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Outside Online Staff Report

May 10, 2001 Hans Saari, a preeminent ski mountaineer, promising young writer, and surf-dude slangin' graduate of Yale University who lived in Bozeman, Montana, died Tuesday, May 8, while skiing the Gervisuiti Couloir on Mont Blanc de Tacul, in Chamonix, France. The exact circumstances of his death are not yet known. Saari was 30 years old.

Over the last few years, Saari had built a reputation as one of America's most talented and accomplished backcountry skiers; his exploits (and the occasional arch editorial by his own hand) were featured regularly in the magazines Powder and Skiing. Together with photographer Kristoffer Erickson, 27, Saari distinguished himself with several first descents in Montana's Beartooth and Wyoming's Tetons, and, in 1999, the North Face sponsored the duo on a trip to Peru, where they shot footage that became the opening segment of the DesLauriers brothers' movie Altitude.

Saari's Bozeman and Jackson Hole peers admired him for his sober preparation, Scandinavian reserve, and, when called for, spirited leadership. An avid chess player, Saari likened planning an expedition to his favorite game, and often brought a miniature travel set to base camps. He thrilled to those moments when, after a hard climb, he skied a pitch where "there was a distinct feeling of...just being out there on another plane."

Outside contributing editor Rob Buchanan, whose account of Saari, Erickson and friends on an expedition to Peru's Cordillera Blanca appears in the magazine's June 2001 issue, found Saari wise for his years, an unwavering climbing partner, and, in person, as well as his writing, "constantly challenging, but totally authentic. There was an element of macho, but never empty bragging. He could be bitterly funny. But what he said and wrote was always informed by what he'd done."

This story will be updated as more information becomes available.