Just over a year ago, Durango lost a young man who embodied the spirit of the outdoors.
Now, his spirit will flourish in a memorial forest of Scotch, Austrian and ponderosa pines being established on Chapman Hill.
One week shy of his 24th birthday, Peter Carver was killed in an avalanche last February while backcountry skiing near Silverton.
On Sunday night, Carver Brewing Co., his family’s establishment, honored what would have been Carver’s 25th birthday with a “Hoppy Birthday Peter” celebration. It came complete with an English Cream Ale brewed by brother, Colin, and sister, Claire Carver. Folks danced, glasses clinked. Memories were shared.
The forest will be in his name but there for everyone.
“I think it will be a great place to go,” Carver’s father said. “Maybe by yourself. It’s pretty. We can remember those we’ve lost.”
Peter Carver was an avid outdoor enthusiast – cycling, kayaking and skiing his way into a career in geology.
“He was a son of the San Juans – the mountains and the river,” close family friend Paul Wilbert said. He conjured the idea of the forest while Peter Carver’s sister assembled a collection of her brother’s photography. An enthusiastic photographer, his works – offered in a silent auction – raised proceeds to go to the memorial’s cost of planting 200 trees – about $100,000.
Claire Carver said she saw her brother in everyone and everything Sunday night.
“His best friends – if you catch them in the right light, they look just like him,”she said. “Its an easy trick to let happen, and I love it when it does, but it’s a harsh reality coming out of it.”
Peter Carver’s adventures led him from coffee fields in Baja, Mexico, exploring Central America, to cycling Alaska.
Close friend Nate Klema spoke of the two backcountry skiing in Bellingham, Wash., where Klema was struggling because of a kayaking accident.
“He said, ‘I’m going to stay with you. Go as slow as you need.’ That was the kind of guy he was,” Klema said.
A student at Fort Lewis College, Peter Carver had worked in the oil industry and developed a strong interest in geology. He wouldn’t open his acceptance letter to the American Institute of Professional Geologists.
“I was just saying last week how isolating an emotion grief is,” Carver’s father, Bill, said. “To counter that, you gather around a bunch of people – and that’s what we’re doing here.”
He also said to appreciate the ones you love.
“It brings a lot of reality for us,” he said. “We better pay attention. You just never know.”
Trevor Doty grew up with Peter Carver. He said he loved the mountains.
“He was pretty much always game to go skiing,” he said. “ And when we’d go, we could just fly.”
bmathis@durangoherald.com
To donate
To donate funds to the Peter Carver Memorial Forest at Champan Hill, visit the Trails 2000 website at www.trails2000.org/ and click the donate button.
