^ Poster for Sun Valley, c. 1936
^ Ted Ryan bringing skiiers up Little Annie on the back of Aspen Mt.
^ Billy Fiske ^ TJ Flynn
^ The Highland Bavarian Lodge under construction
^ André Roch ^ Gunther Langes
^ The Highland Bavarian opened in 1936 with a Winter Carnival

Upper-class Americans who had vacationed in Europe sought less costly alternatives in the Rocky Mountains, and technological advances like the rope tow, manufactured skis, and better bindings made skiing more accessible and appealing. Many Europeans fleeing Hitler came to the United States and became coaches and instructors, lending an air of professionalism and romance to the sport in the process. Americans also gained exposure to the international world of skiing from the 1932 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, New York. This combination of technology, demand (at least on the part of the wealthy), and available experts created a national climate of support for skiing. Development of a successful ski area required appropriate landscape and snow conditions, local support, and a lot of money.

The three men most commonly associated with the growth of Aspen skiing in the 1930s are T.J. Flynn, Ted Ryan, and Billy Fiske. Together they formed the Highland Bavarian Corporation and built a lodge up the Castle Creek Valley from Aspen. T.J. Flynn was the "local" of the bunch, although he resided in California. Frank Willoughby called him "a semi-retired ex-Aspenite." Flynn's father, Thomas J. Flynn, had come to Aspen in 1887 and worked in the coal business. Later he became interested in mining, and left Aspen in 1910 to go to Ontario, where he was one of the original syndicate that bought the famous McIntire mine. His son T.J. spent much of his youth in Aspen, and according to Ted Ryan, felt quite nostalgic towards the town. Flynn recalled Scandinavian miners in Aspen skiing for recreation—climbing to the top of Highland ridge, skiing down towards the Willoughby cabin, ending up near the Top Lift mine, and proclaiming these slopes and conditions the best they had ever experienced. Apparently Flynn kept some financial connections to Aspen after he moved away and owned some land near the Montezuma Mine. In the spring of 1936 Flynn was living in Pasadena, California and looking for investors to revive Aspen's sleepy economy.

Billy Fiske, it seemed, was looking for adventure. Fiske was an American graduate of Cambridge College in England, where he had learned to fly planes with some of his Cambridge classmates. Fiske had also discovered the Swiss Alps, and took up bobsled racing with the same enthusiasm he seemed to bring to any risky endeavor. He led U.S. bobsled teams in the 1928 and 1932 Olympics to win gold medals—he was only 16 years old in 1928 and became the youngest man to win a gold medal at the winter Olympics. He also established a series of unbroken records on the Cresta Run at his favorite resort, St. Moritz. Fiske belonged to a wealthy banking family, whose business connections brought him to work in the New York investment banking firm of Dillon and Read after he graduated from Cambridge. Ted Ryan said that Fiske "had a love for the mountains and a real heart for outdoor sport," and thought Fiske was saddened when he had to leave Europe and work in New York. "He really loathed the confines of Wall Street," Ryan said. "The company sent him to sell and perhaps buy securities in Chicago, St. Louis, Los Angeles, and the rest, but his heart was always in the Alps." Fiske was selling bonds in 1936, when he met T.J. Flynn at a party in Pasadena, California.

Fiske called on his friend Ted Ryan to represent the company. Ted Ryan came from Connecticut, grandson of the famous Thomas Fortune Ryan, who made a fortune(!) in the mining business. Having come from a wealthy family, Ryan had traveled widely and developed a taste for winter sports. He said "I had known Billy [Fiske] and winter sports in Europe for a long, long time. He was at the winter Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen." Ryan was working in New York in 1936 when Fiske came home and started making phone calls to garner support for the Highland project. Ryan took over operation of the newly established Highland Bavarian Corporation and promoted the Aspen area in the East.

