Ein Prosit, Stefan, and the Stratton Mountain Boys

STORY BY MYRA FOSTER
PHOTOGRAPHY HUBERT SCHRIEBL
COURTESY OF STRATTON MOUNTAIN RESORT

When we think of Octoberfest traditions, like lederhosen, alphorns, the Holzjackertanz (wood chopper dance) … it’s the Stratton Mountain Boys who come to mind. While the merry band—all Stratton ski instructors by day—has officially retired, the musicians play on. As do the memories shared by generations of Stratton families fondly recalling the apres-ski revelry and Tyrolean Evenings each Saturday in the old Bears Den, where even the youngest kids would join the fun, sometimes in their PJs.

The Stratton Mountain Boys, from left to right: Otto Egger, Bill Chappy, Stefan Schernthaner (with alphorn), Hans Prettner, and Hans Kremser.

After nearly 60 years in Vermont, long-time bandleader Stefan Schernthaner has moved to the home his father built in the village of Maria Alm, described in travelogues as “one of the most beautiful places in the world.” It’s a picture-perfect chalet surrounded by gardens, where over morning coffee you hear the church bell ringing from the tallest steeple in Salzburg, where he is steps from the High King Mountain gondola and only two miles from his two daughters and four grandchildren.

“We are with our family and enjoy it very much,” Stefan shares in a recent message as he gets ready to pay his Stratton friends a visit in October. “Daughter Gabi has much work at her farm, with more than 50 sheep, 15 cows, three alpaca, three horses, and two pigs. She also sings with the town band where I play two times a week. Singing saw, alphorn, trumpet. And my two grandsons are schuhplattler.” That’s the shoe slapping dance we remember.

As Stefan and Norma, who met at Stratton and married more than 50 years ago, were preparing to pack up their Vermont home, I was fortunate to sit down with him for a look back at how it all began. He had coached the Austrian woman who held the World Cup record until Lindsey Vonn broke it in 2015 (and then Mikaela Shiffrin in 2023), and was soon to be crowned National Freestyle Champion, but it wasn’t skiing that got Stefan his job at Stratton. It was music.

The first Stratton Mountain Boys album released in 1975 with cover design by Emo Henrich. Courtesy of Stratton Mountain Resort

The former racer, and OG hot dog skier, came to the United States to coach at Pico, and had a friend from home teaching at Stratton. He visited one day when the Stratton Mountain Boys happened to be playing. “I already had a band and always had my trumpet in the car,” he recalled. “I jumped on stage, stepped right in. Hubert was playing clarinet, and we could harmonize. Emo offered me a job on the spot. I had to finish my contract but came to Stratton the next season.”

And it was music that launched him, with the band of Stratton Mountain Boys, from a Bears Den stage to national acclaim. Ski School Director Emo Henrich had brought the music and dancing of Austria to the mountains of Vermont when Stratton opened in 1961, and Adi Gruber was leader until Stefan took up the baton, so to speak, in 1974. From there, Stefan would lead the band from Tyrolean Evenings in the Stratton Base Lodge to the Olympics, Epcot Center, and Octoberfest venues that overflowed with 10,000 exuberant fans, inspiring at least one record-setting chicken dance.

Otto Egger (right), former emcee and accordion player for the Stratton Mountain Boys, with his wife, Toni

It was the perfect schedule for a man who spent winters coaching freestyle by day and performing six shows a week to entertain generations of Stratton skiers. That left time in spring and early summer at his home in Austria before heading out on tour with 40 or more stops from Milwaukee to Captiva Island.

On tour, “the Stratton Mountain Boys are promoting their Austrian heritage and skiing in Vermont to an extent which no other band has been able to do,” stated one ‘80s news article with photos of faces so familiar to Stratton families, including Otto Egger, Gerhard, Hansi …

“We were the Number 1 Octoberfest band,” he said, flipping through photos on his iPhone. There’s the front page shot with Stefan and the Boys in five columns above the fold, and above President George W. Bush. In Texas. Stefan with Maria von Trapp at the opening of Trapp Family Lodge, the Song of Music matriarch in dirndl, a young Stefan in lederhosen. Stratton Mountain Boys on stage in the Warsteiner pavilion at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. Playing Washington’s Watergate Hotel with a Capitol backdrop, every Boston Ski Show, Disney World, Vegas. “We played them all.”

There was the festival in Birmingham, Alabama, with an 80-piece military band on stage while thousands waited impatiently for the Stratton Mountain Boys “screaming ‘Chicken Dance.’ We never open with Chicken Dance, but we had to.”

