Fred’s Passing and the Passing of the torch to Julie
Fred Noble established his reputation in the local adventure sports community when he became the first North American sales agent in 1974 for Canadian Mountain Holidays, the world’s foremost helicopter ski operator.
In addition to his many helicopter ski adventures, Noble also was an avid windsurfer and paraglider. In his later years he took up the comparatively easy activity of helicopter hiking, where a helicopter drops participants in scenic mountain settings, so his grandkids could join him on his adventures.
After joining the Columbia River Gorge windsurfing boom in the early 1980s, Noble spent much of the next decade coordinating with local agencies and bringing together skilled volunteers to develop and improve windsurfing parks in the gore, most notably Oregon state parks at Rowena and Viento. The local sailing association names its top annual award the “Fred Noble Golden Shovel Award.”
Noble eventually grew tired of toting his boards and sails on his many foreign trips and took up paragliding, which requires only a backpack full of gear. That sport nearly cost him his life in 2003, when a hard landing separated his pelvis from his muscular structure. After weeks of recuperating in Brazilian hospitals, he returned home only to face many more months of recovery.
“We thought he would never walk again,’’ recalled Gary Bakkala, who is married to Noble’s daughter, Julie. “I asked him if I should cancel the family heli-hiking trip that summer and he said no, it would give him something to train for. Not only did he make it hiking, he was also back skiing that winter’’ (11 months and eight days after the crash).
Noble lived life with a can-do spirit, a trait he infused in everyone who met him, even when they started with their own self doubts.
Bakkala recalls how he was forced to learn to ski, when his wife said she couldn’t take over her father’s heli-ski business if her husband wasn’t a skier.
“I was into snowmobiles and dirt bikes,’’ Bakkala said, “until Fred said he would teach me to ski.’’
They began together, with Bakkala learning to holding the controls behind Noble’s sit ski, a device that enables users to ride down slopes despite having no control of their legs.
Before long, Bakkala got the word: He was ready, and they would be going helicopter skiing together.
“I was scared out of my wits, then I looked at Fred in his wheelchair,’’ Bakkala said. “I told myself, it’s only snow, and I have to do it for him. The trust he confided in me got me through it.’’
They skied together after being dropped off by helicopter in front of the Bugaboo spires, among the most awe inspiring mountains in Canada. Noble became, on that trip, the first person to make a helicopter descent in a sit ski, on his birthday in 2012.
The Bakkala couple will maintain the helicopter booking service as part of the Noble Legacy they have created.
Noble was born in San Francisco and spent the first 10 years of his life in an orphanage. He attended Franklin High School in Portland, served in the U.S. Army before establishing a career as a maintenance worker on high towers and other features that require safety lines.
Most of his work was done in good weather months, which left him time to ski in winter. His longest association has been with Mt. Hood Meadows, though much of his early years, from when the resort opened in 1967, were spent out skiing the ski patrol to get away after he pulled off something outrageous. He later went legit, in the eyes of the ski area, with the ALS fundraisers.
Noble took it upon himself to meet Warren Miller, the famous ski moviemaker, and wound up skiing in three Miller films and hosting eight annual appearances in the heady days when the Miller film launched the Portland ski season in the 1980s.
Noble lived life with a simple motto: “Life for me is one big ass adventure, even when I’m bed ridden and in a wheelchair,’’ he said, two years before ALS took his life.
As the end near, Noble survived a half-dozen episodes where the family thought he was gone. He pushed through his third Ski to Defeat ALS event in early April, followed by his birthday, the debut of a film of his life, “The Noble Spirit,’’ and all the way to May 1. That was an important date, being the birthday of the mother of his daughter as well as that of his granddaughter. He also knew the Veterans Administration would chip in on that day about half the $20,000 he required for monthly care.
“The last week of Fred Noble’s life was absolutely beautiful,’’ said Bakkala, who noted it was Noble who decided when the time had come to discontinue supplementary feeding and respiration. “The Fred Noble spirit is still dancing around in his house.’’
Portland photographer Andrea Johnson, who made the video of Noble’s life, said this about Noble: “He lived fully to the very end, even calling the shots on the process of when and where he died. It’s rare to meet someone who is in that much control.’’
]]>Beyond the tow lift
Skiing has always been Fred Noble’s biggest love. He was hooked as a teenager at Franklin High School in the 1950s, when he started on one of two rope tows at Summit Ski Area in Government Camp. He remembers toiling on the beginner tow, envious of those riding the other tow and considering them “pros.” That just made him want to become a pro.
A stint in the U.S. Army followed high school, then he began a working career servicing transmission lines and other high towers. Work was mostly seasonal, which left him time to ski.
Within a few years, he was launching off cliffs in three of Warren Miller’s annual ski movies. He became and remains the North American sales agent for Canadian Mountain Holidays, the world’s leading helicopter ski operation with backcountry ski terrain in British Columbia larger than Switzerland.
Eric Sanford, a Hood River photographer, remembers how he met Noble.
“I won some silly award for ski photography that was presented at the 1980 Warren Miller movie,” Sanford said. “Fred was the movie’s MC for many of those years, and we became friends.
“Fred was always on the lookout for doing something new or different. He should be dead a half-dozen times, just from the things we did together in Aruba, Chile and Brazil.”
Fred vs. the ski patrol
Noble has been married three times, but his constant drive wore out relationships. His daughter, Julie, and her husband, Gary Bakkala, of Salem, are helping him to the end.
Recently, they joined him for a day of skiing at Mt. Hood Meadows, where Noble used a device called a sit ski. It allows those who can’t control their legs to glide down a run in a chair mounted to twin skis, using outriggers attached to the arms to maintain balance.
It was a far cry from the way Noble used to ski at Mt. Hood Meadows, a resort Noble skied on opening day in 1968.
“Our ski patrol is much better because of Fred,” said Dave Tragethon, Meadows spokesman. “We’ve had to adapt our training and techniques specifically to keep up with his antics.”
Noble used to poach closed parts of the ski area, before the Shooting Star and Heather Canyon lifts were built.
He remembers skiing out in the woods once and hearing a voice from the chairlift: “Noble, I’m coming after you.”
To avoid losing his season’s pass, Noble outskied the head of the patrol, dashed into the lodge, ordered a pitcher of beer and took off his boots. That gave him plausible deniability of being in the woods, once the patrol chief caught up.
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