FEBRUARY 2020 87
belt and khaki shorts. To his surprise, he loved it.
Years passed. His company thrived. Then, in
March 2011, Katie flew the plane they had bought—
a single-engine Cessna 210—down to L.A. to see
a friend, bringing Wyatt and Hannah, now six
and five, at the last minute. Jim stayed behind for
work. He knew he put in too many hours, but he
envisioned scaling back. He told Katie as much
on the phone the night of Saturday, March 19,
as she packed to return to Truckee the following
morning. “I’ve almost got this locked in,” he said.
That night, a storm rolled in, coating the slopes
of Tahoe a brilliant white. As Katie and the kids
took off, Jim took advantage of an epic powder day.
Three hours into shredding KT, at Squaw, his ski
caught on something under the snow. His ankle
wrenched sideways. He made it down on one ski,
then called Katie. She always knew what to do.
Katie didn’t answer, so he texted. Then texted
again. Annoyance turned to worry. It wasn’t like
her not to check in. He forgot about the throbbing in
his ankle. He got home and checked FlightAware,
which tracks planes by tail number.
The page loaded: a green line originating at
John Wayne Airport in Orange County. Midway
through the route, it just stopped.HILAREE STILL
isn’t sure what went wrong.
The approach was simple: Gather speed, then
cross a short snow bridge over a shallow creek. But
her client seemed nervous, so Hilaree hung back.
By now, she had guided for a decade, after mov-
ing to Telluride, Colo., with Brian. They’d married
and had two kids: Quinn in 2007 and Grayden two
years after. Hilaree loved parenting; she also fought
to maintain her career. And now here she was,
seven months after Grayden’s birth, on her first
morning back guiding. It was a routine heli-skiing
trip in the Mineral Creek Basin in Colorado: three
experienced older men and one of their girlfriends,
a 50-year-old from Huntington Beach, Calif. They
had connected immediately. Hilaree prided herself
on helping women to push past fear. So now, as
she faced the two-foot-wide stream crossing on
a snowboard, Hilaree advised her: Keep up your
speed. I’ll be right behind you.
But she came in too slow. Wobbling, she tipped
backward, falling though sugar snow, the excep-
tionally cold, dry powder unique to the region.
Her helmet hit the water first and lodged between
a rock and the creek bed. By the time Hilaree
and another guide got her out, the woman had
stopped breathing and had no pulse. San Miguel
County Sheriff Bill Masters deemed it “one of
those freak things.”coaches who didn’t see what he did in his daughter.
But at Colorado College, a Division III school, she
chose not to play, creating a rift with her father.
Instead, she majored in biology, graduated and
headed to Europe for five months—which turned
into five years. The endurance, wiry strength and
body control that had helped her on the court
translated to skiing and climbing. Like Jim, she
competed in the European championships in
Chamonix. In 1996, she took first place. By 1999,
The North Face was sponsoring her.
Then, in 2000, she met a real estate agent named
Brian O’Neill. The two clicked. She began thinking
about a family. A different sort of life.
THOUSANDS OF
miles away, Morrison entertained similar thoughts.
By this point he had earned a reputation for gnarly
descents, which gained him sponsors and appear-
ances in ski films.
Then he met Katie Jackson. She had shoulder-
length brown hair, intense brown eyes and a no-
b.s. way about her. They’d first crossed paths at a
Tahoe house party. He was just off crutches after
blowing an ACL. She appraised his leg and told
him she’d walked on to the Georgetown hoops
team. ACLs aren’t so bad, she said, so get off the
couch and stop complaining.
Jim had sparred back, as alphas do, launching
into a soliloquy on something or other.
“It seems like you have a theory for everything,”
Katie interjected. ”So, what’s your theory on love?”
Jim paused. He didn’t have one.
“I think you know within four dates,” she said.
“O.K.,” he replied. “How do I get the first date?”
“This is the first date,” she said.
Jim was floored: “I’m thinking, Holy s---, who is
this girl?” He spent the night chasing her around
the party. He finally got her number, scrawled on
a scrap of cardboard from a Bud 12-pack. He got
his second date. Then a third. For that one, Katie
flew to Tahoe. She had her private pilot’s license.
In time, she helped teach him to fly. And, when
he traveled to Europe for ski competitions, she
came along. At one, a sponsor rep noticed the way
Jim looked at Katie, then pulled him aside. “What
are you doing?” the rep asked. “You know you’re
going to have to choose, right?”
So he did. Jim chose Katie. The couple married
in 2000 and settled down in Truckee, Calif. Jim
started his own home-building company. Katie
worked in real estate. In 2004, Wyatt was born,
followed 15 months later by Hannah. The family
adopted an energetic golden retriever named Cody,
who waited in the hallway for the kids to get home
every day. Jim became that dad in the polo shirt,