Dick Buek, known variably as “Mad Dog” or “The Madman of Donner Summit,” was a legendary wildman of American skiing. With a go-for-broke attitude, he became famous in 1948 for a straight schuss down the Inferno on Mt. Lassen. Buek was the first person to schuss the main Soda Springs ski hill at night with only a flashlight to see his way down the slope. Competitively he won US downhill titles in both 1952 and 1954, but it is his extreme sports exploits for which he is best known. In 1953 he was involved in a serious motorcycle crash, breaking his pelvis, leg, and shoulder, but came back to race in 1954 with his right knee still very stiff, winning the US downhill title despite that. He died in an airplane crash over Donner Lake, when the plane he was flying failed to come out of some loops and was flying low over the lake. Buek was also known as the fiancé of Jill Kinmont, the great American skier who was paralyzed in a ski accident, and whose story was told in the movie, “The Other Side of the Mountain.”
United States