A Vermont Kid Who Lived to Ski — and Died Doing It

Bernie Rosow grew up in Williamsville, a small village in Windham County, and his parents put him on skis at age two. He never really got off them.

---

Bernie Rosow died April 23 on Bloody Mountain in the Sierra Nevada range near Mammoth Lakes, California, while hiking up with friends to ski down. He was 45 years old.

A presumed heart incident took him quickly. A search and rescue helicopter was dispatched but could not revive him. According to friend and photographer Christian Pondella, who was on the mountain with him, Rosow complained of pain between his shoulders, sat down, and stopped responding. “It happened so quick,” Pondella told SF Gate. “Two minutes before that he was having normal conversations.”

The outpouring that followed in the ski world was immediate and enormous — from Powder Magazine, Teton Gravity Research, Newschoolers, The Inertia, and SnowBrains, all of whom covered his death within hours. Vermont media has been silent. That’s worth correcting.

Rosow grew up skiing every discipline available to a Vermont kid — cross-country, ski jumping, and alpine racing — but it was the woods, the self-built jumps, and the unstructured chase for snow that defined him early. After high school he headed west to Utah, taking a handyman job at the Alta Lodge. He lasted two years. “I was a bit of a punk,” he told ski publication The Blackmail in a profile published years later. “I got fired from every lodge in Alta within two seasons and decided that Mammoth was the place to be.”

Abby Manock, also from Vermont, worked alongside him at Alta in 1999. “He was hilarious and self-deprecating and always wearing huge jeans and the most rumpled shirts,” she wrote in a tribute posted this week. “He was also kind and gentle and fearless with the biggest mischievous grin on his face.”

He arrived at Mammoth the way legends sometimes do — with nothing. A friend dropping him off in Colorado gave him a ride to the California mountain instead. “She dropped me off with a backpack and a tent,” he told Ski Magazine. “I slept in the woods. I went to the job fair in town and told everyone I wanted to ski every single day it snowed, I wanted to be the first person in the lift line, and I didn’t want to talk to people at work. They told me I should be a cat driver.”

He was hired on the spot. No experience necessary.

That decision structured the next 25 years of his life. Grooming trails through the night, sleeping briefly, back on snow at first light. He rose to become Mammoth’s Grooming Supervisor — responsible for a mountain averaging 400 inches of annual snowfall — and extended his winters by grooming in New Zealand and Australia during the Sierra’s off-season. “I’m going to work hard and I’ll do 70 hours a week,” he told Ski Magazine, “but I’m also going to ski all day, every day, because that’s the point.”

Pondella, who skied alongside Rosow for years, told SF Gate the rhythm was real and relentless. “A lot of us as friends couldn’t figure out how he just had the energy,” Pondella said. “He would ski all day and then work from 4 p.m. to midnight, come home, get to bed at whatever time, and then be the first one at the mountain the next day and do it all over again.”

In later years, Rosow built a substantial following by documenting his daily runs — more than 41,000 Instagram followers, 101,000 on TikTok — not through sponsorship budgets or film productions but through helmet-mounted GoPro footage shot every day, alone, on whatever snow he found. “I never want to film the same thing twice unless I ski it better or different the second time,” he told The Blackmail.

His partner, Amber Feld, confirmed his death on Instagram the following day. “We lost Bernie yesterday,” she wrote. “He was out doing what he loves to do, hiking with friends up Bloody Mountain to ski down. We presume a heart health incident and passed quickly.” She noted that Bloody Mountain was among his favorite descents since the day they met in 2011. He is survived by Feld and their eight-year-old son, Alexander.

Mammoth Mountain released a statement: “Bernie Rosow was a dedicated member of Mammoth Mountain Cat Crew for over 25 years. His passion for the sport was aspirational, and his legacy will never be forgotten.”

Williamsville, Vermont — population a few hundred, tucked into the hills west of Brattleboro — produced a figure who became, in the words of one tribute, “your favorite skier’s favorite skier.” No podiums defined him. No sponsor check made him whole. He just showed up, every day, for 25 years, and skied.

Three events have been announced to honor his memory: a Ski Down for Bernie at Mammoth Mountain on Sunday, May 24; a California Celebration of Life at Mammoth on Saturday, June 13; and a Vermont Celebration of Life in Williamsville on Tuesday, July 7.