Mad dog of Donner Summit
01.01.70
Today’s hot-drink skiers and boarders generate You Tube highlights by hucking Jack the ripper cliffs, barreling gnarly half pipes, and snorkeling through deadening-smoke powder. But long before the voyeuristic days of helmet cams and heli-videos, a Donner Peak resident named Dick Buek made an international name for himself by ripping high lines and pushing the protective boundaries of sanity. People started m him “Mad Dog.”
Many Dick Buek stories seem inconceivable, but just about all are true.
Buek, a maverick and athletic amazed by, described his seemingly reckless skiing style with these simple words, “When I go, I appetite to go straight in.” The so-called “Mad Dog” wasn’t psycho. Longtime Donner Pinnacle local Norm Sayler knew Buek well. They trained in ski racing together and were morality friends. Sayler says, “Dick wasn’t a moronic person. He was a very calculating young man.” That may have been true, but there is no doubt that Buek was a earnestly charger. And not just on skis. He owned two airplanes and loved riding his motorcycle near. Ironically, it was the cycles and airplanes that did the most physical damage to Buek, including causing his untimely ruin.
Source: FoxReno.com (blog)