MASTERS
HaroldHORRIBLE
Remembering masters legend
Harold Wescott, 1931 to 2012
BY BILL MCCOLLOM
Harold Wescott powers out of the start in 2009.
The news of Harold Wescott’s death on February 12, 2012,
quickly spread through the masters ski racing community.
There were phone calls, a post on Facebook, an article in the
Leadville Herald; and memorial races at Crotched Mountain,
N.H., and Copper Mountain, Colo. In a matter of days after
his passing, masters racers young and old would become fa-
miliar with the legendary story of Harold Wescott.
Just shy of his 81st birthday at the time of his death, Wescott
started masters racing in the mid-1970s in the East. When he
retired from his business in 1998, after more than 20 years
of racing on the New England Masters tour, he migrated to
Mammoth Mountain, Calif., and then Sparks, Nev., in search
of big mountain skiing and warmer climes. But the draw of all
the speed races on the Rocky Mountain Masters circuit took
him to Colorado, where he set up base at the foot of Cop-
per Mountain in Frisco. Warm and gregarious, Wescott easily
made friends at each of his stops, which contributed to the
nationwide impact of the news of his death.
Wescott literally died with his boots on. He was racing in a
Rocky Mountain Masters downhill race at Ski Cooper in Lead-
ville and, toward the end of his run, witnesses say he just
DEBI DAVIS
