{"id":2455335,"date":"2020-03-04T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=321980"},"modified":"2020-03-04T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T12:00:00","slug":"part-time-snowmass-couple-remembered-for-love-of-family-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/part-time-snowmass-couple-remembered-for-love-of-family-adventure\/","title":{"rendered":"Part-time Snowmass couple remembered for love of family, adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
Ed and Judy Cort stand at the Top of Elk Camp in Snowmass.<\/strong>
Courtesy photo\/Bill Cort<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

Love for each other, love of family, love of adventure.<\/p>\n

These are the three defining characteristics used to describe George \u201cEd\u201d Cort, 83, and Judith \u201cJudy\u201d Cort, 81, a part-time Snowmass couple who died 10 days apart last month.<\/p>\n

Ed died Feb. 12 from injuries sustained after falling into the Snowmass Ski Area halfpipe two days earlier. Judy died Feb. 22 from a tear in her aorta, or a \u201cbroken heart,\u201d according to her family.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven though they had slowed down a little, it was not like normal 80-year-olds would. They were so active and always out doing and living their lives,\u201d said Bill Cort, the couple\u2019s eldest of three sons, who lives in Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t think things would end so sudden like this.\u201d<\/p>\n

On a recent morning, Bill reminisced of memories with his parents, including hiking, biking and skiing first near their home in Pennsylvania, then in the New Mexico area and later around Montrose, where Ed and Judy had lived most of the calendar year since their retirement in 1993.<\/p>\n

They also have owned a Laurelwood Studios condo in Snowmass since the late 1990s, and had been visiting the Aspen area for its outdoor, music and other cultural offerings for decades.<\/p>\n

Both Ed and Judy were Pennsylvania natives and received degrees from Pennsylvania universities \u2014 Ed earning a bachelors and masters in mechanical and nuclear engineering at Carnegie Mellon and Judy a bachelors in nursing at Western Hospital School of Nursing.<\/p>\n

The couple met at a mixer dance at Judy\u2019s nursing school in 1957 and had been together ever since.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were married in college and stayed with each other until the end,\u201d said Jeff Cort, one of Ed\u2019s closest cousins. \u201cThey loved to travel and spend time together doing all sorts of things. I bet they spent more than 200 days a year hiking, biking, skiing, you name it. They were go, go, go all of the time.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Jeff, his close bond with the Cort couple grew from skiing together, mainly with Ed, over the past 40 years. He said he had a genuine fondness for Ed and Judy, who he described as super people, and was inspired by their relationship and the way they lived their lives.<\/p>\n

Just a few days before Ed\u2019s accident<\/a>, Jeff said the cousins skied roughly 25,000 vertical feet at Snowmass together while Jeff was visiting the village with friends for the weekend.<\/p>\n

Over the most recent visit \u2014 which proved Ed was more fit than Jeff \u2014 Jeff grew inspired to be more like his cousin as he grows older.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was always impressed with their mental sharpness and level of physical stamina and went away motivated to get in better shape and enjoy life like them,\u201d Jeff said of the recent trip to Snowmass, noting Ed has been skiing for at least 60 years. \u201cSo it was shocking when I found out what happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bill echoed Jeff\u2019s disbelief of his dad\u2019s accident, saying he thought for sure the son-father duo would have a few more years of skiing together. He skied with his father just days before the accident, too.<\/p>\n

When his mom called him that Monday to tell him his dad was in the hospital, Bill said he didn\u2019t understand the severity until she called again and said he was transported to the Front Range. He drove from Grand Junction to Snowmass to take Judy up to Denver to be with Ed. He died in the hospital two days later.<\/p>\n

After spending a few additional days with family in the Denver area, Bill said he drove with his mom back to Montrose, noticing she seemed to be growing anxious about going home to an empty house.<\/p>\n

He stayed with her for a few days in Montrose when she said she wasn\u2019t feeling well, so he took her into the emergency room.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgain, it was a whole lot more serious than I had envisioned,\u201d Bill said of his mom\u2019s sudden illness. \u201cIt\u2019s hard to imagine someone having a heart issue related to their grief, but I guess it can happen.\u201d<\/p>\n

From mountain biking parts of the Great Divide trail, which runs from Canada to Mexico, with friends, to road biking, backpacking and hiking across the country and the globe, Bill and Jeff said the Cort couple will always be remembered for their caring, active spirits and their deep love for all adventure.<\/p>\n

Later this month, Bill said some of his family plans to vacation in Snowmass before traveling to Montrose for Ed and Judy\u2019s memorial service.<\/p>\n

They hope to retrace part of Ed\u2019s path that Monday morning to the Snowmass halfpipe, but Bill knows it won\u2019t be easy and it won\u2019t give them all of the answers.<\/p>\n

Both Aspen Skiing Co. vice president of communications Jeff Hanle and Pitkin County deputy coroner Eric Hansen said there is no new information about Cort\u2019s accident, which happened on a foggy morning and was not witnessed by anyone. Hanle said when looking downhill, Cort went off the skier\u2019s left side of the halfpipe, which is the side adjacent to a stand of trees.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy best guess is that the conditions that day had driven him to a place he would not normally go, but we\u2019ll never be able to know what was in his mind and what he was thinking,\u201d Bill said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s one of the things about skiing, you\u2019re always taking risks out there. That\u2019s part of the reason why we\u2019re out there in the first place, \u2026 but I definitely thought I\u2019d have a few more years left to ski with my dad.\u201d<\/p>\n

mvincent@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed and Judy Cort stand at the Top of Elk Camp in Snowmass.Courtesy photo\/Bill Cort Love for each other, love of family, love of adventure. These are the three defining characteristics used to describe George \u201cEd\u201d Cort, 83, and Judith \u201cJudy\u201d Cort, 81, a part-time Snowmass couple who died 10 days apart last month. Ed […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2455335","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-18 12:22:35","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455335","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2455335"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2455335\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2455335"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2455335"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2455335"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}