Sorry if this news has already been passed around.
For those of you who attended the Hans Gmoser award ceremony at the Canadian Embassy this past Spring - I just heard some very sad news. He died yesterday from injuries sustained in a cycling accident near Canmore in his beloved Western Canadian Mountains.
I got a chance to meet and speak to the man this April at the awards ceremony for him at the Canadian Embassy here in DC. Modest, soft spoken. The strong, silent type. Looked great for mid-70s. What a life. He pretty much invented heli-skiing. Spoke to me about his love of cycling, as well as skiing. He was surprised to hear we had ski hills with 1000feet/300meters of vertical within a few hours of DC.
In April of 2006, Hans was honored by the Honorable Michael Wilson, Ambassador of Canada to the United States, and Murray Smith, Minister Counselor for Alberta, at the Canadian Embassy in Washington, for his contribution to Canada's mountain heritage.
While in Washington DC, Hans presented a retrospective featuring slides, film clips, and stories from his early days of climbing, guiding, heli-skiing and heli-hiking in the Rockies. The presentation was held at the Grosvenor Auditorium in the National Geographic Society Headquarters, as part of National Geographic's Quest for Adventure series.
More details on his life:
http://www.cmhski.com/cgi-bin/newsPages.py?sectionID=2&storyID=129&manager=StoryPage
