We were competitive as brothers, always trying to one up each other. As brothers do. We would climb up snowy hills and huck ourselves off 40-foot cliffs, yelling "Fuck it!”. This was the motto. You stand on top of a crazy feature that is WAY bigger than you want to jump off, and you yell "Fuck it!”. Then you jump.
CHAPTER ONE: THE DREAM
I grew up on this motto and it shaped me in many ways. It taught me to believe that if you do something daring you will be rewarded. And this proved to be true. For some time.
Our father was the first to notice the danger in all of this. On one occasion he was asked to hold a camera while we played out this regular, daredevil, routine. He suffered through no more than half a day—watching his kids clear rocks by the thread of a hair. He was ‘over it’ as the industry saying goes. But we weren’t. Not even close.
Having a ski hill 30 minutes away made it hard to keep us from the slopes. And having the bulk of Colorado’s best mountains within a two-hour drive made it all but impossible. We were chasing the dream.
I would soon switch to snowboarding, while our oldest brother, Jeff, picked up telemark skiing (a form of skiing similar to cross-country yet more fit for downhill). Zack, the middle brother, stuck to Alpine skis and just got really, really good. He pushed us all to the next level in both the terrain park and the big mountains—which is where this story leads.
We always knew that backcountry skiing had a number of risks, particularly avalanches. Our father used to go on hut trips and he would bring all the safety gear: transceiver, probe and shovel. He had taught us about this. But nothing can teach you like first-hand experience.
My first experience with an avalanche was indirect—I was a thousand miles away when it happened—but it would come home to affect me in a big way. My brothers lost a friend. A friend who had moved to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to work as a ski patroller. He was living the dream! Allen Wagner. I saw his sister looking at the photos of her lost brother. I will never forget that moment. It could have been one of my brothers.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April - May 2019 من Adventure Magazine.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April - May 2019 من Adventure Magazine.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
بالفعل مشترك? تسجيل الدخول
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