Dave Gorsuch embodied the mountain life
It was a gorgeous winter evening as a young boy joined his father on the T-bar at Chalk Mountain outside Climax, Colo. When they reached the top at around 12,000 feet, a full moon was creeping up over the ridgeline. They looked back down at the majestic floodlit slope. After a moment, dad skied over to the lift shack and flipped a switch, turning off the lights and flipping on the moonlight for a father-son cruise down the backside of the mountain to their home.
Such was life for young David Gorsuch. His father, Jack, was one of those ski area pioneers who bootstrapped lifts onto mountains and introduced a passionate generation to the sport of skiing. Young David would go on to become one of America’s great ski racers and forge a lifelong relationship with the love of his life, skier Renie Cox, as icons of the retail ski industry with the Gorsuch brand.
John LaConte/jlaconte@vaildaily.com
BEAVER CREEK With wildlife closures expiring for the season Thursday, Beaver Creek began work on the ski area’s expansion of lift-served terrain in the area of the resort known as McCoy Park.
Beaver Creek Chief Operating Officer Nadia Guerriero said the earliest of the crews got to work during the 4 a.m. hour, as time is of the essence on the project.
“We’re putting in two quad lifts, 17 new trails, building a warming hut, building compostable toilets, a pit toilet down at the bottom of the chairlift for employees, so there’s a lot to do,” Guerriero said. “We’ve been spending a ton of time planning and getting everything situated and ready to go, so we were ready to hit the ground running this morning.”
David Gorsuch passed away at home, surrounded by family, on June 26, 2021, in Vail, Colorado. He was 82 years old.
David was born in Climax, Colorado, on Sept. 22, 1938, 11,360 feet above sea level. The allure of mountain summits never lost its hold on him.
David, a promising young racer, competed in the 1954 Junior Nationals in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. There, he met Renie Cox, a young woman from the Northeast and a top competitor. They shared the podium that year as medal winners. David competed in the 1958 Alpine World Championships in Bad Gastein, Austria. The pair competed internationally and were members of the 1960 U.S. Ski Team that competed in the Winter Olympics in Squaw Valley, California.
at the 2022 Winter Games in China.
Her winter got off to a strong start by winning the delayed 2020 U.S. national championship in super-G back in November at Copper Mountain. But, about a month later in what would be her only World Cup event of the season, McKennis Duran crashed in the season-opening downhill in Val d’Isere, France, fracturing her fibula near her right ankle and doing some damage to her left knee that ended her season.
She’s still not fully healed from the crash, and had to get permission from her doctor to even slip the Highlands course on Saturday for her goodbye run. She doesn’t plan to be on skis again until next season, even if no speed suits are involved.
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