“You can do it too, all you gotta do is try you fuckin’ pussy!”
That was my intro to Jamie Pierre. It was one wintry night in the Jackson Hole ski-bum palace I was sharing with my ski instructor and liftie roommates, herbal muscle relaxers smoldering on the table as we watched TGR’s seminal film HIGH LIFE for the first time.
Amidst the Collins bros and Sage playing around on the Haute Route, Candide Thovex’s perfect pipe ride, one of Kina Pickett’s sickest lines (actually one of the sickest Jackson sequences I’ve ever seen), one man blew my mind – a lunatic launching his meat around with a freedom bordering on insanity. That man was Jamie Pierre and after a sequence in which he did everything from hucking a snow-covered house to going over a cliff backwards and throwing a backflip from which there could be no intention of landing, he gave this opening quote and I felt like a huge pussy.
1 year later and with the Tetons covered in more powder than Pablo Escobar’s guest house, Jamie Pierre hucked a cliff at Grand Targhee to set a world record. He flipped upside down during the 255-foot plunge and landed on his upper back, making a 12-foot bomb hole. His only injury was a cut lip from the people digging him up.
On November 13, 2011, Pierre died not while skiing off some death-is-certain cliff, not flipping upside down to shoot some movie to keep his sponsors; no, he died in an avalanche around his home mountain Snowbird on a snowboard. Like most avalanches, it didn’t kill by suffocating him but by dragging him over rocks and trees; official cause of death was blunt trauma.
So why? Why do skiers and snowboarders do this, risk their lives over something so seemingly meaningless, something that could even be seen as selfish (nobody truly has fun when these athletes are on their boards or skis except the athletes)? When Pierre hucked the cliff, he said he was doing it to bring attention to Jesus Christ. He said a prayer before about Jesus dying on the cross. Afterwards, bumper stickers popped up around Jackson saying “Jesus woulda stuck it” because, c’mon, Pierre wasn’t jumping for Jesus, no matter how much he might try to paint it as the work of a snowbound missionary. He’s Christian and sure, maybe a few people reassessed the lack of God in their lives after seeing such a death-defying feat and, yes, perhaps he might say “then it was worth it.” But there’s only one reason why we ski, snowboard; why we risk our lives trying to go faster than feels comfortable, huck higher cliffs than we thought possible, exploring out of bounds and away from easily accessible medical help: because the moment we stop pushing ourselves, the moment we stop showing our bodies and our minds and the world what we can do, that’s when we start dying. We ski to escape the restraints put on us by a controlled society, by people telling us we can’t fly, we have to wear suits, slow down your physical speed, put your faith in technology and machines, urban and suburban living is supreme, speed up your career, your life, your responsibilities.
For me, when I’m snowboarding is the only time when I feel free, truly and sublimely free. And the moments when I reaffirm my place in the universe and regain my confidence in myself and my strength; my belief in my worth and my masculinity; when I prove that I can do whatever I set my mind to; those moments appear when I’ve pushed myself, tested myself, and come out ahead. That’s why we do it. That’s why men climb Everest. And yes, it’s completely irrational – but that’s also part of the fun. The pointless irrationality of it all. To truly understand it, I suggest you watch a movie A LIFE ASCENDING about a man whose made his life – family, job, work and play – all in the mountains. Because a grand theme explored here is the reality that death is always waiting around the next peak.
This is one of the few sports where many of its greats die doing it. A few surfing legends have gone out in the waves but not nearly as many. Eddie Aikau and Todd Chesser is nothing compared to the long list of mountain greats: in the last decade legendary mountaineer/athletes Doug Coombs, Craig Kelly, Shane McConkey, and now Jamie Pierre have died, just to name a few. That quartet alone would be like Charles Barkley, Michael Jordan, Allen Iverson and Shaq all dying in the last 8 years while on a pro, semi-pro, or pick-up ball court. Everybody who does this enough, who really makes a commitment, at least at some point during his life, has a friend who dies in the mountains.
For me that kid is Tyler Thorburn. He was the first person I met in Jackson, while doing odd jobs on some home rehab project with a perfect view of the Grand Teton and JHMR. Tyler pointed out all the peaks to me; he told me about avalanche awareness, about a semester he spent digging snow-pits and learning about hoar. He was the kind of kid who never had anything bad to say about anybody. He always smiled. And he skied the way you’re supposed to live – free, fearless but, somehow, controlled. He knew how to let go and in that way tap into the ether and vibrate on a different plane from the rest of us. He skied the sickest lines, hucked the biggest cliffs, and lived the real ski-bum life – that year he didn’t have a pass but somehow always found a ticket when he needed one, and without ever paying, I might add, a true mark of pride among ski bums. I could go on about how inspirational of a person he was, how good a spirit he had (the guy was training to be a guide and working with special needs kids), and how horrible I felt about the distance that came between us when I decided to return to the lowland life while he stayed in Jackson. Or even more, how I felt when I found out he’d died in Las Leñas, Argentina a trip he’d invited me to come on but which I eschewed because my 9-7 high-stress job in smoggy Los Angeles left me broker than when I was working at a ski shop at the base of the tram and living a humble but happy and fulfilled existence. I discovered emptiness in losing a friend I’d always planned on spending more time with but never did, the regret of pushing things off. And I wondered what’s it worth, to put everybody through that suffering, mine no doubt miniscule compared to that felt by those still close to him and of course his family. In fact, a cousin even contacted me via the crappy video I'd put together of Tyler skiing like a pro while the rest of us looked like the amateurs we were (this opens slow, with Tyler telemarking with a kayak paddle - then he blows you away).
But then I got the answer, it just appeared one day, one simple, basic truth to explain it all. That the Tyler everybody loved is also the Tyler who went off on his adventures, explored, took those risks which, regardless how calculated, were still risks. The Tyler who’d fly to the other side of the hemisphere by himself and randomly make friends. The Tyler who lived life the way he skied – to the fullest with no slowing, no reserves, no fear or apprehension. And if he stopped doing this, he would lose a part of what made him a man to whom everybody gravitated, a beacon of light refracted through a prism of experience in contrast to the gray and monochrome auras of most humans stumbling around this planet.
Jamie Pierre no doubt lived the same way as Tyler and with the same light shining out of him, though I never met him, though I only got to experience this through videos and the occasional spotting on the hill. And he will be missed, as will all those who died before and will die after doing what they love in a place that has given them so much, a place that has defined them as human beings. All those who remind us everyday people that there is more to life and that we can leave the stagnant waters of routine and drudgery and join the few who live dynamic lives full of new and wondrous experiences.
Because it must be noted that these people, through their deaths, also remind us that no life worth living comes without a price and that the price for a life lived larger than most is, well, that very life itself.
Jamie Pierre, you will be missed by those who loved you, who knew you, or whom you merely inspired from far away. Thank you all for showing us suckers how life should be lived.
- Ryan
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