Aspenites were enthusiastic, to say the least. The Aspen Times ran a headline that said "Winter Resort Plans Are Revealed; Aspen May Become Leading Snow Sports City in Entire United States." The following text read "Aspen will be key city for all sporting activities and may again rise to the glories that were hers as the "Crystal City of the Rockies" during the boom days of the early nineties." The article began: "The greatest news that the residents of Aspen have ever heard in the past 30 years was given out last Monday evening at the regular meeting of the Lions Club." The author went on to describe the nation's growing enthusiasm for winter sports and noted that 8,000 Americans went to Europe last year to see the winter Olympics. This winter resort, he wrote, is "the greatest economic boom that this community will enjoy since the early '90s," it "will be one of the greatest things that can ever be dreamed of, not only for this immediate vicinity, but for the state as well. In former years millions and millions of dollars worth of wealth was taken out of Aspen. Now there is a chance for that much and more to be brought back into Aspen." The author called upon Aspen and Pitkin County citizens to give "a determined, enthusiastic, and cooperative effort" to Flynn and Fiske. Between Fiske, Flynn, and Ryan, the Highland Bavarian Corporation had vitality and enthusiasm, initial financial backing, business organization, and local connections. Aspen's population, long since hoping for some economic revival, supported the idea of the Highland Bavarian Lodge with vigor.

Flynn, Fiske, and Ryan wanted a team of experts to survey the snow conditions and recreational advantages of the area so they could plan their full-fledged resort. Fiske's knowledge and connections enabled them to get mountaineers Andre Roch from Switzerland and Gunther Langes from Italy to spend a year exploring the area. Initially Roch found Aspen a depressing town, and lamented that the slopes Flynn, Ryan, and Fiske hoped to develop could not hold snow since they faced south or west. He saw steep cliffs and gullies, slopes so steep the danger of avalanches prevented him from skiing them, and forests that reached to 11,500 feet, above which the snow was continually blasted by west winds. "You will understand," he wrote, "that we were not exactly in a skier's paradise and that we did not look forward with enthusiasm to the winter we were to spend here." Roch was shocked to learn that the Highland Bavarian Corporation had already launched an advertising campaign and that guests arriving that winter would expect to ski. Roch and Langes explored all of Aspen's surrounding mountains, looking for a more appropriate site for the Highland Bavarian Corporation's main resort. On the last day of December, they climbed up Lost Man Valley to above Independence Pass, and down Hunter Creek Valley fifteen miles back to Aspen. By the time they finally arrived in town, it was 1937. The mountains across from the Highland Bavarian Lodge, Richmond Hill, held little promise from Roch and Langes' point of view. "Its slopes were either too steep, exposed to too much sun, covered by dense forest, or battered by strong winds." They recognized that even the best slopes, those running down into Aspen, were endangered by avalanches. Roch and Langes probably felt their trip had been a waste of their time.

Until they saw Ashcroft and Mt. Hayden. Back in December they had noted that Ashcroft lay in the center of a natural bowl surrounded by high peaks, and that the east and north-facing slopes seemed well-suited for skiing. Roch made one attempt to climb Mt. Hayden in the middle of January, but high winds turned him back. Guiding for guests at the Highland Bavarian kept Roch and Langes busy until May, when they and Billy Fiske climbed Mt. Hayden. Roch described it as "easily the most magnificent ski trip of the winter." The slopes above treeline "offered the promise of superb skiing," and "the view was quite overwhelming." He thought he slopes leading down to Ashcroft "can be compared with the best of the Parsenn. Immense schusses, where your face freezes in the wind and clouds of powder snow rise behind you, make the skier seem like a rocket shooting along the ground." This trip was so successful that Roch climbed Mt. Hayden three more times. He went once with a group of famed skiers and instructors from the East including Otto Schneibs, Florian Haemerle, Henrich Scheinsbach, and Bill Blanchard. Another time he went with Thor Groswold and Frank Ashley, two of the best skiers from Denver, and lastly with Fred and Frank Willoughby, who would lead the Aspen community into competitive skiing. Roch wrote "Each time we felt the same enthusiasm, as no one had ever seen more splendid skiing country before." His enthusiasm for the Ashcroft area was reinforced by his trip up Castle Peak, the highest in the region. "The climb was more demanding than Hayden Peak, but even more rewarding," he wrote. "The descent was again a series of basins and steps, one more rewarding than the next." To make sure they scouted out all the possible areas for skiing, Roch explored Green Mountain, Lost Man Valley, and climbed Mt. Elbert as well.

