Gosh that is just terrible. Prayers go out to his widow and their child. What a tragedy....

I just heard about this a min or so ago from one of my friends. Prayers go out to Sherry and Ayla. It really makes me upset since he was one of the guys who was one of my main influences.

I'm very sorry to hear this news. Truly a sad day for skiing.

Good grief. I literally just read his "Why I Do It" post in the most recent Outside Magazine two days ago.

There is a running motif in the extreme world that I keep seeing. You see articles on someone who says "I'm safe, I don't take chances," the author extols why that's true, and five years later the guy is dead. It doesn't matter how few chances you take, when you live on the razor it only takes one glitch.

The Outside Magazine paragraph on McConkey is called "Our Kind of Crazy". Here's the text:

"I just love the feeling of catching air. It's the combination of being completely out of control yet knowing that you're in control. And your stomach going up through your chest and out your mouth. It's just the scariest, coolest thing in thte world. I think it's ingrained in our DNA. It stems from having to search for our food way back when. We don't have to do that anymore as humans, but we still have the urge in us- that primal instinct to go for it. for me, it's not about quenching the desire; it's about working through a project and then moving on to the next one. That old line about life being a journey is true: if you're always looking to be satisfied by completing something, then you never will be. It's about ebing out there and doing it. Accomplishing the mission is just one little part."

- As told to Grayson Schaffer

byline: Big-mountain freeskier McConkey, 39, appears in this year's Matchstick Productions film "Claim."



Rereading it, it all sounds very different now that he's dead.