MIKE STEED

'The only true success is to live your life in your own way.' Still working on it but pleased with the way it's all worked out so far. Daughters and grandkids= ultimate. Right at 3500 days of my life skiing, from northern Alaska to southern Argentina. Still skiing 100+ days a year. ( Knee deep first tracks last 3 days at 'Sierra Blanca' all alone.) Retired from fisheries in Alaska 3 years ago a year after Janet, love of my life for 35 years, died. I never got rich, but everything is paid off. Skiing every day all winter and working boats all summer made for a pretty enjoyable lifestyle. I've done just about everything I ever wanted to do, but hoping for another 30 years to accomplish a ****load more.

I was pretty boring in high school, but June of '71 traveling in Mexico I found a joint in my pocket at 3am in the Puerto Vallarta jail,(swear to god it wasn't mine!). Josh Cress and Waldir Andrade bailed me out the next day and I met Janet on the ' Playa de los Muertos'. By the next winter I got kicked out of Naval Academy for (drunkenly) impersonating an officer and striking a superior. At CMC Leadville I was voted least likely to live past 30 after I popped a backflip on skis off a second story roof into 5' of powder. I actually got a few degrees but kept on being a ski/fish bum pretty much till now. Yeah, it's been fun.