AVID SKIER CLOSES IN ON 26YEAR RECORD

With vintage skis strapped to his back, 71-year-old Jerry Amendola stepped confidently off a wobbly boulder on his ascent of Mount Epworth. He was my guide. My guide wore Crocs, foam-rubber footwear better suited for gardening rather than ascending an 11,843-foot peak with snow at the summit on the Fourth of July.

“Follow me,” Amendola said. “I’ve done this before.”

On a bluebird Colorado morning, amid the mining and railroad ruins near Rollins Pass, Amendola was on a mission. You will find faster skiers at the Olympics and more extreme skiers in a Warren Miller film. Few skiers, however, are more avid than Amendola, a retired psychologist from Greeley.

While the rest of America was firing up the barbecue grill, Amendola took the slow climb to earn some turns on snow painted by nature in a mosaic of white, brown and pink, with the consistency of gelato melting in the summer sun.

Since in 1992, when George H.W. Bush sat in the Oval Office and Angela Landsbury rocked the Nielsen television ratings, Amendola has diligently sought and found somewhere to ride in 309 consecutive months. He has done it on skis and a snowboard, in both bottomless powder during winter and through muddy slush on St Mary’s Glacier to keep his streak alive shortly after the turn of the century. I tagged along when Amendola bagged month No. 310.

“On my birthday, this Sept. 3, I will get out of bed before it gets light outside and travel up to Rollins Pass. And then I will have skied at least once a month for 26 years in a row,” said Amendola, who served as a volunteer during 34 winter seasons with the National Sports Center for the Disabled.

Even in the summer of 2018, when the Colorado snowpack is rapidly receding and wildfires rage throughout the state, it is not difficult to find back-country

skiing in July.

The hike to the top of Mount Epworth is a little more than a mile and, truth be told, the most arduous part of the journey is the teeth-chattering ride in a sports utility vehicle up 12K miles of dirt road to Pumphouse Lake.

But every trip has a story, and this one features the old planks Amendola pulled off his back and clicked his boots into at the top. His rock skis are classic rock stars. He found a pair of Volkl Porsche GT-S in the bottom of a bargain bin, rusty and abandoned, then lovingly brought them back to life.

You don’t make turns down the face of Epworth for the adrenaline rush. If this run was at a ski resort anywhere in the Rocky Mountains, it would be marked with a blue sign. But you take it slow, for two reasons: 1) Getting bitten by a boulder hiding just beneath the snow’s surface would be zero fun, and 2) Why hurry the laughter, when celebrating the purple mountain maj- esty of the state we call home?

I met Amendola through my friend Charlie Smith, who taught my son how to conquer the moguls at Mary Jane many years ago, and, more recently, talked me off a ledge when I bit off more winter adventure than I could chew in the French Alps.

Folks ask me all the time if I’m a fan of the Broncos or Nuggets, and sometimes are startled or disappointed when my response is there’s no cheering from the press box. But sports can form a bond stronger than Gorilla Glue, and what I truly love about the games we watch or play is the unbeatable sense of community among people that share the same passion.

Amendola has climbed all 58 of the 14,000-foot peaks in Colorado. But what keeps him pushing to the next summit now is not the dizzying heights, but the snow to keep his never-summer streak alive.

“When you get old,” Amendola said, “you can get some big numbers.”

Never summer. Forever young.