Brian "Speed" Miller
By Corinne Platt Rikkers

When talking with veteran helicopter ski guide Brian “Speed” Miller, one often hears the expression, “I’d rather be lucky than good.” Coming from a man who has guided skiers safely in one of the most dangerous snowpacks in the world for 24 years, that’s saying a lot.

Speed started skiing when he was a little kid in his backyard in Minneapolis, using skis that strapped onto his shoes. When he got older, he and a friend went to Alta, Utah, every winter to ski, even though Speed professes to being a terrible skier back then.

He was drawn to Telluride in the 1970s by Peter Waldor, who told Speed, “I found this place that you can’t believe. There is an awesome ski mountain with no one here. You’ve got to come see it.” Speed and his wife, Jane, visited every year until 1976, when they made the move permanent. They rented a trailer near the cemetery for $75 a month and settled in, working at bars and restaurants. What happened next is Telluride’s version of the American Dream. Speed met three young men who also had lots of time to ski and no solid plans for the future: Mike Friedman, known as “Friegle”; Mark Frankman, a.k.a. “Frankie”; and Dave Bush. Bush and Speed—nicknamed for his slothfulness as a house painter—had what he calls “the coolest ski bum job there is”: cleaning the ski area’s Day Lodge (now Big Billies) at night. “It took about two hours to clean, but we usually sat down there for another hour eating, drinking and watching T.V., and I got a free ski pass.”

Soon he and Bush were cleaning Gorrono Restaurant, too. After sprucing up Gorrono, they would ski in the dark to clean the Day Lodge. Frankman was a cook there, and the three of them became friends and started skiing off piste together. “I used to get my pass pulled for skiing out of bounds on the ski area. This was back in the old days when you’d get busted for skiing Mammoth. The only runs that were open on the front were the Plunge, Stairs and Coonskin. That’s when I took up backcountry skiing, because I couldn’t not go skiing for a week.” Friedman showed up to work at the Day Lodge as a bus boy and soon joined the threesome on their ski forays. “Back then it was Alfa boots, really skinny skis and three-pin bindings. We’d go back to Prospect Basin where nobody could see us and practice our skiing,” Friedman says. But he, as it turns out, knew a little more than the other three. “Friegle was this total snow geek,” says Speed. “He knew how to dig snow pits, and he started teaching us about route finding and avalanches.”

It wasn’t long before the foursome decided to form a backcountry ski-guiding outfit. “We spent a winter putting our business plan together. That spring, Friedman, Jane and I were touring in Utah, and the Wasatch Powder Birds flew over us and Friegle says, ‘One of these days, we’re going to have a helicopter in Telluride.’ Jane and I were, like, come on, we’re not going to have a helicopter.” Sure enough, the next year Friedman wrote an operating plan. They found a pilot in Montrose, raised money, and in 1983 took their first clients heli skiing.

Though the original foursome sold Telluride Helitrax in 1999, Speed remains the oldest and longest working guide. “I love it,” says the fit 55 year old. “I always have been a powder-skiing junkie, and this is a good way to get my fix.

The San Juan snowpack is famous for its instability. Helitrax has never had a client buried in an avalanche and has had only one serious problem with the helicopter. “I was in Denver when I heard the helicopter crashed, and all I could think was, I guess I shouldn’t leave those boys alone,” Speed says with a smile. Fortunately there were no fatalities in the crash.

“It’s not that I love it because it’s dangerous or because I think it is a glory job. It’s a good job for a person who understands what they’re up against. It’s not a good job for somebody who doesn’t see the danger that is out there. You have to be prepared for the worst at any given moment. Most of the time, I’m busy thinking about where we’re skiing next, what the weather’s doing and how my guests are.” Avalanche forecaster Jerry Roberts has known Speed for more than 20 years and calls him the consummate backcountry skier and guide. “He keeps neurotic notebooks. Every time he goes out, he writes the snow conditions down. He lives with a healthy paranoia that doesn’t overwhelm him, but he picks up things that most people don’t see. He can tell so much about snow just by feeling it and being aware of what’s going on around him. He looks for reasons not to ski lines rather than reasons to ski lines.”

“The job isn’t exactly what I’d call safe,” Speed says. “Jane would love it if I quit. As soon as I get down, I call her to let her know that I’m back.” Jane, too, has a nickname: St. Jane. Apparently putting up with Speed is more difficult than any of us know.

Speed and Jane are making slow plans to retire to Cortez. But he doesn’t see himself ever leaving skiing—or Helitrax. “As long as I’m physically able to ski, I’ll be at Helitrax,” he says. “And if I still love it at 65, I’ll be sitting here with some other reporter, telling some more lies.”