PHILIPSBURG - Everyone has a different idea about what retirement should bring.
Here in the frigid northlands of Montana, many retirees look forward to fleeing south at the first sign of cold beckoning at the front door each winter.
And then there's Bob Winninghoff.
Winninghoff is 75 this year and if anyone deserves to put his feet up and relax, he does.
After all, he's no stranger to hard work. Winninghoff ran a successful business for years in his hometown of Philipsburg. People here know him as a man ready to help at a moment's notice. He served a stint with the town's volunteer fire department and ran the ambulance for a spell. With wife Carol, he raised four girls.
In between all of that, Winninghoff always found time to downhill ski.
“I've missed one year of skiing in the last 70 or so,” Winninghoff said. “I was in the Marine Corps that year.”
It wasn't nearly enough for him to just strap on the boards and spend a day without care schussing down the slopes, though.
Every winter since 1966 when the snow begins to fly, Winninghoff pulls out his red jacket with the large white cross on the back and readies himself for another season offering a hand to those in need on the slopes of Ski Discovery.
“He might just be the oldest ski patrolman west of the Mississippi,” says fellow Ski Discovery ski patrol member Tom Wright. “He was on the ski patrol at Wraith Hill when I was just learning to ski. He's been here since Discovery opened.”
Three or four days each week, you can find Winninghoff helping lost skiers back to the trail, or packing signposts down the hill or hauling the occasional injured downhiller off the mountain.
“There is work involved with all of this,” Winninghoff said earlier this week while taking a break from his patrolling duties. “If you consider the amount of money a ski patrol member spends on equipment and the time they put into training every year, you could just as well buy a season pass.”But that's not what skiing has become for this man so well known at Discovery that when the ski area expanded a couple of years back, its owners named a run after him. They called it Winning Ridge.
“I think my nature has always been to help out people whenever I can,” Winninghoff said. “I think that's what helps bring me back year after year. I've always thought the key to retirement is remaining active anyway.”
“If I didn't come up here, I think I might drive Carol nuts or she'd drive me crazy,” he said, with a big smile and a twinkle in his eye.
Discovery Mountain has always been an important part of Winninghoff's life.
His girls learned to ski there. He made lifelong friends. And every day that he feels the wind against his face, Winninghoff knows that he's alive and doing well.
Winninghoff was there when people first started talking about the possibility of building a ski hill just up the way from Georgetown Lake - just over the hill from Philipsburg.
Back then he and his buddies - Joe Balkovetz and Ed Lord - were part of a perpetual crew skiing the much smaller Wraith Hill just down the hill toward Anaconda. When the rope tows and single-person chair began getting a bit overcrowded on the weekends, the trio began looking around for another place to ski.
They found it on the hillsides that would later become Discovery Basin, which opened to the public in 1973.
It was a bit more exciting skiing back then.
“They left a lot of trees in the run initially,” Winninghoff remembered. “You had to be careful not to get snagged.”
He blames that on global warming.
“When we first started doing our survey work on the area, the county road crew foreman had kept a diary that showed that Echo Lake usually received about 80 inches of snow every winter,” Winninghoff said, with a grin. “The year we opened, it quit. Global warming had kicked in.”
Discovery has changed a lot since those days and Winninghoff has been there to ski it all.
“I've skied a lot of places in my life and this remains one of my very favorites,” he said. “You can bring your family here and everyone will enjoy themselves. There's good terrain here for everyone.”
Winninghoff knows all about varied terrain.
His father was a backcountry skier before most people even knew there was such a thing. Winninghoff grew up dreaming about making a winter fishing trip into the high mountain lakes surrounding Philipsburg.
“I always had skis,” he remembered. “And when I got old enough, every once in awhile, my father would let me take a trip with them up into the mountains.”
His first skis included tow straps and a rubber band made from an inner-tube to assist in the uphill climb. Winninghoff perfected his turns under makeshift rope tows above the old ballpark in Philipsburg or back in Brown's Gulch or on the dude ranch just past Denton's Point.
“We had rope tows all over the county,” he said. “During the war, we even found some gasoline every once in awhile to keep them running.”
He readily admits that technology has helped keep him on the hill.
“If it hadn't been for the improvement in technology in ski equipment, I would have been done with this sport 20 years ago,” he said. “It's made an awful lot of difference.”
Winninghoff has never really honestly pondered the idea of giving up the sport.
He said he doesn't really harbor any incredible secret in retaining his ability to continue. He regularly rides a stationary bicycle to keep his knees strong. He also keeps busy throughout the year helping his neighbors and doing some odd jobs here and there.
“Living here in Montana probably has something to do with it,” he said. “There's not much else to do in the wintertime. Staying active is important. You just have to get out and do it.”
He's sold his snowmobile and he doesn't own an ice fishing pole anymore.
So skiing is it.
“Every year, I tell people that we'll just have to see how my knees are feeling before the next season starts,” Winninghoff said, with a knowing smile. “I don't really think they'll change much between now and then.”
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