Roch had spent almost an entire year in Aspen, from November of 1936 until June 1937. During that time period he explored all the surrounding mountains and took panoramic photographs that won widespread acclaim. He and Langes wrote a detailed survey analyzing the Aspen area's potential as a winter sports center. Roch and Langes concluded that "Aspen would constitute an ideal center to open the magnificent Ashcroft region, which once developed, would be a resort without any competition." They plotted fifteen different runs skiers could take from Mt. Hayden to Castle Creek, some of which would be six miles long. Roch envisioned the resort that would be Ashcroft, including a Swiss village, hotels for 2,000 skiers, a lift servicing ski trails, jumping hills, and sled courses, and a cable car leading to more ski trails and a hotel which would offer spring and summer skiing. Roch realized that Aspen's summer tourist possibilities were also strong, and wrote that "it is easy to see that America could find here a resort that would in no way be inferior to anything in the Alps." "But let us not worry," he concluded, "the more Americans enjoy skiing, the more they will want to visit our alpine ski resorts. All we must do is receive them well."

Amidst all the surveys and planning, the Highland Bavarian Lodge opened to the public for business on December 26, 1936. Needless to say, the whole community felt excited about it and helped the lodge celebrate its opening with a bang. The Aspen band played a few numbers, some locals entertained the crowd on their skis and toboggans, and Roch and Langes introduced themselves and offered their instructional services to "everyone who was interested." Mayor Willoughby and State Senator W.H. Twining offered their congratulations to the Highland Bavarian Corporation founders, and Flynn raised the club flag. Even during these ceremonies, the Highland Bavarian was entertaining its first guests. Frank Ashley, Colorado's downhill champion, stayed at the lodge with ten others from Denver and gave demonstrations of the sport on opening day. The newspaper noted that Thor Groswold, prominent Norwegian ski jumper and Denver ski manufacturer, was planning to visit soon and would give an exhibition on New Year's Day.

Andre Roch had found the perfect place to develop a ski resort. He knew that Americans in the 1930s were interested in skiing, and they would pay to ski at a resort reminiscent of the Alps. The Highland Bavarian Corporation did its best to attract investors and garner enthusiasm for their project. Bringing in experts from Europe was their first move, an appropriate one since Europeans had been leading ski tours through the Alps and hosting tourists at mountain resorts for decades. Beyond their experience and skills, Roch and Langes lent a sense of legitimacy to the entire project by virtue of their homelands. Americans associated Austrian, Swiss, and other alpine Europeans with skiing—because they knew of alpine resorts or the international racing scene. Fiske, Flynn, and Ryan named their lodge and corporation consciously, and recalled the Alps with their lodge's architecture, as well. Averill Harriman tapped into similar appeal by hiring Austrian ski school instructors at Sun Valley. The next step for the Highland Bavarian Corporation was to get more well-known experts to endorse the region and their proposed resort. Frank Ashley and Thor Groswold helped immensely in this endeavor. Fiske also convinced famed Dartmouth ski coach Otto Schneibs to visit in the fall and bring his annual coaching school to the Highland Bavarian Lodge in March. The Aspen Times noted that "this is probably the highest recommendation or recognition that can be accorded any winter sports center in the country." Schneibs declared that the Highland Bavarian ski courses, scenery, and snow conditions were as good, if not better, than any he had seen in Europe. T.J. Flynn was so happy that he got Schneibs' signed evaluation on paper and included it in his information packet on the Highland Bavarian Corporation. The German Ski Team came to practice in Aspen that April, boosting the region's reputation even farther.

The Highland Bavarian Corporation also relied on more common promotional strategies. Fiske and Ryan sold the lodge by word of mouth to all of their skiing friends in Hollywood (Fiske's home) and in the East, which added up to quite an influential group. Lowell Thomas, for instance, came to ski in Aspen in 1936 and would return regularly in later years. Flynn shot some Technicolor film of the Aspen mountain scenery, the opening of the Highland lodge, the Aspen Ski Club carnival, and Otto Schneibs "with a party of five famous champions zooming down the five mile run from the top of Mt. Hayden—perhaps the most thrilling ski picture ever filmed." He showed this promotional film at travel expositions in Chicago, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, in the hopes that travel bureaus would start to promote the area, as well.

