By Jim Stanford on March 18, 2009
Kathryn, center, with friends Jen Cashen and Kevin Pusey.
Jackson Hole Mountain Resort will host a memorial service Sunday for ski patroller Kathryn Miller Hess, who died yesterday of injuries sustained in a fall.
The service for family and friends will be held at 5 p.m. atop the Bridger Gondola in the Couloir restaurant.
The nearly 17,000 visits and hundreds of comments on the Caring Bridge web site, as of this writing, attest to the fact that Kathryn was an all-around badass.
The native of Columbus, Ga., poured her passion into mountaineering and music. She was in her eighth season on the Jackson Hole patrol, having worked earlier in that capacity at Grand Targhee. In spring and summer she led canyoneering and climbing trips for Jackson Hole Mountain Guides, of which she used to be a part owner with her ex-husband, Rob Hess.
She loved the canyon country of southern Utah as much as the jams of Widespread Panic and the Grateful Dead. She reached summits from Alaska to the Himalayas, and enjoyed the high points of many a concert.
She had been in a coma for four days since tumbling in the Spacewalk chute south of the resort on Friday the 13th. Doctors were impressed by a quality well known to family and friends: her strong heart.
A community that has grieved for days now turns to celebrating Kathryn’s life. If only we had the same zest with which she attacked each day.
Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be here.
This is a very tragic loss for the community.
One question that has been unmentioned thus far: Was she wearing a helmet? If not, her passing could serve to alert others. Even expert mountaineers can fall and when they rarely do, it is often in precarious places.
She was not wearing a helmet. Very few ski patrollers do.
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This seems like as good a place as any to share this report:
Family and friends celebrated Kathryn’s life in a beautiful memorial service Sunday evening atop the Bridger Gondola at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort. About 200 people took part.
A bagpiper played “Amazing Grace” as the sun set behind Rendezvous Mountain. The ski patrol detonated an eight-bomb salute on the Headwall, in honor of her patrol route.
Georgie Stanley read this poem, below, and Kevin Brazell recited a heartfelt one of his own.
Do not stand at my grave and weep;
I am not there. I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow.
I am the diamond glints on snow.
I am the sunlight on ripened grain.
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning’s hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry;
I am not there. I did not die.
— written by Mary Elizabeth Frye (1905-2004)
When the bagpipes and poems ceased, a slight, cold breeze whipped up, as if Kathryn were there with us in spirit.
After a Southern dinner and a few words, Chanman, John Pansewicz, Andy Peterson and Greg Creamer, among others, played a musical tribute that carried well into the night.
I am really saddened for the loss of this special person. Do you think this incident will lead Ski Patrol to require helmets, given what happened to Kathryn and the precarious places that patrollers ski?
This picture we took before going to Denver for WSP’s New Year’s shows…2009. Good times:)