“I am shattered.”
So writes Todd Jones in an April 6 weblog entry about the death of his friend and mentor Doug Coombs, who had died three days earlier.
I knew of Coombs only through the profound influence he had on all my friends from Teton Gravity Research, the Jackson, Wyo.-based film production company I have worked with during the past 10 years. I knew the loss would devastate the Jackson Hole community, where Coombs had come to be a legend even when he was alive. I knew it would be especially hard on Jones, co-founder of TGR.
In his weblog, Jones wrestled with unanswered questions in the wake of Coombs’ death: “As I sit here and ask myself what … I am doing and if any of this is worth it, I can only think of how my life would be different if I had never met Coombs. How many people have had the best day of their life skiing with him? How many people did he touch? He was the best and now I am scared, because if he can get taken, who are we? How good can we be?”
When I first traveled to Jackson to do an article about TGR for Powder magazine in 1997, it was Todd who talked to me until his voice went hoarse, determined to make me understand everything TGR stood for, even if it took all night and five hours of tape. He impressed me as wild and untamed, but highly intelligent and passionate, like a gifted child with behavior problems. One look into his large, bright, blue eyes told me everything I would eventually learn about his story without words. He seemed lit up from inside, like someone plugged him into an electrical socket. I knew he was capable, but his question was, capable of what?
Hearing the stories wouldn’t be enough. I would have to see it for myself.
I went on location on a few different assignments and quickly found myself in situations where I began to pray, even though I have no idea what religion I am. I was in way over my head. Steve Jones, Todd’s older brother and partner in TGR, put it to me straight one day after one of my many little mishaps, calling me a “hazard.”
What these guys were doing was over the edge. It was dangerous. I had no right to be out there, but it was the peak of my existence, the time of my life.
They did everything to the extreme. After one harrowing trip to northwestern British Columbia, I got off the plane in Denver and threw up. I was so scared they would find out how scared I was, it literally made me sick, but I had held it in for two weeks.
Living on the edge – or at least watching others do it – was too much for me. I was there, lived to tell about it, and was ready to go home.
Ten years later, they’re still out there pushing it year after year after year. Nothing has changed. They’ve grown older, found wives, had babies and even made a little bit of money – but that’s not stopping them from charging harder than ever.
During my last visit to Jackson in January, Todd and I had the chance to catch up as he drove me over Teton Pass to the new home he shares with his wife, Shelly, in Victor, Idaho. They’re expecting their first child in May, and I was curious about how that might change things for Todd.
As we drove through the arbitrary vastness of the liquid black Idaho sky, Todd expressed his confidence in their safety programs: “We have the most solid, most professional crew out there, who always puts safety first. I know when I get into that helicopter that we’re bomber. There’s no other place I’d rather be.”
It was clearly settled in his mind.
I sat quietly, afraid to make the arguments that were in the forefront of my mind. Does experience in big mountains ensure safety or does it only increase the odds for a freak accident? Does experience bring with it a certain level of comfort that might create a lapse in attention, a fatal mistake? Is choosing a profession filled with risk inherently selfish? Is a short life a choice these adventurers consciously make, choosing to live a full life over a long one? Death is that thing all of us fear, but death is really only experienced by the people who are left behind. They’re the ones who should be afraid.
Like race car drivers who don’t go to funerals, you just don’t talk about that stuff. There’s a lot of unspoken superstition, as if saying it out loud could make it real.
But it is real, and Coombs’ death proves that.
I worry about these Jackson boys. They always want to go bigger, farther, higher. At no point do they ever seem to say: “OK, I’ve had enough. I think I’m done now. I’m good.”
In other words, I’m not so sure they know when to quit. Ironically, it was Coombs who was probably the one to tell them – maybe in death as much as in life.
I selfishly hope so.
Freelance columnist Alison Berkley can be reached at alison@berkleymedia.com.