^ Robert Benchly's brochure, How to Aspen. Visit the on-line brochure>
^ Among the Lodge's earliest guests where future investors in the Aspen Skiing Corporation including members of Denver's Alberg Club.
^ Roch Run, designed by André Roch, and the boat tow cut to the right.
^ Aspen's boat tow

Benchley told a tongue-in-cheek version of the (then brief) history of the Highland Bavarian Corporation. He described T.J. Flynn's promotion of Aspen to Fiske as a "story that had all the elements of a pipe dream . . . when he [Flynn] had finished [describing the scenic splendor of the place] they offered him a drink, and asked him if he had read any good books lately." Fiske and his friends finally flew out to Aspen "to shut him up," took a look around them, "and immediately elected him Class President as soon as they could speak." The Highland Bavarian and its inception thus became legend.

Benchley's brochure and the rumors generated by Fiske, Ryan, and Flynn created enough interest for the eastern-based Ski Bulletin to publish an article entitled "I'm Aspen You," documenting the author's troubled search for information about Aspen. She answered some questions about the Highland Bavarian's first season, but probably did more to promote the Highland Bavarian Corporation by piquing people's curiosity and tickling their funnybone. Despite the Highland Bavarian's youth and relative obscurity, its early advertising and Benchley's brochure worked—the lodge welcomed quite a number of visitors during its first season. In February, the Colorado Mountain Club made its Annual Outing to Aspen rather than its usual trip to Fern Lake in Estes Park. An article in the Ski Bulletin describing the CMC's trip said "Those who went are not 'aspen' about Aspen any more—they're telling everyone that Aspen is just what you've been 'aspen' for. A week later the Ski Bulletin published a section about Colorado skiing and one author wrote that "the publicity given to Aspen by Robert Benchley has brought in a good many eastern skiers, and the Bavarian Lodge has been full all winter." He mentioned the success of the CMC members' recent trip, and that they planned to return during spring vacation.

The Aspen Ski Club

Aspen locals may have had less income than urban outdoorspeople, but they were not short on enthusiasm or athletic skill. Aspen residents looked forward to the economic revival the Highland Bavarian and its Ashcroft resort would bring them, and they reveled in the sport of skiing like never before. After 1936 the few who had been skiing on the back of Aspen Mountain, on deer trails, or on hills near their ranches found themselves part of a burgeoning skiing populace. Part of Andre Roch's job was to generate local support for skiing, and he made it his business to teach Aspenites to ski. As Ted Ryan put it, "he put the spark of skiing into the natives of Aspen." Roch and local skiers came together to establish the Roaring Fork Winter Sports Club. The Aspen Times on December 10, 1936 advertised a meeting for everyone interested in winter sports in order to organize a club. "With this city rapidly becoming a winter sports center," the author wrote, "it is only natural that our local citizens should avail themselves of the opportunities and facilities which this community is endowed with and organize a club that will be second to none on the Western slope." About 30 men, women, and children showed up to the first meeting, including Fred, Frank, and Frances Willoughby. They had skied down the back of Aspen Mountain since they were small, and formed the backbone of the ski club. Frank Willoughby was its first president.

Roch started the Roaring Fork Winter Sports Club—later to become the Aspen Ski Club—by holding ski lessons on Maroon Creek Road every Sunday. Ryan recalled that "all the elders and the youngsters—the Willoughbys and all the rest, took lessons from Andre then." They skied at the foot of where Highlands is now, and on the base of Buttermilk. Andre Roch described the difficulty of finding a slope easy enough for the Aspen beginners. "We had a slalom and on every turn they fell, stood up, went to the next slalom [turn], but that was the beginning." Mike Magnifico learned how to ski that year, and the cobbler would prove to be a loyal and long-standing club supporter, not to mention the first ski equipment merchant in Aspen. In addition to instructing, Roch used ski club money to buy skis for club members from Thor Groswold in Denver. The RFWSC also provided facilities for members and guests to dance and give parties; the same facilities doubled as a warming hut and meeting house. In February of 1937 the club held its first race, on the slopes opposite the Highland Bavarian Lodge on Richmond Hill. Frank Willoughby won the Senior Men's trophy, and the star skier for the women was Doris Sheehan, who later became Doris Willoughby. Elizabeth Oblock Sinclair remembers her older sister going up to watch—she was too young to go herself. According to the Aspen Times, crowds from Glenwood, Rifle, and Grand Junction came to watch the slalom, downhill, and jumping contests. The Ski Club only grew in popularity, even after Roch and Langes left. Roch said "maybe thirty people started skiing, but the year after we were off, I think everybody who could walk started to ski. It was good success, but you know when we were here they were kind of shy to try skiing." Roch and the Aspen Ski Club thus got local residents interested in skiing, ski racing, and in developing Aspen as a ski center.

