Still Shining: Sarah Burke was far more than a talented athlete. Image courtesy Roxy.
There has been too much loss this winter. It’s dangerous out there. In November, big air legend Jaime Pierre perished in an avalanche at Snowbird. Thirteen-year old Taft Conlin died in a rare slide inbounds at Vail. Last month, ski industry icons Jim Jack, Chris Rudolph and Johnny Brenan were swept away in an avalanche in the Stevens Pass sidecountry—they were friends of ours and members of the ski tribe that encompasses the staff of this magazine and, I think, its readers. I keep thinking that they were out there doing what most of us do every weekend, not “thrill-seeking” as some national media publications have called backcountry skiing, but simply out enjoying the blessing of life in the mountains with friends. And, though it had nothing to do with the horrific snow conditions of this tough winter, we lost freestyle shining star Sarah Burke in a freak accident in the Park City superpipe in January.
It’s hard to see anything positive in the midst of all these bright young lights going dark but when Sarah died, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by the outpouring of emotion for her—from her friends, colleagues in the snowsports industry and even perfect strangers, people from across the globe who might not have known much about skiing but somehow felt touched by her light and energy. Sarah Burke was certainly one of the most important women ever in the sport but her legacy is deeper than just being a talented athlete and driving force in putting women’s halfpipe skiing in the Olympics. As her friend and longtime ski writer Leslie Anthony told me: “Lindsey Vonn may be the greatest female racer ever but Sarah Burke has had way more lasting impact. Thank the X Games and ESPN for some of that, but thank Sarah’s openness, perseverance, talent and drive for most of it.”
Tait Wardlaw, a longtime ski industry vet who works at Rossignol put it best: “The true testament to who Sarah was is that, at the end of the day, the outpouring of comments and support and emotion for her had nothing to do with her skiing. She was an amazing skier but she was also the warmest, most approachable, nicest person around.”
In that way, she reminded me of my friend Jonny Copp, who died in an avalanche in 2009 and who shot the photo on the cover of this issue of EO. I am also reminded of another bright light we lost this winter. He was a two-year-old boy fighting leukemia, whom I learned about from the Love Hope Strength Foundation. On the Facebook page his parents made for his supporters he was known as “Daniel the Brave.” I cried when I read he lost his battle, just as I have too often this winter. Life is fragile. We cannot hold on to it. But we can give it our all like little smiling Daniel, like Sarah Burke and Jonny and everyone else we have lost who embraced life instead of living in fear of how brief it is. We can take the short time we have and change our world, or we can simply connect to the people we encounter each day. Live brave.
