The Alpine Way Tragedy and Other Uphill Battles in Life

This story will give your tear ducts a good work out.

I was reading the news headlines over at the ABC news site this morning and saw the above image of Wendy Huskins sitting on a chairlift seat which I knew instantly was a chair like the one I spent a good half hour on sitting by Lake Jindabyne in April last year.

The chair that I sat in by the lake last year

Thredbo disaster 20 years on: Pain lingers after horror of snowfield landslide

The story was about the Thredbo landslide tragedy that killed 18 people 20 years ago today.

Top Elevation 2037m?! 
'The Shining'?

In the article it states that each year, Wendy Hukins shares a schnapps with Oskar Luhn at his memorial chair overlooking the lake at Jindabyne.

I had no idea these chairs around the lake were memorial chairs for the Thredbo disaster victims and I certainly didn't know who Oskar Luhn was until today.

Looking back through my snaps of the days that I was in Jindabyne, I see that this was the same chair I sat in.
I even mentioned this chair in an old post I wrote last year about visiting the town, because I found a weathered book that someone had left beneath it - 
What is it with Pop Culture and Aliens?

I would have taken it with me if it wasn't damp and weathered, but I just left it where I found it.
I sat by the lake the day before I walked up Mount Kosciuszko (Australia's highest point), which I wrote about in this post last year -
On the Road with Corvids
And I thought that it was rather a synchronicity for me to see that Wendy was wearing Purple boots in the photo above, because the next day when I walked Mount Kosciuszko was the day Prince died.
It was in my Jindabyne motel room that I found out about Prince's passing.

Sometimes It Snows in April
I caught the chairlift from Thredbo on the day I walked to the top of the mountain and while I remember the news stories about Stuart Diver being pulled out of the rubble alive after three days and being stuck next to his dead wife, but I couldn't remember much else about the tragedy or how many others died in the landslide.

I didn't go into the part of Thredbo where the memorial plaque was, and I didn't even know that there was one to be honest.

My view of Thredbo Village from the chairlift in 2016

I did remember looking at Thredbo on the way down on the chairlift and wondering where the avalanche had taken place in the town and just where and what Stuart Diver was doing now.
Turns out that he was probably there in the village that day.
I read this news post today about Stuart's life since the tragedy and found out that he lost his second wife to breast cancer not long ago, too -
Torah Bright Says Stuart Diver Is The Glue Holding The Thredbo Community Together
And I watched the two '60 Minutes' You Tubes about Stuart in that Huffington Post piece and I can tell you that they are well worth watching ... but you might want a few tissues handy.

I saw the movie 'Batman vs Superman' on one of the nights that I was in Jindabyne, but Stuart's story is one of a real-life Superman with all that life has thrown at him.
If I'm ever down that way again, I'm going to seek out Oskar's chair at Lake Jindabyne and toast a drink to him and all of the others who passed away that day.

A sign I saw while walking to the summit
of Australia from Thredbo