Aspen has lost another anchor. The steely Finn, Erik Peltonen, aka, “Eeirki” or “The Pelt,” formerly of the Aspen Mountain Ski Patrol, recently passed away due to complications following a motorcycle accident last October.
He made rounded ski turns through crusted windblown crud in flat light as comfortably as a fish can swim. He relished bad weather days and difficult conditions, often sandbagging good skiers to follow him. But a great part of his legacy on Aspen Mountain was to help others ski runs and conditions where they had hesitations. Born in Finland — known for stoicism and punctuality — his skiing had the mental ability to accept gravity no matter the conditions.
Along with partner Flint Smith (also of Aspen Mountain Ski Patrol), he was front man for their 1982 first-place World Powder Eight Championship win in the Monashees, Canada. His patrol career and figure-8 competition were cut short in 1986 after a lift accident slingshot him and another patroller 25 feet down onto hard snow. After several years of true-grit rehab from a broken back, he came back to become an Ajax skiing legend, often skiing with the “Bickersons” ski gang.
I accompanied Erik and Flint to Jackson Hole for several competitions, including the 1983 Grand National Powder 8 Championship. Their winning run there was such a flawless demonstration of precision skiing that even the Jackson homies couldn’t deny them first place. As always, Erik set a constant style of quiet upper body with arms and hands square, each pole plant and turn equally timed. Flint, smoother on foot than Fred Astaire, mirrored Erik’s every move. Drawing for their slot down Cody Bowl in decent powder conditions with wind-blown sections in variable light yielded a line with a blackened, patrol “bomb hole” about five turns down from their start.
Ski patrollers Erik Peltonen and Gene “GAC” Clausen are pictured near top of Walsh’s on Aspen Mountain, circa 1976. Erik and Gene took country-and-western dancing classes with their wives and enjoyed competing with each other as couples on the dance floor at the Elks Lodge.
Prior contestants had simply skied around explosion holes during their runs, but Erik skied unflinchingly into the sooty cavity to maintain the straight line. Half disappearing for a second, he burst through the downhill rim in his uninterrupted stance without a trace of lost rhythm, exploding a cloud of snow chunks behind him. In the next moment, Flint burst through that cloud like a WrestleMania entrance, maintaining perfect synchronization. The crowd went wild. The pair laid down some 50 more perfect braided eights to the bottom. With that, they were the first out-of-towners to win the Jackson Eights.
Right up to his last moments, Erik was steady, strong, and determined to recover. His consistency with whatever he did set an example for me as a rookie ski patroller some years back. One of the first things he taught was “never be downhill of your skis or uphill of your lunch” — that is to say, don’t fall and have to climb for your skis, nor forget your brown-bag lunch at the 1A base headquarters.
Erik took me as his partner on some of my first avalanche routes, in an era before ski patrol had individual radios. He said he had to completely trust his partner to save his life in the event of a slide. To affirm this, he looked me in the eye and extended his hand to shake, which he turned into a squeeze-off until I said uncle. We then set out with explosives stuffed in our jackets, “Skadi” beacons in our pockets and shovels strapped to our backs. I watched wide-eyed as Erik skied out of a big, buckling avi-slab in Bingo Woods as coolly as a Finnish herder in a reindeer stampede. The slide filled much of Bingo Slot below.
He was a true friend, as genuine as a silver dollar. All this became cemented early on in a camaraderie of one for all and all for one, on a ski patrol of “lifers” with no cliques, who attended each other’s weddings, divorces and snags, during a sweet period in Aspen when nothing else was needed.
A celebration of life for Erik Peltonen will be held on Monday from 5:30-8:30 p.m. at the Aspen Elks Lodge, 510 E. Hyman Ave.