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Highlands Ski Patrol Director Mac Smith Gave Decades Of ‘Blood, Sweat And Tears’ On The Mountain

Aspen Public Radio | By Eleanor Bennett

Published February 11, 2021 at 6:00 AM MST

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Former Aspen Highlands Patrol Director Mac Smith skis one of his favorite powder runs, Temerity. “I fell in love with the mountain in my teenage years,” he said. “Skiing in all these nooks, crannies, and dark, deep places, it’s like the back of my hand.”";s:3:"uri

Mike Tierney

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“We had a deck jump that launched us over 55 feet of wood,” former Aspen Highlands Ski Patrol Director Mac Smith remembered. “You were higher than the Cloud Nine picnic building!”";s:3:"u

Doug Child

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Longtime Highlands ski patroller, Lori Spence was recently appointed as “acting director” of the Aspen Highlands Ski Patrol. Spence is the first woman to serve in this role. ";s:

Mark Borderick

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From skiing Steeplechase in high school to building the Oly Bowl cat walk in 1986, former Aspen Highlands Patrol Director Mac Smith has decades of memories growing up on the mountain.

Courtesy of Mac Smith

Aspen Highlands Ski Patrol Director Mac Smith passed the baton on Jan. 31 after 42 seasons on the job. Though, he will remain on the patrol during the winters and help as needed throughout the next several years.

He first stepped foot on Highlands when he was only 8-years-old, and got his start on the mountain washing dishes at the Merry-Go-Round restaurant after graduating from Basalt High School in 1971.

“I fell in love with the mountain in my teenage years,” Smith said. “It’s got more of my blood, sweat and tears into that place than anything else in my life.”

Smith helped pioneer the snow safety research that led to opening much of Aspen’s more extreme terrain including the reopening of Highland Bowl to the public more than a decade after a massive avalanche killed three of his patrollers in 1984.

Longtime Highlands ski patroller and assistant director, Lori Spence was recently appointed as the interim director of the Aspen Highlands Ski Patrol. Spence is the first woman to serve in this role.

Mac Smith recently caught up with Aspen Public Radio Morning Edition host Eleanor Bennett.