OUT OF BOUNDS

MARK GAYOWSKI TOOK AN UNMARKED SKI TRAIL INTO A DEEP RAVINE. EVERY ATTEMPT AT ESCAPE ONLY LEFT HIM MORE LOST.

- Brett Popplewell

Mark Gayowski was determined to squeeze as much fun as he could out of the last days of the year. Shortly after 9 a.m. on December 30, 2019, the 34-year-old Rossland, B.C., carpenter said goodbye to his roommate and headed to nearby Red Mountain, one of North America’s oldest ski resorts. He planned to ski all morning, followed by an afternoon watching the latest Star Wars movie with a friend.

Gayowski had spent his youth at the ski resort; its three peaks towered over the town. He knew the 119 ski runs as well as anyone. But it was the challenge of the routes that weren’t marked on the trail maps that appealed to him the most.

By 10 a.m. he’d clicked into his skis and pushed off for the first run of the day. For two hours, he cut tracks all over the mountainside. Then he got on the lift for one last ride up the mountain.

The chairlift hummed as it ferried him to the resort’s easterly peak. Gayowski pulled out his phone and called his mother, Cindy Reich.

Reich, a 56-year-old retired figure-skating coach, lived in Rossland with Gayowski’s stepfather, Raymond. She and her son spoke nearly every day. He told her how he’d spotted what looked like untouched powder in the unkempt bush that ran down the far side of the 2,048-metre-high mountain. He planned to follow it for a few minutes, then return to a run lower down and glide back to the parking lot.