Dave McCoy

David "Dave" McCoy (August 24, 1915 – February 8, 2020) was an American skier, ski coach, and businessman who founded the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area in 1942. He first settled in the Eastern Sierras of the Inyo National Forest as a teenager and later worked as a hydrographer for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. His job required him to ski daily to measure snowpack, which allowed him to identify the Mammoth Mountain area as an ideal location for skiing. He began by installing a rope tow on McGee Mountain in 1938. After snowfall patterns changed in the 1940s, he moved his focus to what eventually became Mammoth Mountain. Despite initial rejections, he obtained a permit from the Forest Service in 1953 and opened the first chairlift in 1955. He also had a career in competitive skiing and coaching. He won state slalom titles in 1937 and 1949 and coached several Olympic medalists and national team members including his children Penny McCoy and Dennis McCoy. He was inducted into the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame. He retired in 2005 after selling his stake in the mountain to Starwood Capital Group.

Early life McCoy was born in El Segundo, California, in August 1915 to Edna and Bill McCoy. His father then began working as a California state highway contractor. After his parents divorced and finishing the eighth grade, he moved to Washington state to live with his paternal grandparents Bob and Katie Cox in Wilkeson, Washington. He met some Norwegian skiers in Washington state. He went to a bank in Bishop, seeking an $85 loan to set up a permanent rope tow. The bank initially turned him down, but the bank's secretary, his future wife, urged the bank to make the loan. By the early 1940s, the climate changed and the snowfall on McGee was not as heavy as it had once been. It was suddenly not an ideal location for skiing anymore. Remnants of McCoy's original rope-tow can be spotted, and the site is marked with a historical marker sign along the current Highway 395.

Mammoth Mountain

During his work as a hydrographer in the Eastern Sierra, he noticed that the snow was better at Mammoth Mountain ski area, where he set up a rope tow in 1942. The Forest Service decided then to offer, for bid, the right to operate a ski area on Mammoth Mountain. No one bid on this permit, including McCoy, who didn't have any money. In 1953, the Forest Service gave McCoy the permit on the condition that he develop the mountain as a ski resort. A ski lodge followed in 1953, and the Mammoth Mountain Ski Area incorporated in 1955. McCoy faced adversity in growing the ski area: drought in 1958–59, the 1973 oil crisis, and only 94" inches of snow during the 1976–1977 season, the worst in Mammoth's history.

McCoy went to the bank again for a loan of $135,000 to build a chair lift. Again, he was turned down. McCoy eventually got a used chairlift. McCoy and a small group of skiers had to dig holes, mix concrete, and install the lift on their own by Thanksgiving 1955. Chair 1 had a wooden ramp, covered with snow, that skiers had to side-step up to reach the chairs. Sometimes skiers would lose their balance and cause several of the skiers in line below to topple over like dominoes. The ramp was removed sometime in 1980s and a new high-speed Chair 1 was installed and renamed "Broadway Express." He coached Linda Meyers. Jean Saubert, who won medals at the 1964 Winter Olympics, said McCoy was her best coach. In November 2024, a 10-mile section of U.S. Route 395 near Mammoth was designated the Dave McCoy Memorial Highway by California. Caltrans put two signs that label the highway between Convict Lake Road and State Route 203 after McCoy. There is a ski run called "Dave's Run" at the top of the mountain.

Awards and Recognition U.S. Ski & Snowboard’s John J. Clair Jr. Award (1994) for "outstanding service which benefited the U.S. Ski or Snowboard Teams." National Ski Areas Association Lifetime Achievement Award (1999) Far West Ski Association - Hans Georg Award with Mammoth Mountain (1974) for "distinguished accomplishment and long-term contribution to skiing" U.S. Ski & Snowboard - Paul Bacon Award (1971) and shared with Fraser West for "individual or group for the greatest contribution to U. S. Ski & Snowboard in the field of race organization." U.S. Ski & Snowboard - Russell Wilder Award (1963) recognizing "outstanding effort in focusing the interests of American youth on the sports of skiing or snowboarding" 17 grandchildren, 28 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great-grandchild, a total of 52 descendants. He continued to ski until 2008, but stopped due to a knee replacement and his age. McCoy took up photography as well. McCoy turned 100 on August 24, 2015 and died on February 8, 2020, at his home in the eastern Sierra Nevada community of Bishop, California at the age of 104. Roma McCoy died in April 2021.

Media portrayals

He was portrayed by Dabney Coleman in the 1975 film The Other Side of the Mountain. Mammoth Dreams is a documentary film about McCoy.

In 2021 Robin Morning published For the Love of It: The Mammoth Legacy of Roma and Dave McCoy. The book traces the lives of McCoy and his wife from their childhoods through the development and opening of Mammoth. She also wrote Tracks of Passion about McCoy.