Rory Bushfield: Fear doesn’t scare him

When it comes to the world of action sports, people often think of names like Travis Pastrana, or Johnny Mosely, and Rory Bushfield is often hidden in the shadows. To Rory, that means absolutely nothing. As a professional free skier, base jumper and sky diver, Rory lives every day on the edge.

Rory was two years old when he started skiing, and although he does not really remember learning how to ski, he is very grateful that he did. Being a young boy, he played as many sports as he could, until he was fifteen and decided to focus on one sport. Rory’s love “to ride down snowy mountains,” led him to choose skiing over every other sport. Around the same time he chose skiing, he met a woman named Sarah Burke.

Like Rory, Sarah was a free skier. Sarah was always showing up the boys on the slopes or in the half pipe, and Rory wanted to beat her. After years of friendly competition and friendship, Rory and Sarah became the “hot couple” on the slopes. And Rory fell in love with Sarah way before she fell in love with him.

One day, Rory took Sarah for a flight in his plane. He flew Sarah over a spot where he had dug out “Marry Me Sarah!” in the snow. Shortly after he proposed, Rory and Sarah were married. Throughout the course of their marriage, Rory taught Sarah a lot, and Sarah taught Rory a lot. I asked Rory what it was like to travel the world and ski with Sarah, and he told me, “I feel so lucky that I got to be so close to her.  She taught me so much!  And she was the golden ticket to travel with.  She had everything really dialed in.” They were truly soul mates, but life would deal them a cruel blow. 

On January 10, 2012, Sarah was training in Park City Utah when she caught an edge coming down from a trick and landed on her head. She was airlifted to a nearby hospital, and died nine days later.

While Sarah’s death hit Rory very hard, it did not take him long to ski again. He said, “I live to ski. So did Sarah.”

Since Sarah’s death, Rory has added more than just skiing to his repertoire. He, “Started (base) jumping about a year and a half ago. It’s the best way to get places. This summer I was skydiving into the blackcomb glacier in the mornings so I could ski all day!” Rory also joined Travis Pastana and the Nitro Circus crew where he took skiing to a new level. He traveled with the crew on their tour, performing on the roller skis. When I asked him what this experience was like, he told me, “Completely crazy!  Roller Skis have no brakes!  Everyone in nitro land was awesome!  It was one of the nicest most grounded groups of people I have ever hung out with.”

Not only is Rory a talented skier, roller skier, base jumper, and sky diver, but he also proved that he is a very talented diver. Rory appeared on the TV competition show Splash where different celebrities learned different Olympic dives each week and competed with each other for the trophy. Early on in the competition Rory ruptured his eardrum and was not able to do any of his dives into water until the live show. Nonetheless, Rory pushed through and won the show. Rory told me, “I got really lucky to be on that show. I was the only athlete.  I think just having a past of competing gave me an edge.  I knew how to train with an injury.”

Being a competitive athlete, Rory knew how to overcome an injury and come out on top. He told me that in his skiing career, the biggest challenge he has ever had was overcoming knee surgery. Rory does not plan to let anything slow him down. He lives to travel the world and ski. He said the hardest thing about traveling so much is “Leaving my dog Dextor behind when I have to.  I got her registered as a service dog so nobody can say no to her but I still go places she can't...” 

Rory loves trying new things, and he gets a sense of accomplishment from successfully doing new things. In his future, Rory plans to “adventure the world with airplanes, wheels, skis, and floating devices.”

In his career, base jumping and skiing have taught Rory some valuable lessons, but he said the most valuable lesson they taught him is “Enjoy every moment! Life is short.” Rory wants to “get all I can!” in the time that he is given to live, because he knows that one day life will end, and he does not want to have any regrets.

Rory has not thought much about what he would be doing if he was not skiing, but he said, “I hope I would be doing something that gave me a shivering smile!”

Rory lives every day to ski, and although everyone views the sport as dangerous, Rory said, “It's not that dangerous, people are just scared of too much.  It's so damn fun.  To each their own, but I think people are missing out if they don't scare themselves all the time.” So get up, go try something new, and get the most out of the life you are given.