In the years of the skinny ski, Shane McConkey brought wider water skis to Granite Chief’s owner Herb Manning for mounting so he could experiment with them on the slopes. Sure enough, they functioned exceptionally well in powder, and McConkey became a pioneer of fat skis ’90s.
“I mounted all his stuff,” Manning said. “I mounted the water skis for him, parachuting skis …”
Granite Chief was the place to get your skis tuned and your boots fitted throughout the late ’70s and onward, innovating the ski industry alongside McConkey.
Manning opened Granite Chief in 1976 in a 10-square-foot space in Tahoe City’s old Henrickson building with a $4,000 loan his parents co-signed for the store and equipment. The tuning shop was almost too small to tune skis, so Manning said he’d have to open the door to work on the 210-centimeter-long skis in the night, sometimes while snowstorms blew through.
“You find a way to survive,” Manning said.
His way was to address the niche need for more tuners in Tahoe and start a business. Still, he could barely afford a place to live, so he rented a space in a friend’s garage when he wasn’t on duty as a firefighter. Having visited Tahoe while growing up in Ukiah, Manning was determined to live there, skiing during the day and working at night. His passion paid off, gaining him customers like McConkey, Robin Williams, and Wayne Poulsen.
Poulsen, founder of Olympic Valley, got Manning to move his storefront to the valley after its first year. According to Manning and his wife Treas, Poulsen loved Granite Chief and wanted it closer. Manning ended up running his store from Poulsen’s garage, which was made from Donner Summit snowsheds.
“When I moved here, it was the center of the world,” Manning said. “[Skiing’s] your total focus. You didn’t leave all winter.”
Manning had previously worked for Squaw Valley Ski Corporation and then as a cross-country ski guide. His tuning skills were self-taught. Before he opened shop, he rebased friends’ skis to figure out his new equipment.
The Mannings’ store created a community for skiing aficionados with its employees’ and owners’ dedication to the sport. Granite Chief was consistently awarded Top Shop in the West and ranked within the top 50 ski stores in the United States, year after year. The Mannings couldn’t have done it without devoted staff.
“The product that we were putting out of that back shop was better than anybody’s,” said boot fitter Gunner Wolf. “Faster skis, the whole deal.”
Wolf is one of Granite Chief’s original boot fitters who has worked there for over 40 years. He innovated boot fitting, making use of leather shoe stretchers and anything he could get his hands on to help him mold boots.
“I think a lot of the techniques that came out of that were born out of the back shop and the boot fitting was out of necessity,” Wolf said. “There were no tools. We modified wrenches, we would use certain hammers that were not meant for boot fitting that worked really well for boot fitting.”
His techniques were recognized by the U.S. Olympic Ski Team, which patronized Granite Chief. After proving himself, former U.S. Olympic skier Tamara McKinney entrusted her boots to Wolf alone. Wolf’s skill with shoes even had some customers bringing their heels to him for stretching.
“Working with the U.S. Team was quite a privilege,” Wolf said. “You had to earn it, especially when athletes ask for your help instead of using their assigned product boot fitter from the manufacturer.”
And they kept coming back. McKinney and retired U.S. Olympic skier Julia Mancuso won medals in the boots Wolf fitted. Manning said their goal was always to make tomorrow better than today for customers. It was a place that made everyone feel at home, considered what its customers wanted, and helped them out where they could.
“The thing I’ve always felt that sets Gunner apart is he listens to people, and he hears what they’re saying, and he lets them explain it,” Treas said. “And then he goes to work on it.”
Then located in Olympic Valley at the bottom of the slopes by the post office, Herb said they quickly learned what worked well and what didn’t. Once Treas started helping out at the shop, it became about more than tuning and boot fitting. In 2013, Granite Chief’s full retail store was named best merchandise shop in the country by Ski Industries of America.
As Wolf tells the story of the store’s transition, one day Herb came back from lunch and suddenly the store sold Chapstick. The Mannings introduced ski brands from Europe, trying to stay ahead of the American industry and its distributors. Treas said brands like Nevica from the UK and Degré7 from France put Granite Chief on the skiwear map.
“We did a lot of things that, they were pretty innovative at the time,” Herb said. “We were kind of one of the first to do team days way back when nobody did them. We were kind of the first to do that. One of the first to do junior leases.”
Granite Chief withstood each ski era: long skis, fat skis, short skis, and all the extreme skiers and visitors. It even predates the chairlift called Granite Chief.
“It’s changed a lot, just like we were named after Granite Chief Peak, which is the highest peak in [Palisades Tahoe]. But [what] we were really named after is that sidecountry thing where in the spring you could ride up Emigrant, get to the top of Emigrant, and you can hike,” Herb said. “We were there before the lift.”
Just shy of 50 years after opening, Granite Chief, now located in Truckee, was purchased by BlueZone Sports in October. Though the original era is long gone, the community remains. Manning and Wolf are confident the spirit of Granite Chief will continue under BlueZone.
“You’re happy to sell your business, but you hate every minute,” Herb said. “That bittersweet thing. After 49 years, it’s part of who you are.”
Manning and Treas hoped to get to 50 years of business, but it was time, they said. And after many offers, BlueZone said it wanted to keep Granite Chief the same.
“Our back room is just the same as we left,” Herb said. “So they’re going to do the same work on your skis. That’s not going to be an issue.”
We’ll see.