Alec Stall 1981-2005

Alec was born June 15, 1981. He rode in his first biking event at age 5 in Pleasant Valley. He rode 5 miles on a three wheeler and had his picture on the front page of the Pleasant Valley newspaper.

Alec attended Poughkeepsie city schools until the 8th grade, spent two years at Oakwood School, and attended Williston Northampton School for 3 years until he graduated in 2000. He believed in never taking the easy way out. The courses he selected were always challenging and subjects of interest. Even though I pleaded with him to lighten up the load at times, he didn't see the point. He was extremely artistic and a whiz at higher mathematics. But, his love was building houses using environmentally sound processes. He built houses during the summer and picked up the necessary skill of working quickly. Alec graduated with honors and went on to attend the University of Vermont (UVM) where he graduated once again with honors in 2004 as a political science/history double major.

Alec was very athletic. Through-out high school, he raced mountain bikes in the summer.  At Williston, he played varsity football, ran track, played lacrosse, and enjoyed skiing. While at UVM, he was a member of the road and mountain bike teams. He was at one time ranked 10th in the east in collegiate mountain biking and rode in the USCF races as an expert mountain biker and a cat-3 road racer. He excelled at both. He even raced downhill one year at the collegiate eastern for the team in the "B" category and took first place, helping UVM to win the eastern that year.

During his long skiing career, he began as a freestyle skier while attending the Killington Mountain School on weekends since the time he was 8 years old. He won numerous competitions as a "B" level and moved up to "A" level just before heading to Williston. There he continued skiing but as an alpine racer, specializing in giant slalom (GS) events and taking third one year at New England Prep Championships. He was voted most improved skier for his team and most valuable team member the following year. From there he went on to continue his skiing at UVM but as more of an adventurer, enjoying more the skiing in the back country offered to the eastern skier at areas such as Mount Mansfield and in the White Mountains. He and I skied Tuckermans Ravine numerous times at Mount Washington together and took many vacations together to ski the more extreme ski resorts in North America, including Whistler/Blackhomb in British Columbia and Red Mountain, the extreme skiing capital of British Columbia before his death.

Alec was a skier in three movies produced by Meathead Films of Burlington Vt. He was written up in Skiing Magazine twice, with a special tribute to him after his death and his picture also appeared in Powder Magazine, skiing through the trees. He was very proud of his up and coming notoriety and wanted to do nothing more than build houses and ski. That's what he was doing in Stowe VT, where he lived after he graduated from UVM. Everyone in town knew him even though he was only there for 5 months.

Alec was able to light up a room. He was the life of the party according to all his friends and he had hundreds. He worked hard and lived hard. After High School, he and his friend Zach traveled through Europe for a month and visited over 9 countries. He skied all over the world and biked all over the U.S., including Colorado, Utah, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine,  Connecticut, Massachusetts and, of course New York.

His smile was notorious and ever present. His wit was infectious and his friends would warn one another about getting into a discussion with Alec on ANY subject, because he was conversant and had strong opinions about everything. As evidenced by how he frustrated us and all his friends with his unbending attitudes and strong opinions.

One of his mottos was "live life with no regrets". He meant it, perhaps because he lived so briefly, he didn't have the time to do anything you or I would regret!  But he truly believed in living in the moment and enjoying life to the fullest. He just didn't do it long enough.