The ashes of Jane Herte, the former owner of Little Switzerland ski area in Wisconsin, were taken for a final torchlit ski down the slopes of her beloved resort last week.
Jane, who died in January at the age of 84, grew up skiing at Little Switzerland in the US Midwest which her father opened in 1941, on the very day Pearl Harbour was bombed, when Jane was a girl.
“We closed the hill down at 9:30, and then they shut down the lights and our ski patrol took Jane up to the top and they did a final run for her,” Jen Gilmore, who works at the resort, told local media.
Jane’s black and gold urn was held in both hands by patrol director Kevin Ketter and surrounded by 20 skiers with torches for the descent on her favourite run.
After taking over operation of the hill in 1985 after her father died, Jane and her son Jay ran it to 2007 when it closed, re-opening under new operators in 2012.
At the end of the run friends stopped at the centre’s ski lodge to toast Jane’s memory with her favourite whisky.
