A memorial service was held Friday afternoon at the top of Aspen Mountain for Jef Aldrich, who died unexpectedly in January at age 51 and who served as the director of Aspen Mountain Ski Patrol from 1994 to 2001.
A small group of Aspen Mountain patrollers and friends gathered for an informal ceremony on the outside deck behind the Sundeck restaurant, the sun shining, a cool breeze blowing.
Aldrich’s wife, of 25 years Nance Hall Aldrich, thanked everyone for coming and read two poems about death, including one that said that despite death, loved ones could still be close by and that “all is well, all is well.”
His son, Benjamin Snow Aldrich, stood to tell the members of the patrol who had gathered that he considered them all his family and how fortunate he was to have had Jef as a father. Ben, a tall and handsome recent high school graduate, grew up as a young boy on Aspen Mountain. His dad just happened to be the ski patrol director who loved to ski fresh untracked snow with his son.
Ben said he was proud to tell his friends that his father “saved lives.”
For several years, the Aldrich family lived on the second floor of the ski patrol building at the top of the mountain. Bringing in a truckload of antiques from New Hampshire, Nance Aldrich transformed what was once a storage area into a charming mountain cabin.
Aldrich had been hired by Aspen Mountain Manager Rob Baxter during a period when the Aspen Mountain patrol, which is unionized, had ended a ski season without a patrol director because they had refused to embrace a person chosen by Aspen Skiing Co. to take the position.
The company then decided to hire someone from outside the company and chose Aldrich, who had a long resume in the ski industry as a patroller and snow safety director.
Aldrich arrived with long hair, kept in a ponytail, and a full bushy beard. He looked like a carefree hippie and at first his appearance caused some consternation among SkiCo senior management. But Aldrich soon had the confidence of management and also won over the Aspen Mountain ski patrol members.
One patroller on Friday told Nance and Ben Aldrich how much Jef loved and cared for them both, and that Jef was a good boss and a good man.
Another patroller told a story about how he once found himself in jail and called Aldrich to bail him out. They both showed up at work the next morning and never a word was said about the incident by Aldrich to anyone.
Another story was about Aldrich’s first day on the job. As a patroller with avalanche control experience, Aldrich was skiing with fellow patrollers at the top of the steep terrain between Kristi and Hyrup’s. He announced to his new co-workers that the snow on the slope below was stable, but then was suddenly caught in a small avalanche and taken for a ride. Patrollers still know where “Jef’s Peril” is today.
A friend said that despite Aldrich’s carefree and casual manner, she was impressed with Aldrich’s technical accomplishments as a patroller and dedication to the ski industry.
Aldrich had a lively sense of humor and took a special delight in showing up at meetings with company managers — then trying to enforce a new grooming policy — with his beard and ponytail and a big smile. With a sarcastic nod to the corporate world, he also used to have other patrollers regularly check that his ponytail wasn’t hanging down past his 7th cervical vertebrae, which was a standard set in company’s grooming policy.
He also enjoyed simply skiing around Aspen Mountain, “showing the patrol colors” and talking with skiers. An obituary prepared by his family said that “Jef was a cosmic wanderer. He enjoyed the view from out there. It was a big part of who he was, and he incorporated this special perspective into every aspect of his life.”
Nance Aldrich said Jef would often tell her how much he loved his job on Aspen Mountain.
The family moved off Aspen Mountain to a home in Marble and Jef began commuting to the mountain from the Crystal Valley. One morning, he was in a collision on Highway 82 near Owl Creek Road that left him hospitalized with near-fatal injuries. He left his position on Aspen Mountain to recover from those injuries.
On Friday, Nance and Ben Aldrich took turns throwing a handful of Jef’s ashes to the breeze on top of Aspen Mountain. As they did so, the tattered prayer flags on the patrol shack waved in the wind.
According to his obituary, Jef Aldrich was born in Meriden, Conn. in 1956. His ski area career began at Powder Ridge Ski Area in Connecticut in 1972. He began by flipping burgers and went on to work in snowmaking, grooming and lift maintenance. In 1974, he went to work manufacturing skis for Olin Ski Co., also in Connecticut.
Aldrich moved to Vermont in 1976 and was a snowmaker and groomer for Sugarbush Resort. He took a NOLS course that summer. From 1978 to 1981, he was a ski mechanic and hard-goods manager for Inverness Sports in Waitsfield. He took his EMT certification at this time and worked for the local volunteer ambulance squad.
In 1982 Aldrich married Nance C. Hall on skis under a bright full moon in northern Vermont.
Soon after the wedding, they moved to Colorado. Aldrich worked as a ski mechanic at Keystone for the rest of that season. From 1982 to 1990, he was a patroller at both Keystone and Arapahoe Basin.
Aldrich was a Colorado heli-ski guide during the 1991-1993 ski seasons. During the summer of 1993, Jef and family moved to Porter Heights Skifield in New Zealand, where he was the ski patrol director and snow safety officer. Jef also worked at Falls Creek in Australia.
In 1994, he took the job on Aspen Mountain.
Jef Aldrich loved music (and vinyl records), poetry, the outdoors, his friends and, most of all, his family.
In addition to being survived by Nance and Ben Aldrich, his is also survived by his brothers Willie, Mark and David, and a sister, Martha.
bgs@aspendailynews.com
