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Description

Fantastic Hal Shelton view of the Aspen ski area in Colorado as it was in the 1960s.

The view shows the town of Aspen in the lower left, with the three ski areas immediately adjacent to the village, Aspen Mountain, Aspen Highlands, and Buttermilk shown. Further in the distances, the high peaks of the Aspen area can be identified, including Castle Peak, Pyramid Pak, and Hayden Peak.

The view was executed by the noted ski artist Hal Shelton (Lippus, 2015):

The first notable ski map artist in North America was a California native named Hal Shelton, born in 1916. During his early career Shelton worked as a cartographer for the U.S. Geological Survey, and is known for his innovative ideas regarding natural color maps and contour shading (Patterson & Kelso 2004). By the early 1960s Shelton was an established cartographer living in Colorado at the epicenter of the ski resort construction frenzy. Shelton’s professional training in cartography, user-friendly mapping techniques, and ideal location in Colorado provided him with the perfect credentials to create impressive maps for the new resorts…. Shelton hand-painted panoramas for several world-class resorts including Bear Valley, Alta, and Mammoth…. His paintings are characterized by a realistic color palette, thick brushstrokes for background features, and individually painted trees in the foreground…. Shelton’s work was well-received, and he dominated the ski mapping industry in the western United States for much of the 1960s and 70s.” (Lippus, pp. 50-51)

Reference
The History and The and Evolution of North American Ski Resort and Design. Amy Lippus, 2015.
Hal Shelton Biography

Shelton is credited as one of the inventors of the modern ski area trail map. An avid skier and trained cartographer, Shelton pioneered the use of the shaded relief map in depicting ski trails.

Shelton earned a degree in Scientific Illustration from Pomona College, before joining the US Geological Survey during World War II. After the War, he settled in Golden, Colorado. Shelton has been referred to a "cartographic populist . . .[who] thought existing map symbology was too abstract for general audiences, so he began experimenting with natural-color maps [indicating] topography with subtle terrain shading."

Shelton produced maps for airlines, classrooms and textbooks, before being discovered by the ski industry. Ultimately, he would produce the first "modern" trail maps for Alta, Jackson Hole, Aspen, Mammoth Mountain, Winter Park, Sun Valley, Purgatory, Waterville Valley and many others. One of his most famous works is an imaginary view of all of the Colorado Mountains and ski areas from 100,000 feet above Denver.