Certified AMGA Ski Guide Peter Inglis Killed in Cornice Fall in Alaska
Peter Inglis. Photo courtesy of MountainTrip.com.
It is with sadness that the AMGA learned of the passing, on April 1, of Certified Ski Guide Peter “Pi” Inglis, 55, a longtime fixture on the slopes of his home in Telluride, Colorado, and on Denali, Alaska, where he often led clients to the summit. Inglis was guiding for the Ultima Thule Lodge in Alaska’s Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve near Tebay Lake, about 20 miles southeast of Chitina, when he fell through a cornice at around 7,000 feet on one of the range’s peaks.
Originally from Vermont, Inglis grew up near the Smuggler’s Notch ski area, cementing his love for all things snow; he graduated from the University of Vermont in 1983 with a degree in recreation and resource management, and came to settle in Telluride, Colorado, more than 25 years ago. There, Inglis worked on ski patrol and as assistant snow safety director on the ski mountain, and served on San Miguel County Search and Rescue. He was known locally for his bold first and second ski descents, including the second descent (in 2005) of the double colouir of Heaven’s Eleven, a tight 60-plus-degree chute in the Bear Creek backcountry. He also helped found the Telluride Mountain Club in 1987. He and a core group of local ski patrollers had become legendary, since the early 1990s, for their forays into Telluride’s steep, technical, and committing “sidecountry,” where they made their pioneering descents. Inglis also had many extreme descents to his name in the Alps, including the east face of the Matterhorn and the west face of the Eiger.
Peter Inglis, always at home in the mountains and hills. Photo: Angela Hawse
Inglis had since 2004 worked for the AMGA-accredited outfit Mountain Trip, which is based in Ophir, Colorado. As Mountain Trip owner Todd Rutledge puts it, “Like his moniker, Pi was always there as a friend, a colleague, and a mentor to many—young guides and clients alike.” He says Inglis, who had climbed Denali 17 times (including once with his future wife, Julie Hodson), was a problem solver who could just as easily build you a house as he could lead back-to-back, three-week expeditions up Denali. “His understated, self-deprecating way was endearing and made him ultimately approachable, but once you engaged him in a conversation, you could draw upon decades of knowledge from climbing and skiing trips around the globe,” Rutledge says.
Peter “Pi” Inglis demonstrating his “Pi Chart,” a detailed rundown of the state of the San Juan Mountains snowpack, Colorado. Photo: Ryan Huetter
“It seems like he’d just always been there…helping young guides learn the ropes, helping older guides find elegant solutions to new problems and never hesitating to ask questions of anyone,” Rutledge continues. “That was an integral attribute of Pi for all the years I knew him—his humility occasionally belied his professionalism.” Rutledge says Inglis was a true hardman, but that you’d never know it till you drew it out of him. “In the field, he valued hard work and expected it of his fellow guides, which inevitably helped all of us who had the opportunity to work with him to better ourselves,” Rutledge says.
Ryan Huetter was recently on an AMGA Ski Guide Course, held at Red Mountain Pass, Colorado, and then in Telluride for the ski assessment and mechanized/downhill guiding component. During one of the three days spent skiing Telluride, Huetter and other attendees met with Inglis in his capacity as Telluride’s assistant director for snow safety. “Peter gave us a rundown on the state of the San Juan snowpack, using his incredibly detailed ‘Pi chart,'” says Huetter. “As an AMGA certified ski guide, Peter also understood the complexities of guiding in an unfamiliar snowpack, which was something that most of the course participants were experiencing, and took the time to explain his process for gathering information about his upcoming trip into the Wrangells.”
