Godfather of powder skiing, Junior Bounous turns 100

Junior Bounous enjoys a sunny day of skiing at. Snowbird. Photo: Snowbird Resort

The Utah native and Little Cottonwood Canyon denizen pioneered the modern-day technique of skiing pow and he's still out there doing it.

LITTLE COTTONWOOD CANYON, Utah – On Sunday, August 24, Utah ski pioneer Junior Bounous turns 100. For most people, a century of life is remarkable enough. But for Bounous, who still carves turns and set the record as the world’s oldest heli-skier at age 95, the milestone is just another marker on a mountain he’s been skiing down his whole life.

Born in 1925 to Italian fruit farmers in Provo, Bounous grew up in the shadow of the Wasatch, where snow quickly became his true harvest. After chasing winters across North America, he returned home to help launch Snowbird in 1970. He drew the resort’s first trail map, cut many of its first runs by hand, and became its inaugural Ski School Director. From the start, he set a new standard for ski instruction—bringing children and beginners into the fold with joy, patience, and rhythm.

“Fear and stiffness are the enemies of good skiing,” he liked to remind students, sometimes teaching powder turns by having them sing songs to find their flow.

For generations of Utah skiers, Bounous became a larger-than-life figure—part teacher, part trailblazer, part powder prophet. “Junior’s mentality was always: let’s go have fun,” remembers Bridger Call, now the Executive Director of the Snowbird Ski Education Foundation and a Snowbird Ski Team alum. “When we were kids, he was always around, always skiing, literally every day.”

Even now, Bounous describes skiing with the wonder of a boy making his first turns. “Every time I drive up Little Cottonwood Canyon, it feels the same to me as it did 60 years ago,” he said. “You get six or eight powder runs, and you’re giggling like a little kid all over again.”

Bounous was also the first skier to ever ski Snowbird’s legendary Pipeline. Impressively, on his 80th birthday Bounous skied the steep backcountry line linking smooth turns even on its steepest pitch of 50 degrees.

On his 100th birthday, Junior Bounous is more than a pioneer—he’s a living reminder that joy, like powder, is best shared, and that some turns never grow old.