ASPEN SKI PATROL, DEATH IN THE MOUNTAINS, COMETS PASSING

Unique tragedies are part of the life of anyone living in ski towns, or at least hearing about them.  In the winter of 1971 four members of the Aspen Highlands ski patrol, perished in tons of snow, in Aspen Highlands Bowl, a massive avalanche that was tough to avoid and escape.  The tragedy for these very young athletes rocked the community of Aspen, and left a lasting mark on the romantic vision of mountain adventure for Birdman.  A few years later, Birdman worked for 8 years on the Telluride Ski Patrol, with patrolmen from Aspen, Taos, and Steamboat Springs, doing the same kind of avalanche control work on massive bowls of powder, hanging high above the town of Telluride.  Studies and data were kept for the US Forest Service, and most of the powder bowls were later opened up to the public.  Aspen Highlands Bowl is now open to the public, due to the work of these original pioneers on the patrol, who braved its wild elements.  The early, untimely death of young people has always caused Birdman to ponder in sadness, but also to reflect on the comet theory, that some people, sent by the gods, whether jazz musicians, writers, poets, or mountain adventure types, living on the edge of nature, who come into this life, like a bright, sparkling,  comet, and orbit around the local mountains and far away in high adventure spots, causing wonder and awe amongst the locals, with their hubris and acts of living on the edge of bravado, and suddenly like a descending falcon, dive to  earth, not to be seen or heard from again, ever.  “The angels all were singing out of tune, And hoarse with having little else to do, Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, Or curb a runaway young star or two, Or wild colt of a comet which too soon, Broke out of bounds o’er the ethereal blue, Splitting some planet with its beautiful tail, As boats are sometimes by a wanton whale.”    “The Vision of Judgment,” 1822, Lord Byron.  In each ski town, its residents regularly hear about these young adventurers, passing away in an avalanche, hang glider, rock climbing,  skiing on the edge, or  skiing the length of Norway, to be caught in a 16 day blizzard,  frozen in a tent, like a Telluride resident who perished in Norway in 2008.  It is always very sad, it always shakes the soul of those friends left on earth .  The same comet theory applies to soldiers who died in their early youth in Vietnam, and now two perpetual wars.  “And that’s the end.  He passes away under a cloud, inscrutable at heart, remembered, unforgiving, and expressively romantic.  Now he is no more, there are days when the reality of his existence comes to me with an immense, with an overwhelming force; and yet upon my honor there are moments, too, when he passes from my eyes like a disembodied spirit astray amongst the passions of this earth, ready to surrender himself faithfully to the claim of his own world of shades.”  Lord Jim,  Joseph Conrad.