Rigby was a crusher’s crusher and remains an icon in the sport. Shown here at Snowbird in 2014. Photo: David J Rothman.
In mid-February, renowned adventure skier Kasha Rigby (54) was killed in an avalanche in Kosovo. David J Rothman, who has covered the ski scene for decades, has this remembrance.
My phone tells me that the last time I saw Kasha Rigby was on March 28, 2014. I can’t believe it was that long ago, but there is the time stamp, cold and impersonal, on the two photos I took of her at Snowbird that day. Perhaps I remembered it as more recent because of the tricks time plays, but perhaps it was more that every time I saw her, she was so vivid and charming and beautiful that the memory has stayed vibrant.
In the first picture, she is standing at the top of the tram, wearing an orange parka and a big smile…with a bottle of red wine in her oversized right pocket. It was almost 4:00, so we had caught the last tram. I’d run into her by chance and remember how happy I was to see her, as we hadn’t been in touch for many years.
I had first met Kasha when I lived in Crested Butte, where my wife and I moved in 1993 and raised our family. A summer or two before we moved to CB full-time—probably 1992—I was biking with some friends, Bill Miller and Shaun Steves, both strong athletes, up Baby Head Hill on our way to the old Secret Trail on Gibson’s Ridge. With trail reroutes over the years, you can still ride the upper half of Baby Head Hill—so named for the size of the stones on an old mining road—but only the upper half, on what is now called the Green Lake Trail. In those days, however, it was a steep, punishing, direct 650-foot climb with no benches, on loose dirt (with those babyheads…). A real test piece.
Shaun and Bill had, as usual, beaten me to the top and I was grinding along. The climb is steep enough that if you come off the bike, starting again is a challenge, so I was saving my energy but keeping a decent pace. At some point I became aware that someone was behind me, looked over my shoulder, and realized a young woman was gaining on me.
I was still young enough that I couldn’t use the excuse of age to rationalize getting caught, so, ever competitive if not an Olympian, I doubled down and maintained my lead to the top, although I nearly had a stroke. Thirty seconds later this obviously very fit young woman arrived with a big smile, told me how much fun it had been to climb together, and we all chatted. I noticed that Bill and Shaun were respectful.
After we had gone our separate ways—we were headed to different trails—I asked them who she was. They were incredulous that I didn’t know.
“That’s Kasha,” said Bill, shaking his head, then, with a tone that locals in CB use to indicate that the person under discussion is not just strong, but Crested Butte-strong (there’s a difference), “She can ski.”
And could she ever. In 1993, as anyone who knows American ski history lore is aware, Kasha placed 3rd in the women’s division of the US Extremes, riding telemark gear, and the rest, as they say, is history. She went on to other competitive triumphs and quickly evolved into one of the most accomplished ski mountaineers on the planet, scoring multiple first telemark and women’s descents on big peaks, including a 1995 descent of Cho Oyu, the sixth highest peak in the world at 26,906’. At this point she was already a North Face-sponsored athlete, and she spent the next decades pursuing such ambitious adventures that many of us lived vicariously through her. (You can read about some of her many expeditions and accomplishments, here, here, and here.) She became such a local celebrity in CB that it was almost impossible to have a public conversation with her. Random guys would come up, interrupt, ask her if they remembered meeting at the post office last week, and then offer to crawl through broken glass if she would just take a run with them next Tuesday. She was always polite.
Show here at Snowbird in 2014, wine bottle in pocket for special delivery to a catering event, Rigby exudes her full-value energy. Photo: David J Rothman
That day at Snowbird in 2014 when we caught up, she told me, laughing, that she was on her way to Alta, where I think she was working in catering and was doing some kind of event, which is why she was skiing with a bottle of wine that she’d been asked to pick up. She told me about her life and I apologized for getting some of the details wrong when I republished the piece I’d done on her for Powder in 1994 (one of the first on her in the national press) in my book Living the Life. I’d thought she’d gotten married and started a family, but that was of course wrong.
At this point, about half an hour later and after a fast, soft run in the Peruvian Crique (with a wine bottle), we were sitting in the Forklift, the restaurant on the Snowbird Plaza. She was still, at 44, ever the same, effusive and charming. As I snapped another picture and she told me about her life over the years, she became a bit thoughtful and said “You know, I woke up on someone’s couch the other day, and I thought, my life is great, but I do have to accept the sacrifices I’ve made for all these adventures. I guess I’ll probably never have children or own a house. Most of what I own is in storage…” There was perhaps a slight tinge of regret, which I sensed in a pause, but it only lasted a few seconds, like an unthreatening cloud on a sunny day. Then she gave that smile and laugh and said, “But this is my life, and that’s ok.” All in all, she seemed happy and fulfilled.
The day I remember best with Kasha was in the spring of 1996. My friend Bruce Plotkin had come up to visit us in Crested Butte and we ran into Kasha, Adam Comey and Chris, a friend of theirs, on the hill. It had snowed about eight inches of fluff on top of bullet-proof, but that didn’t slow this crew down in the slightest. I’m a former NCAA racer, Bruce lived in Val d’Isère for six years, and everyone was skiing hard. And skiing hard and fast in CB is intense, with plenty of options for serious consequences.
As the day went on, Kasha and Adam’s young and rather quiet friend began to do more than impress. I remember turning around at the bottom of the 50-degree Big Chute and watching him come out of it arcing GS turns at about 35, his hip almost on the snow. When we skied a steep, sneaky line in Horseshoe Springs, I turned to him at the top and said “This line has a reef about halfway down. Might be stony.” He looked at me and said, “Stony is good,” and then we all watched from below as he launched the whole feature at speed and landed like a panther. Bruce and I looked at each other like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when they’re being tracked and then I said to Kasha “Who is that guy?”
“His name’s Chris Davenport,” she said, “He just won the worlds in Valdez.”
In many thousands of days skiing CB, that was one of the most memorable. By the end of it, my eyebrows felt like they were somewhere on top of my head. Just another day in the office for those three.
When I learned of Kasha’s death on February 13 in an avalanche in the Eagle’s Nest area at Brezovica in Kosovo, it felt like a kick in the stomach. She lived a life filled with risk, but she had seemed untouchable, and at this point was beyond seasoned. From afar, her life seemed to shine like a diamond. I’d heard she was engaged, and wish I’d known Magnus Wolfe Murray, her fiancé. He must be quite a guy.
Kasha will be remembered for her athletic accomplishments, and also for her philanthropic work with organizations such as the World Food Program. But, as many others have pointed out, it was her charisma that was most remarkable. The joy she took in life was palpable even to those who only hung out with her occasionally, like me. She was unforgettable: strong, graceful, charming, thoughtful, adventurous and beautiful. She wasn’t beloved because she was a great athlete, but because she was a beautiful person. If she hadn’t expressed her love of life through skiing and mountaineering, it would have come out in other ways that were just as meaningful.
RIP, Kasha, and thanks for sharing such a rich and purposeful life with everyone you met. You left us too soon, but your life was a blessing.
