Skiers and riders gathered at the Park City Mountain Legacy Lodge Plaza on Saturday afternoon to support and learn about local resources for mental health care.
Participants were welcomed by the Love Like Ky Foundation’s mascot and impromptu outreach coordinator Teddy, a golden retriever, who eagerly approached every passerby with an invitation to join the crowd.
Love Like Ky supports mental well-being in mountain towns in the name of Kyler Efinger, who died New Year’s Day 2024 during a mental crisis at the Salt Lake City airport that led him to access the engine of a passenger plane on the runway.
With their Mountain Strong Tour, Love Like Ky works with local nonprofits and resource centers to engage community members with options for mental health care and support available in their own town.
Spring break skiers and longtime friends and supporters came out to participate in the Mountain Strong Tour’s Park City stop, challenging each other for the most vertical feet skied, earning one opportunity drawing ticket for every 5,000 feet of descent.
Angela Buege and Patti Polster came out on Saturday in support of the Efinger family, who have been friends for more than 30 years in Park City. Buege and Polster accomplished 8,600 and 8,100 vertical feet on Saturday before they joined the crowd of friends and family dancing to Kyler’s favorite reggae music.
“We’ve been here for 31 years,” said Buege. “We understand the mental health crisis in our community. We know family and friends that deal with this daily and so we came out to support them and that cause.”
Rheanna Smith and Brian Elischer are local residents who saw the event highlighted in the news and knew they had to join in support.
“The mission of the organization really spoke to both of us,” said Smith. “Skiing and the outdoors is obviously a huge thing for us, but so is mental health both in terms of the work we do and also our own personal connections to that. I remember reading about Kyler’s story when he passed and just connected the dots, and wanted to show up and support.”
Smith and Elischer were drawn by the crowds and good company and never ultimately made it out on the hill to compete for vertical feet, though said they were happy to be chatting and meeting people in the base area regardless.
Alongside Love Like Ky, local nonprofits such as the Christian Center of Park City, the Summit County Clubhouse, the Equellness Center, Live Like Sam and the Peace House set up tables to connect people with information about mental health care in Park City.
“It is a privilege and also heartbreaking to see. A lot of people have blinders on and don’t realize how many people in our community would think they cannot access mental health due to financial resources or those who need it and don’t quite realize,” said Lauren Feenstra, practicum clinical mental health counselor at the Christian Center of Park City. “In my humble opinion, we all need it. Everyone has a season and a time where we need a little bit of love and outreach when we are not our norm. To be able to provide that with no strings attached is amazing.”
The Christian Center of Park City’s counseling department offers scholarship programs to those in need of mental health care for up to six sessions to help meet people in their point of crisis regardless of financial standing. Whether through insurance or scholarship, the counseling department prioritizes mental health care across all demographics of the community, said Feenstra.
“Exposing people participating in the event or just walking by to know what we have available in our community is imperative. Every one of us is on the same page in terms of meeting people in their place of need in our own community and backyard,” she said.
The Summit County Clubhouse partnered with Love Like Ky as a nonprofit geared toward non-clinical recovery for adults with mental illness or substance abuse disorders.
“It’s like a family,” said Clubhouse Executive Director Jen O’Brien. “It’s a welcoming place for people to feel really open about their challenges and support each other. There’s nothing clinical about what we do. It’s a place where people go to avoid isolation and re-create community and to use work as a basis for recovery.”
President of Love Like Ky and Kyler’s father, Judd Efinger, said the public nature of Kyler’s death altered the course of grief for the Efinger family.
“We may have chosen to grieve in private like any family would. But we just didn’t have that choice because it was so public. We just kind of got thrown at it,” said Efinger. “And maybe that’s a blessing because that’s what gave us the strength to start the foundation. When we knew we were going to head down a path with the foundation, and really it was to help the next family and save the next life.”
Raffle ticket winners took home ski gear including Solomon ski boots, helmets, goggles, Surefoot boot inserts and a pair of Bode Miller’s Peak 98 skis. In an ode to Bode Miller’s “Paradise Paradox,” a film released in May 2024 detailing the realities of mental illness in mountain towns, the foundation partners with Miller to further their collective mission of bringing health care to mountain towns.
“The suicide belt extends through all of the Rocky Mountain States, with suicide rates sometimes two to three times the national average,” said Efinger. “We don’t find that acceptable. We have to do better. Let’s get our mountain towns healthy.”