High-Wire Act

- Juliana Labianca

MICKEY WILSON HAD been on the mountain only a few seconds when he heard the scream. Wilson, 28 years old and a confirmed ski bum, had just gotten off the chairlift at the Arapahoe Basin Ski Area in Keystone, Colorado, along with his friends Billy Simmons and Hans Mueller. Their friend Richard (not his real name) had been on the chair ahead of them, but when the men reached the top of the lift, he had seemingly vanished. The men walked toward the source of the scream and found skiers stopped on the slope, pointing to the chairlift. And then the friends screamed too.

“My God!” yelled Mueller.