Living Extreme in Whistler

Living Extreme

I had been planning an article about extreme living in Whistler. Life in Whistler changes your perception of extreme. Everything is so extreme—the skiing and snowboarding, the personalities, the partying—that is becomes normal to you.

I love this extreme town, even though I sometimes feel like I am the most conservative person here. I admire the people I meet who are driven by passion, who live life to the fullest, and who believe that life is too short to not have fun every day. Living here has shifted my whole outlook on life, and I think it has made me a better person.

Of course, the mountain lifestyle doesn’t come without its consequences. Unfortunately, every year you can count on coming across a few news items about skiers, snowboarders and sledders dying on the mountain doing what they love. These articles always have a sobering effect on me, reminding me that life is short and anything can happen.

Things are a little different when you realize that the person you’re reading about in the article is somebody you know.

 

Fred Excelerator

I met Fred on the Excelerator chairlift earlier this season (he’s even saved in my phone as “Fred Excelerator”). My friend Will and I were up for a day of early season shredding and we were endlessly entertained by this tall Danish dude, then only 18 years old, who had just moved to Whistler to enjoy a season in the snow. We invited him to join us for a few laps, and a snow friendship quickly developed.

Fred was exclusively a ski buddy—I never hung out with him off the mountain, which seems weird now, but he was a regular recipient of my early morning “Anyone heading up the mountain today?” texts. You could always count on him to be wildly entertaining. The last time we shredded together, he was trying to master back flips (off just about anything) and created a weird yet hilarious game of ski leap-frog. I suppose your average person would have considered him to be extreme, but in Whistler, he was just another kid stoked to be on the mountain and eager to try it all.

Sending it at the Tree Fort with Fred, Aaron and Will

When I came across an article announcing a skier had died in the Blackcomb backcountry area the other day, my heart sunk a little. Three days later, they identified him as a 19 year old Danish skier named Frederik Gordner Husted.  My heart sunk a whole lot more as I tried to confirm whether Frederik Gordner Husted was Fred Excelerator. It didn’t take long to find a ski video he’d posted of himself wearing the same loud plaid ski pants that I used to identify him in a lift line up.

 

Making Sense of it

I’m not really sure what the takeaway message from this is. I don’t know that there is one. On the one hand, there are risks to living this lifestyle, and things don’t always go as planned. Sometimes we push things too far. How many times have you walked away from a gnarly fall thinking, “Oof, that could’ve gone a lot worse!”. On the other hand, life is short– Fred’s life was cut brutally short. All the more reason to live it with passion, don’t you think?