{"id":37698,"date":"2022-10-22T08:23:24","date_gmt":"2022-10-22T14:23:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/telluride-mourns-hilaree-nelson-its-athena-in-gore-tex\/"},"modified":"2022-10-22T14:23:24","modified_gmt":"2022-10-22T14:23:24","slug":"telluride-mourns-hilaree-nelson-its-athena-in-gore-tex","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/telluride-mourns-hilaree-nelson-its-athena-in-gore-tex\/","title":{"rendered":"Telluride mourns Hilaree Nelson, its \u2018Athena in Gore-Tex\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"More
More than 500 people attended a celebration of Hilaree Nelson's life in Telluride Town Park on Oct. 15. (Brett Schreckengost\/Special to The Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

TELLURIDE \u2013 The last time I saw Hilaree Nelson \u2013 a few weeks ago, when our townie bikes crossed paths on Telluride\u2019s main drag \u2013 we exchanged a customary greeting.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever stop exploring!\u201d I shouted.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever!\u201d she yelled back, beaming her luminescent smile.<\/p>\n

\u201cNever Stop Exploring\u201d is, of course, the longtime motto of The North Face, the company that tapped Nelson as a sponsored mountaineer back in 1999. In time, Nelson shone the brightest of the company\u2019s mountaineering all-stars, mentoring a growing stable of mountain athletes.<\/p>\n

In 2012, she became the first woman to summit two 8,000-meter peaks, Mount Everest and Lhotse, in a single 24-hour push. Later she became the first woman to ski from Lhotse\u2019s summit. Nelson died last month on another Himalayan expedition with her life partner and professional skier Jim Morrison after triggering an avalanche on Mount Manaslu, the eighth highest peak on the planet.<\/p>\n

\"Telluride
Telluride friends of Hilaree Nelson joined all-star athletes in a celebration of her life at Telluride Town Park on Oct. 15. (Brett Schreckengost\/Special to The Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hilaree
Hilaree Nelson of Telluride and James Morrison of Tahoe, California, raise their fists as the pair arrived in Kathmandu, Nepal. (Niranjan Shrestha\/Associated Press file)<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

On a heartbreakingly beautiful Saturday afternoon, Telluride celebrated Nelson\u2019s pioneering life. Many speakers on the stage in Telluride Town Park, as well as dozens of local friends, praised her humility and warmth.<\/p>\n

They all sounded awfully familiar: Hilaree never took herself too seriously. She never behaved like an elitist (though she was truly elite) in this town of 2,600 in Southwest Colorado. If I told her, for instance, that I was headed to the hardware store for potting soil, she\u2019d invariably reply, \u201cWell, never stop exploring!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was something truly genuine about her,\u201d said Stash Wislocki, technical director for Telluride\u2019s Mountainfilm festival. \u201cWhen you ran into her on the street, she didn\u2019t vibe superstar ski personality. She listened when you talked to her, and she cared. Between the expeditions and Telluride motherhood, she walked in two different worlds. Yet you always felt you knew her and felt her friendship.\u201d<\/p>\n

The magnanimous, effervescent Nelson enjoyed inside jokes and personal conversations with lots of us here. Yet she held no strong attachments to Telluride or Colorado\u2019s Western Slope before turning 30. Born and raised in Washington state, she attended Colorado College on the Front Range but bolted for the French Alps shortly after graduation. It was in Argenti\u00e8re, just upvalley from Chamonix, where Hilaree honed her big mountain chops and won an extreme skiing championship.<\/p>\n

Hilaree wound up in the San Juan Mountains after marrying oft-photographed big-mountain skier Brian O\u2019Neill, whom she met on a ski expedition to Argentina\u2019s 22,837-foot Aconcagua. Currently a real estate broker, O\u2019Neill\u2019s been here since the 1980s. Before their 2002 wedding, O\u2019Neill worked as a heli-skiing guide and was named a Cosmopolitan magazine Bachelor of the Month. Hilaree, essentially, married into Telluride royalty and quickly assembled legions of close friends. The couple, who divorced, also bore two sons, Quinn and Graydon.<\/p>\n

\"A
A friend of ski mountaineer Hilaree Nelson said: \u201cBetween the expeditions and Telluride motherhood, she walked in two different worlds. Yet you always felt you knew her and felt her friendship.\u201d (Brett Schreckengost\/Special to The Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

