Alex wouldn't believe...

Ghiacciacio Marmolada, Dolomiti, Italia. | Photo: Author

It's been almost 5 years since you hit the Big Send, buddy—half a decade of life lived hard—and you wouldn't believe how far we've all come. Your brothers have become journalists and ski patrollers and smoke jumpers, entrepreneurs and business owners and adventurers, fathers and lovers and husbands and family men who work hard and ski harder with their people; who give the best of their hearts in cherishing this life in all that they do. We've all grown to become the best version of ourselves, and while some of us may have already been on this path when we knew you, you certainly gave us the necessary push to really make it happen and live it better than we ever could otherwise. That is the gift that your passing has given us. I think I can speak for all of us who had the honor of calling you a close friend in that we would trade all of this growth in a heartbeat for just one more day with you, one more day out in the mountains, one more lift ride or dirty joke around a campfire. But at the same time I can't help but feel an immense gratitude for what you've given us that goes so far beyond words. I love and miss you every day bro and I'll see you again one day. I'm looking forward to it.

• Scribbled from the top of a mountain pass in the Dolomites, a place that you would have so dearly loved just as much as I—probably more, honestly. 

Stairway to Heaven. | Photo: Author