Clockwise from top left: Emo Henrich entertains guests at the Birkenhaus; Performing the schuhplattler in the Bears Den; the original Stratton Mountain Boys; Stefan and Norma Schernthaner; Stefan plays the singing saw as the Boys entertain the apres-ski crowd; performing the watschentanz, an Austrian folk dance; Edward Kennedy Jr, Joan Kennedy, and Stefan at Stratton; and (center) Heidi and Fritz cutting the rug during a traditional Tyrolean Evening

Stefan’s classical training might have taken his music in a very different direction. At 12, he was the youngest to join his town marching band, where decades later he plays again along with daughter Gabi and two grandsons. He had gone on to study music in Salzburg – playing e-flat trumpet 4, 3 and 2, b-flat second and first, and the flugelhorn — before joining Austria’s military band.

“I was close to being an orchestra musician, but it did not strike me. It was not exciting. I wanted to be where everybody is happy. To look down and see the happiness. And that happiness goes back and forth. My favorite is always what is favorite to my people out there.”

On any given Tyrolean Evening, that favorite might have been the yodeling clarinet, woodchopper dance, ringing cowbells, “Edelweiss”, “Amazing Grace”, a quintet of alphorns, the haunting harmony of singing saws. Or that time they played “Twist and Shout” in the Base Lodge with Bernie on lead guitar, Ferdinand on Bass, and Hans on drums. “There must have been five, six hundred people there. Everybody was so happy. The ceiling (below) was shaking.”

As a 1984 Stratton news release explained, “the ‘Boys’ delight skiers during the winter with some of the most unusual apres-ski entertainment in the ski industry. Playing both modern and hand-made instruments, they play authentic Austrian music which could only be matched by being in Austria itself.”

In addition to playing for a packed house, you could have seen Stefan somersaulting high in the air, at the base of Suntanner, on skis. Flipping forward, Hermann Gollner backward.

Stefan launched Stratton’s freestyle program, coaching kids who would go on to win national championships. “We would do pole jumps, ballet skiing all day on Tyrolienne. Everybody did moguls – that was my strength. What they do now is incredible—we had no idea where it was going.”

As the Stratton Mountain Boys popularity grew beyond the Base Lodge, he turned the freestyle program over to Stephen “Stevek” Kenney so he could focus on managing the band and planning tour stops, often invited to play venues owned by fans from Stratton. They traveled across the country in two vans, one he outfitted with racks to carry six alphorns, each about 12 feet long, three on a side. Alphorns he would fly over from Austria in ski bags, including all those for Epcot, where he was offered a lucrative contract that he turned down. “It wasn’t for me, but I did find them musicians, and a few are still there. I wanted to spend time at my home in Austria. And to travel.” To punctuate the point, he pulled up a video from an Italian beer garden where he’s playing “O Solo Mio”— on his singing saw— for the Harley Davidson Club of Sicily, a couple-dozen leather-clad revelers joining in spirited song. He always travels with trumpet and saw, trumpet mostly, he explained, because the case is a perfect height for playing the saw.

Flipping through more photos on his iPhone, Stefan shared a shot skiing with TV star Susan Lucci. He met her at the ‘80s Trapp Family Lodge grand opening, brought her and the family to Stratton, and coached her on to compete in celebrity ski races. “She was fearful. I got her over it by taking her out on my motorcycle. Leaning. Fast. In the corners.”

He’s the one who convinced Diana Golden, at Stratton for the 1990 U.S. Disabled Ski Championships, to abandon outriggers in favor of ski poles for speed; she was clocked at 65 mph in the downhill. He’d drawn from his own experience, having spent the entire winter of 1967 with one leg in a cast, skiing moguls full steam and landing a 30-meter jump. On one ski.

During that same Stratton event, he became friends with Eunice Shriver and Senator Ted Kennedy. Stefan taught Edward Jr. to ski again after he’d lost a leg to cancer, earned a plaque for his contributions to Special Olympics, and an invitation to play at Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver’s wedding. “It was April 26, and it was complicated with visas and some of them wanted to go home to Austria,” he said about his band of musicians, Stratton ski instructors who had just finished their season.

With about a hundred former bandmates still on speed dial, and memories that animate his smile, Stefan’s tales of mountains, music, and the friends he’s made along the way would make a fascinating book. Or movie.

And if you listen closely, you may still hear the sound of their music echoing through Base Lodge beams. Or spin one of three albums the Stratton Mountain Boys recorded, pop in a CD, watch the music video … and hoist a pint to good times we’ve shared. Zicke. Zacke. Zicke. Zacke. Hoi Hoi Hoi!