At Nelson\u2019s Oct. 15 memorial, tears flowed like cascades down Telluride\u2019s landmark Bridal Veil Falls. Forty-foot tall tents of brightly colored prayer flags fluttered in the breeze. The scene was stunning, even by the lofty beauty standards of the Four Corners region. A light glaze of white snow powdered the higher peaks. Below, purple mountains bled down to forests colored green, red and yellow. Not far away, the San Miguel River sparkled brilliantly.<\/p>\n

First up: a video presentation with slides of Nelson in Telluride and far, far beyond. The tribute included a candid interview with Nelson proclaiming, \u201cLife is this crazy, messy thing and you\u2019ve got to take note of that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professional rock climber Timmy O\u2019Neill (no relation to Brian) emceed the memorial. He began by urging the crowd of 500 to not mourn Hilaree\u2019s passing but to \u201ccelebrate ecstatically her incredible life \u2026 by, among other things, throwing confetti.\u201d<\/p>\n

In a decidedly Telluride-in-October twist, O\u2019Neill hurled handfuls of golden aspen leaves. He noted bright foliage cloaking every horizon: \u201cFor Hilaree, the mountains are wearing memorial garlands,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The distinctly Telluride gathering included mountain bikers still in helmets and gloves, yogis stretching and hacky-sackers a-kicking. On an uncharacteristically warm day in the bucolic park, women sported the same sleeveless summer dresses they wear to the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in June. The thrumming of the adjacent skate park and periodic yaps of dogs made the ceremony sound unlike any funeral for a 49-year-old mother of two.<\/p>\n

Oscar-winning filmmaker Jimmy Chin took the stage, praising Nelson as \u201can Athena in Gore-Tex.\u201d Her best Telluride friends \u2013 Gabby Anstey McDonald, Robyn Shaw, and Wendy Jacobs Hampton \u2013 followed, spinning yarns and sharing anecdotes that emphasized Hilaree\u2019s profound Tellurideness.<\/p>\n

Said Anstey, \u201cShe always begged me to give up telemarking for alpine skiing. \u2018Free the heel, lose your friends,\u2019 Hil told me. But it wasn\u2019t until a few years ago, when she gave me a downhill setup from her ski sponsors, that I finally joined the right team. I haven\u2019t telemarked since.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the best spots to walk dogs in Telluride is, oddly, the Lone Tree Cemetery. Shaw recalled early morning calls from Hil, pleading \u201cmeet me in the cemetery with some coffee and your dogs. We took care of each other like a true family,\u201d Shaw continued. \u201cI\u2019ll always remember the times Hil would receive a big shipment of North Face gear (more stuff than she could use herself). She\u2019d text us all and say, \u2018Guys, it\u2019s a REALLY GOOD day to be at my house!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Following the \u201cTelluride Girlfriends\u201d was Colorado Sen. John Hickenlooper. The senator, who\u2019d worked with Hilaree and her friends at Protect Our Winters on climate initiatives, noted her mountaineering achievements and fierce environmentalism before hailing Nelson as the ultimate embodiment of the \u201cColorado spirit.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Hilaree
Hilaree Nelson memorial in Telluride Town Park on Oct. 15. (Brett Schreckengost\/Special to The Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

After the ceremony, after the last Modelo can was retrieved from a pair of sweating copper tubs, folks gathered in a driveway across the street from Town Park. No senators were present, but Jeremy Jones, the big-mountain snowboarder who founded POW was. So was Chris Davenport, the first skier to conquer all 54 Colorado 14ers in a single year; Dr. Peter Hackett, legendary high-altitude medicine specialist and tour physician for the Rolling Stones; Winter X-Games athletes Jared Ogden and Travis Spitzer and assorted Telluride locals.<\/p>\n

One, Melanie Kent, remembered how Hilaree helped her son Cedar Palmer grow from struggling skier to a North Face Ambassador himself through generous gifts of both gear and time.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was such a humble, solid member of this community,\u201d Kent said, echoing a sentiment expressed often in the beautiful memorial ceremony. \u201cHilaree just wanted everybody to have a good time in the mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

An earlier version of this story had an incorrect byline<\/em>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

last month on a Himalayan expedition after triggering an avalanche on Mount Manaslu<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37699,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,255,28,3437,976,97],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37698","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-death-and-dying","tag-headlines","tag-mountaineering","tag-outdoor-recreation","tag-telluride"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37698"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}