AvWatcher Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 This is a very, very sad and awful death for a wonderful man. My heart goes out to his family, as well to the Vogl family. Steve was a good guy, and a great pilot. I will always remember him and his smile.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/two-skiers-die-at-revelstoke-resort/article1449683/Sarah BoesveldFrom Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 4:22PM ESTLast updated on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 10:44PM EST.The decent snow conditions and the heady buzz of anticipation should have been a good omen for the Grimsby, Ont., group when it hit the slopes of Revelstoke Mountain Resort. Steve Babb, 46, his son Colin, 16, and family friend Sam Vogl, 17, visited the B.C. mountain town as an exam week getaway and had limited time to enjoy the freedom of whizzing down the hills. Around 1 p.m. on Thursday the midget hockey coach and the teens, both talented minor hockey players, glided off the Ripper Chair ski lift and into the powder of the mountain's north bowl, a moderately difficult run. For reasons unexplained, they decided to go out of bounds – off the run and into a steep, wooded area with a hard-packed surface, said Sergeant Art Kleinsmith from the Revelstoke RCMP detachment. They took off their skis and tried to ascend the icy chute, an inclined trough on the mountainside. But they slid down 100 metres on the rough ground and then over a cliff. Mr. Babb and Mr. Vogl died at the bottom, their bodies broken by the fall. Colin Babb survived to make a frantic 911 call from his cellphone, Sgt. Kleinsmith said. An ambulance arrived at 3 p.m. and took the young man to Vernon, B.C., with a badly sprained ankle and bruises. “This boy was hysterical, he was injured, he was in a place he didn't want to be and it was getting dark,” Sgt. Kleinsmith said. The bodies were left on the hill overnight, according to the Revelstoke Times Review. The RCMP has not released the skiers' names, but friends in the close-knit community near St. Catharines, Ont., are devastated by the loss of these upstanding members of the Grimsby Minor Hockey scene. “They're friends of ours, they have friends everywhere,” Ken Watson, president of Grimsby Minor Hockey, said Friday night. “This is going to go right through our community.” Mr. Babb was a pilot for Air Canada and played with Mr. Watson in Grimsby's old-timer league. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CAT3DUAL Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 This is a very, very sad and awful death for a wonderful man. My heart goes out to his family, as well to the Vogl family. Steve was a good guy, and a great pilot. I will always remember him and his smile.http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/two-skiers-die-at-revelstoke-resort/article1449683/Sarah BoesveldFrom Saturday's Globe and Mail Published on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 4:22PM ESTLast updated on Friday, Jan. 29, 2010 10:44PM EST.The decent snow conditions and the heady buzz of anticipation should have been a good omen for the Grimsby, Ont., group when it hit the slopes of Revelstoke Mountain Resort. Steve Babb, 46, his son Colin, 16, and family friend Sam Vogl, 17, visited the B.C. mountain town as an exam week getaway and had limited time to enjoy the freedom of whizzing down the hills. Around 1 p.m. on Thursday the midget hockey coach and the teens, both talented minor hockey players, glided off the Ripper Chair ski lift and into the powder of the mountain's north bowl, a moderately difficult run. For reasons unexplained, they decided to go out of bounds – off the run and into a steep, wooded area with a hard-packed surface, said Sergeant Art Kleinsmith from the Revelstoke RCMP detachment. They took off their skis and tried to ascend the icy chute, an inclined trough on the mountainside. But they slid down 100 metres on the rough ground and then over a cliff. Mr. Babb and Mr. Vogl died at the bottom, their bodies broken by the fall. Colin Babb survived to make a frantic 911 call from his cellphone, Sgt. Kleinsmith said. An ambulance arrived at 3 p.m. and took the young man to Vernon, B.C., with a badly sprained ankle and bruises. “This boy was hysterical, he was injured, he was in a place he didn't want to be and it was getting dark,” Sgt. Kleinsmith said. The bodies were left on the hill overnight, according to the Revelstoke Times Review. The RCMP has not released the skiers' names, but friends in the close-knit community near St. Catharines, Ont., are devastated by the loss of these upstanding members of the Grimsby Minor Hockey scene. “They're friends of ours, they have friends everywhere,” Ken Watson, president of Grimsby Minor Hockey, said Friday night. “This is going to go right through our community.” Mr. Babb was a pilot for Air Canada and played with Mr. Watson in Grimsby's old-timer league. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Hudson Posted January 30, 2010 Share Posted January 30, 2010 This is deeply saddening. I remember working with Steve years ago doing Association work; a fine and dedicated gentleman. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FLARE Posted January 31, 2010 Share Posted January 31, 2010 I am very sad to hear on the passing of Steve. I have been trying to find info on the funeral arrangements. No luck. Could someone post them here if you have them, thanks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Don Hudson Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 Will do asap, FLARE.Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest ACSideStick Posted February 1, 2010 Share Posted February 1, 2010 When I read in the paper coming home from Frankfurt yesterday, I was shocked when I saw the name, and had hoped it wasn't "our" Steve. My sincerest condolences to his family. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
inchman Posted February 2, 2010 Share Posted February 2, 2010 Very sad. We'll all miss Steve. I am out skiing in Revelstoke this week and this mountain demands respect at every turn. It is a very "new" ski area and it is relatively poorly signed, although in the area where Steve went out of bounds there is definitely the standard ropes and out of bounds signs every 50 yards or so.In talking with patrollers yesterday they said something that happens occasionally is that skiers familiar with the area will skip out of bounds for a couple of hundred yards and then come back in. So it's quite possible that Steve and his group started out by just following some tracks and thought it would be ok, then got into some nasty terrain really fast. Where they were, they were not trying access better terrain by climbing up the chute. They were there trying to get out the only way they could.One can easily find themselves in tough situations here,even "in-bounds". My brother and his buddy (both experts) got themselves into a fairly dangerous situation yesterday while completely in bounds starting their run on a marked glade entrance, thinking that they were "protected" which turned into a double-or-triple black with very narrow chutes between trees. They'll be taking their cell phones with them today.There is one green on this hill, a handfull of blues and the rest is black. There is no differentiation between single and double-black on the the maps or on the signs, and the range between tough and almost unskiable is quite wide here.So, they probably shouldn't have been where they went, but it would be easy for them to not understand how quickly it can get dangerous around here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AvWatcher Posted February 12, 2010 Author Share Posted February 12, 2010 Steve's memorial service will be today, Friday Feb. 12th, 11:00am, at Trinity United Church, 100 Main St. West, Grimsby, Ont. http://www.lifenews.ca/thespec/profile/76162--babb-stephen-sinclair-august-4-1963 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.