Anchorage Daily News

Someone please explain the disconnect here:

On the one hand, the ski industry is now encouraging all skiers to wear helmets just in case, for safety, because you never know what could happen on the slopes, yadda, yadda, yadda.

On the other hand, the same slopes -- including Alyeska Resort in Girdwood -- are enticing skiers to huck themselves off cliffs with promises of fame and fortune, if they survive.

Ben Johnson almost didn't.

The 34-year-old from Carlo Creek up near Denali Park "went big'' on Saturday. He didn't make the landing.

He almost didn't make it. Period.

He ended up in Providence Hospital with an oxygen tube in his throat. He's still there. He's had four surgeries so far. Doctors have fused shattered vertebrae and tried to rebuild his smashed ankle. His friends are hopeful he might someday be able to ski again.

Maybe. Hopefully.

Alyeska, which put considerable promotional effort into the First World Telemark Freeskiing Competitions, strangely never said a word about what happened to Johnson on Saturday. They didn't say anything on Sunday, either, or Monday.

By then the news that someone had almost died in the resort-hosted event was starting to trickle out.

Johnson's friends seem to think it's cool he cheated death and only ended up in the hospital facing months of rehabilitation.

"Me and my buddies talk, and sometimes we don't know why we do this stuff," Johnson friend Dave Magoffin from Fairbanks told the Daily News. "But we know we have to. When we do this stuff, we feel alive. For us, it's a way to live. And it's gambling, but we have to do it."

I can understand those comments. Lord knows I've done my share of crazy stuff in the Alaska outdoors.

But let's face the facts. Johnson didn't do this simply to feel more alive, which is what we all do out there by ourselves or with our friends.

Johnson, however, wasn't lured into reckless risk by friends. He was lured into reckless risk by corporate America.

He wanted to win the Alyeska-hosted competition, which was promoted in this way:

"And the booty bounty is high for Championship title winners, scoring multiple day heli adventures from Valdez Heli Camps. Additionally, over $30,000 of prizes from G3, Black Diamond, K2 Telemark, Atomic, Rossignol and others will be won in the raffle to benefit The Friends of the Chugach NF Avalanche Center. The Grand Prize is a one-week trip for 12 at Valkyr Adventures Lodge."

Skeptical, nonskiing friends of mine seeking to defend corporate America's role in Johnson's accident have questioned whether anyone would really take life-threatening risks to win what is seemingly so little.

To them, all I can say is this:

There are former state legislators now serving time in federal prisons (or about to serve time) for having sold their souls for very little, though the monetary prizes really weren't the draw for Johnson and the others at Alyeska.

They all wanted the title. They wanted to be seen as the baddest, raddest extreme telemark skier out there.

It's the same sort of thinking that led Reid Sander to his death on Mount Saint Elias in April 2002. The owner of Hellroaring Ski Adventures in West Yellowstone, Mont., wanted to be known for making the longest ski descent in history. It cost him his life.

He was not the first to die trying to "go big'' in the mountains, and he won't be the last. "Going big'' has become an in thing.

Which brings me back to where this all started.

Where is the disconnect between ski resorts that encourage people to be safe while staging competitions in what is politely described as "no fall zones.'' Said terrain being known simply to all skiers as "you fall; you die.''

As Johnson almost did.

Aren't there enough skiers drawn to this kind of behavior without ski resorts encouraging it?

And what example does this set for impressionable young skiers?

So skiers like me are supposed to wear a helmet to set a good example?

Do they real think testosterone-laced, 16-year-olds care about the example set by some old fuddy-duddy?

Those boys and girls (yeah, a lot of girls seem to suffer from testosterone poisoning these days) are a lot more interested in the example set by the people "going big'' and getting attention for it.

So what I would suggest is that Providence Hospital simply sponsor the next "Big Air competition.'' It can do it right off the hospital roof on to a pile of trucked-in snow, and those who don't make the landing can go straight to the ER.

Where they can laugh about how they survived.

Sorry, guys. I've been in the hospital after a few accidents. It ain't all that funny.

Worse, though, you don't make any money off it -- win or lose.

"The man" makes the money. So if the possibility of ending up in the hospital isn't enough to make you think twice, how about the thought of just being a tool for the man.

Outdoors editor Craig Medred is an opinion columnist. Find him online at adn.com/contact/cmedred or call 257-4588.

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