“Everybody doesn’t get to be up in the mountains all day, every day. So it’s like a very much like a resetter, in terms of you get out in the mountains and you get some great exercise with people that you like.”
Most people in the SCH community know Mr. Knox as a history teacher and a football coach, but aside from that he is also a passionate skier.
Knox’s passion for skiing started at a young age: “I’ve been skiing since I was four years old. My dad took me skiing at what is now Bear Creek. It used to be called Doe Mountain.” His dad “grew up right here in Mount Airy. He was born right at the top of Lincoln Drive and first skied on, like, wooden skis down into the Wissahickon in the 1930s, mid-1930s during the Depression.”
Knox emphasized the impact skiing has made on his family life. He was able to connect with his father through skiing. Mr. Knox’s son Kyle is also a skier and often travels with his dad to various ski resorts nationwide.
“He grew up skiing and was taught by his dad, so I think skiing is a way he can connect to him and also a way to connect to me and my family,” said Kyle Knox. Knox added, “It’s a great family pastime that everybody can share that experience together.”
Knox started his skiing career at Bear Creek, a small ski resort in Pennsylvania, but now has traveled the country visiting many new ski resorts every year.
“Every winter he always watches the weather for a couple of good weekends for us to go skiing. It’s always awesome to get away for the weekend and go skiing with him,” said Kyle Knox. Mr. Knox usually travels with his family to ski resorts in Vermont, like Killington or Pico, but he said his all-time favorite mountain is “Arapahoe Basin in Colorado. Great vibe there, and great terrain. Yeah, it’s a no-frills kind of ski area.”
Knox has had many great experiences while skiing, like when he was at Aparahoe Basin: “They have one parking lot that, if you get there early enough, it’s literally right at the lifts and, like, right at the lodge. You could rent a spot right up, like, against the trail, right? So you could basically almost ski out of your car and hang out there. It’s got a picnic table with it. You can grill and cook and hang out there all day. So one of my favorite days skiing was we had a perfect, beautiful spring day, and we kind of just all skied out of that spot. My kids were all younger, so all the people that I was with kind of took turns, like they’re parked right in front of, like, the much smaller lift that they had, but then, you know, only 100 yards down is a lift that gives you access to some of their best terrain.”
Knox’s love for skiing is encapsulated in a story from Kyle: “He fell and dislocated his shoulder but when he went to the doctor he made sure to let them know that we had our annual spring break ski trip that he couldn’t miss. When we were getting ready one morning on that trip I noticed him wearing multiple braces one on his back and one on his shoulder.”
