University of Wyoming.