Outdoor Retailer PreShow - Summer 2019 - 26

FEATURE 2

FREE RANGE SKIER
Big Mountain skier Dave
Treadway loved the mountains.
His legacy will live on in the
next generation of Treadways.
By Helen Olsson

Hansjörg Auer on
the Southeast ridge
of Annapurna III in
Nepal in 2016.

South Ridge Traverse in the Alaska
Range, an 8,500-foot line that he
completed with Clint Helander.
Their route was one of the longest
mountain routes climbed in North
America in decades.
ON A PERSONAL NOTE, THE

deaths of these three men has hit
me hard. I knew of Auer through
reputation only when I worked as
the digital editor of Alpinist magazine. I was always astounded by
his accomplishments, which were
consistently at the cutting edge of
rock and alpine.
However, I'd been close with
Roskelley for the past several years,
and I was just getting to know
Lama better.
There were so many calls and
projects that Roskelley and I worked
on or hoped to work on together.
We had planned to visit Alberta this
spring for a first ascent in the Ghost
River Wilderness Area, but shoulder
surgery kept him from going. He
went under the knife so he could
climb bigger, harder objectives later
this year with Lama in the Canadian
Rockies. After our trip fell through, I
remember how apologetic he was.

Earlier this year, Roskelley and I
climbed together during the Ouray
Ice Festival. One night during a
cocktail hour, he introduced me to
Lama. Lama and I exchanged info,
and we began mulling over project
ideas. I hoped to report on Lama's
future climbs. The next day, Lama
and I met up in the ice park, climbed
side by side, and shared stories.
The following week, we met up at
the Snow Show in Denver. After he
and Alex Honnold finished a panel
discussion, I interviewed Lama for
a feature in The Daily. Even after
our interview, we met at The North
Face booth to continue talking. He
was soft-spoken, sincere, and I was
incredibly excited to work with him.
In the weeks after the tragedy,
I often found myself crying in
my kitchen, thinking about him,
his family, and his widow Allison
Roskelley, who is just about the
sweetest person I've ever met.
Last year, Roskelley came to me
at a difficult time. It was soon after
my friend Hayden Kennedy had
taken his own life, devastated by
losing his girlfriend, Inge Perkins, in an avalanche in Montana.
Roskelley, knowing I was hurting,

/ SUMMER MARKET 2019

called to check in on me. Again I
was crying in the kitchen.
After the three climbers' deaths,
I visited the Assembly of God in
Mariposa, California, looking for
solace. I lasted there 30 seconds,
knowing that my church was really
a short distance away in El Cap
Meadow in Yosemite National Park
beneath the massive rock. So I
drove down there, walked out to a
tree and looked up at the Big Stone.
Sitting there alone, I thought
about Allison. I thought about our
call earlier that morning, when we
cried together for three minutes
before hanging up.
For weeks after the news, I felt I
couldn't climb, and I really didn't
want to. What does climbing mean?
Is it worth the risk? A rib injury
from a bike accident had taken me
out of the game anyway. The break
was right over my heart, but the pain
underneath it hurt far worse.
You can watch Chris Van Leuven
talk to David Lama about his bold
2018 solo climb of Lunag Ri at The
Pulse booth at the Outdoor Retailer Snow Show this past January at
youtu.be/WsI44I4QZes.

A L E XA N D E R B LÜ M E L / R E D B U L L CO N T E N T P O O L ( TO P ), B L A K E J O R G E N S O N ( B OT TO M )

ON APRIL 15, PRO SKIER DAVE

Treadway died in the Pemberton backcountry when he fell
100 feet into a crevasse.
One of three pro skiing brothers, Treadway leaves behind
his wife, Tessa, who is pregnant, and their two sons,
Kasper and Raffi. The family
was known for sharing their
adventures on Instagram (@
freerange.family), which offers
a heartwarming mix of Dave
dropping huge lines and his
kids launching off cornices,
hitting kickers, and skiing
powder. "Dave felt so strongly
about family," says Matt Rihm,
product and team manager at
Rossignol, one of Treadway's
sponsors. "We'd seen a big
transition in Dave from the
importance of personal goals
around impossible lines to a
focus on his family. He and
Tessa had decided to ditch
the traditional way of raising
kids-to travel, RV camp in
ski-resort parking lots.... He'd
just done a trip with Kasper
where they winter camped up
on a glacier." Treadway still got
out and notched his steepand-deep days. "But he was
very calculated about risks,"
says Rihm. "There were plenty
of situations where he'd say,
'Nope, today's not the day.'"
He died doing something
he loved in the place where
he was most comfortable.
"He came to the SIA show in
Denver one year, and he was
like a fish out of water," Rihm
recalls. "He looked around [at
the city's tall buildings], and he
was like, 'This place is wild.'"

Outdoor Retailer PreShow - Summer 2019

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