Local Truckee skier C.R. Johnson dies in ski accident at Squaw Valley
I was very saddened to hear yesterday that Big Mountain Skier and Truckee local
C. R. Johnson died yesterday from injuries sustained from a fall on the Light Towers at Squaw Valley, California. He was 26 years old.
C. R. Johnson courtesy of Sierra Sun stock photography
I met C.R. when he was 15. My husband and I were living in Cordova, Alaska for the winter working for Points North Heli-Adventures their first year in operation. C.R. was a sophomore in high school at the time. His father Rusty Johnson, retired avalanche forecaster for Squaw Valley, took him out of school for a week of heli-skiing. Even at 15, C. R. was flashing first decents in an unchartered area, but doing it with his dad and loving every second of it. His first decent in Cordova was named “El Muchacho” and I could see from an opposing peak as C. R. flashed this technical line in the Chugach as if he had been there already.
Like my own son, C.R. begin skiing as soon as he was upright, and moved up through the Mighty Mights Program at Squaw Valley. Despite the huge success early on that C.R. enjoyed in the ski industry, he was the most ego-less and happy person that you could ever meet. He would greet and talk to everybody that he encountered, and was always pleasant. After coming back from a serious head injury a few years ago in which C.R. was in a coma for a few months, he slowly rehabilitated his way back to skiing and seemed to make almost a complete recovery.
His death is a huge loss for a small community that is already reeling from the loss of other friends in the past year plus. I am sick over what his parents, Russ and Lorraine Johnson and sister Khalil are going through. My condolescences go out to the entire Johnson Family.