Together Roch and the Ski Club made Aspen's most famous ski run, as well. Roch and Langes promoted development of the Ashcroft area as potentially the best ski resort in the world. They realized, however, that it would be years at least before those plans could become reality. Roch recognized the potential for very good skiing on Aspen Mountain as well, which was closer to town and so more feasible as a short-term community project. In May of 1937 before he left town, Roch walked up Aspen Mountain and marked out what he thought would be a good ski run. Frank Willoughby recalled that "he [Roch] impressed on the club a need for a difficult but excellent downhill race course to attract publicity for Aspen skiing, which would make all-over development of the mountain easier and faster." Their mutual goal of reviving Aspen's economy remained central to their plans.

The Aspen Ski Club hosted races regularly on the Roch Run. At first these races pitted Aspen skiers against peers from Glenwood Springs, Grand Junction, and other nearby towns. These local competitions honed racers' skills, and a number of familiar faces finished strong, most notably the Willoughbys and the Tekoucichs. George Tekoucich acquired quite a reputation: everyone knew he could win—if he finished in one piece and stayed on the course. He said "You understand I was a good racer" Yeah. I skied on my head more than I did on my feet." Quite a few people remember a spill he took so hard that his boot came off in a tree.

As its reputation grew, Aspen attracted larger and more important races, which in turn brought more people and more notoriety to the town. The first regional championship hosted in Aspen was the 1938 Southern Rocky Mountain Championships, which Aspen hosted again in 1939 and 1940. Since the boat tow only went as far as the bottom of the corkscrew, competitors hiked to the top of the Roch Run. Barney McLean, one of Colorado's leading early racers and member of three Olympic teams, first visited Aspen for the championships in 1938. McLean remembered competitors putting skins on their skis to hike to the top of the course, or if the snow was hard enough, taking their skis off and hiking up. The downhill race started at the top of the old No.1 lift and took a little over four minutes to race—there was about a foot and a half of snow, unpacked, and "nobody really knew very much about turning or anything else." In 1939 six Aspen locals competed in the regional championships on the "fastest and toughest ski course in the U.S." Denver skiers rode in and stayed on Judge Symes' private railroad car—he ran the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and supported his daughter's skiing endeavors. Aspen was so successful in hosting these divisional championships that the United States Ski Association asked them to host the National Downhill and Slalom Championships in 1941. That was the occasion for Fritz Benedict's first visit to Aspen; he qualified for the race by winning the Arizona downhill championship. He took the train and hitchhiked to town, only to break his skis before the race. (He was relieved not to have to test his skills on the daunting Roch Run.) These races brought competitors to Aspen from all over the country, and symbolized a successful union of outside and local forces. It took the initiative and expertise of Roch and Langes to start up Aspen's Ski Club, but local residents followed through and held races on their own with flying colors.

While Aspenites volunteered their labor and boosted skiing on their own mountain, T.J. Flynn, Billy Fiske, and Ted Ryan were trying to get development of the Mt. Hayden project underway. They had a large task in front of them. After Roch and Langes finished their reports on the landscape and snow conditions, Ted Ryan and the Highland Bavarian Corporation hired a group of engineers to determine what facilities the resort would need. They concluded (in 1939) that in order to carry passengers up to where they could use the upper basins and see the best view, the Highland Bavarian Corporation would have to build a passenger tramway from the ghost town of Ashcroft to the top of Mt. Hayden. The tramway would rise 4,000 feet over a distance of almost four miles, and cost about one million dollars. The Corporation could only manage the task if a governmental agency sponsored the project.

