A fairly serious injury derailed my season the second time around. After I left, I lost touch with all those with whom I had worked and together enjoyed the thrill of being on top of the world for a few months each of those 2 seasons.

A few years later I was in Eastern Europe and decided to nip back to that beautiful location in Switzerland and see the sights in summertime, as well as catch up with some of the locals I remembered and had worked alongside. Upon arriving at a local guesthouse in the resort town, I queried the owner about the whereabouts of my Swiss friend who had been so helpful during my time there. I was stunned to learn that he had been killed in a skiing mishap 2 years prior. The next day I promptly made my way to the maintenance garages connected to the resort, where most of the men I had worked with spent summers readying the litany of equipment and machines for subsequent winter seasons.

The details of my friend's demise were gruesome.

Working at the very top of the mountain meant that weather conditions could change dramatically, without warning and in a short amount of time. A beautiful blue sky, hot sun and no wind could turn into a vicious storm within 20 minutes. I had seen it happen many times during my time there and it was truly something to behold.

However, on that fateful day he had headed up, there was no doubt as to the conditions. Things were bad and it was unlikely that skiers would be allowed near the top. As such, he headed up alone while the remaining staff who usually accompanied him were sent to other parts of the mountain. His only intent was likely to give the lift equipment a quick check and batten down everything for the impending storm.

He must have gone to the uppermost point (which requires a final ride on a t-bar lift) and then been on his way down on skis when things really turned bad. Somehow he had had one of his poles positioned in front of him--something he had always cautioned me against when I was learning the basics--when it jammed into something that wouldn't give...an outcropping of rock, hard-packed snow...who knows? When travelling at high speeds a ski pole can become a lethal weapon. Exactly why he had admonished me on a number of occasions those years earlier as we had blasted down the slopes in a spread out file and upon one of the group in the lead dropping a scarf, I tried to snare it with my pole on the way past.