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Powder Magazine, 1980-89

Powder, 1980

Feb 1980, p. 36: Wilson, Bill, "Jonathan Livingston Skier"

According to the Editor's forward, Bill Wilson died last year "doing what he loved best," skiing the mountains in Bavaria. It is not clear whether he died in a fall or an avalanche. In this article, Wilson describes the challenge and attraction of extreme skiing, which he started from a background of freestyle skiing, instructing and mountain climbing. He writes: "Extreme skiing is the practice of skiing anywhere that the combined conditions approach the limits of what is physically possible to ski while the penalty for any mistake is potentially so great that there is no longer any measurable margin for error." He continues: "Extreme skiing begins at 45-degrees of steepness. At this point gravity does more to pull you down the hill than it does to pull you against it. [...] There is no safety rope (and if there is, it's no longer extreme), but there is control."

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