In addition to building a tramway, the Highland Bavarian Corporation had to establish title to the land at the base of their ski area, the would-be resort town of Ashcroft. In April 1938 the Pitkin County Commissioners canceled all delinquent taxes on the town site of Ashcroft so Charles F. Garlington, a representative of the Corporation, could receive a free and clear title to the land. In May the State Treasurer approved the action of the county commissioners, and on February 26, 1940, a special session of the district court officially declared Ashcroft abandoned and turned the townsite over to the Highland Bavarian. In order to prevent a monopoly of private development, the Highland Bavarian Corporation gave the U.S. Forest Service a deed to one-half of the valley floor. The mountains themselves were already part of the National Forest, and the Corporation proposed that the U.S. Forest Service own and operate the tramway by leasing it to a commission. In yet another plea for support, Flynn wrote in 1939: "The Hayden region is one of the last spots in our country that is preserved in its primitive glory; it belongs to all of the people of the United States. Can we not offer it, something that is our very own, to the world's winter sports?" He offered up Ashcroft to the nation's skiers and planned to develop the very landscape he promoted as primitive.

The Highland Bavarian Corporation suggested a rather unusual development strategy at first. One of their goals was to revive the economy for those who still lived in Ashcroft. To that end, they encouraged individual families to live there year round by donating help in building homes and land for gardens and livestock. Those people visiting the town would be able to choose from a variety of hotels. In the summer of 1941 Ted Ryan brought New York architect Ellery Husted to the Ashcroft site. He investigated power, water, telephone, and soil conditions, and returned excited about the project. Husted also considered a variety of architectural styles for the potential base village, and decided that restoring the old mining town and developing in a similar log house style would fit the local history and landscape, interest American tourists, and offer better publicity opportunities than a Bavarian or Swiss village. Husted imagined a Williamsburg of the Old West in Ashcroft. Tramway access to incredible scenery combined with this western town would make Ashcroft a year-round resort. Pearl Harbor and America's entrance into World War II, however, interrupted these plans before they were finalized.

The War also put a hold on the Highland Bavarian Corporation's efforts to finance their tramway. Ted Ryan had negotiated with American Steel and Wire for an estimate on the aerial tramway to Mt. Hayden. T.J. Flynn had lobbied western railroads and the U.S. Forest Service to help with the estimated $1.25 million cost. His lobbying coup, however, was convincing the Colorado State Legislature to pass an "emergency measure" in March of 1941, authorizing the creation of a Colorado Aerial Tramway Commission and providing for the sale of $650,000 worth of bonds. Flynn and Ryan hoped that once they presented plans for profitable facilities in Ashcroft, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation would buy these bonds. Flynn and Ryan pursued planning and financing for the Highland Bavarian Corporation, but by September of 1940 they did so with less vigor. Billy Fiske was dead.

While at Cambridge Fiske had learned how to fly airplanes and joined the Royal Air Force Defense of London Squadron 601. Rumor had it that the reason he did not participate in the 1936 Olympics in Germany was because he refused to compete in front of Adolph Hitler. Three days before war broke out in Europe, the Royal Air Force (RAF) called Fiske back to England and he and six other Americans joined the RAF as volunteers a few weeks later. Fiske flew his first combat mission on the sixth day of the Battle of Britain. On August 16 Germans raked his Spitfire [some sources say this was a Hurricane] with machine guns and he barely made it back to the base. He crash landed his plane and died in the hospital later that night. Fiske was the first American killed in action with the RAF in World War II; now there is a plaque dedicated to him at St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

^ Army tents for soldiers training at Ashcroft

Conclusion

The 1930s proved to be a watershed decade for Aspen's ski history, although the town changed very little in some respects. Jobs were scarce, local residents all knew one another, they had gardens and livestock in what is now downtown Aspen, and the Hotel Jerome offered the only rooms and meals for miles. Historians studying economic growth, population change, or quality of life would find little exceptional about the 1930s in Aspen. The Highland Bavarian Corporation brought relatively few visitors to the area and failed to get past the planning stages of their Mt. Hayden project. The Aspen Ski Club organized a traditional mining camp sport but could not offer paying jobs to anyone.

The Highland Bavarian and the Aspen Ski Club both proved central, however, to the development of Aspen skiing. Flynn, Ryan, Fiske, Roch, and the Corporation plugged Aspen into the world of wealthy outdoorspeople and competitors who kept skiing despite the Great Depression. Even though the Ashcroft resort never took shape, the Highland Bavarian Lodge introduced influential people—from Denver to Europe—to the scenery and snow conditions of the area. These visitors did as much to promote the Highland Bavarian and the Aspen area as the corporation's public relations efforts.

^ The 1941 National Championship Races were held on Roch Run.