LIFE AND DEATH IN THE MOUNTAINS
Early on the afternoon of April 20, 2020, half a dozen teenage boys drove to a trailhead just east of Breckenridge. They hiked up a hill and formed a ramp out of the sticky spring snow, carefully etching their friend’s name into the front of their creation: T-O-B-Y. Then they strapped on their snowboards and took turns launching off the jump, soaring up to 20 feet in the air before returning to the earth. Summit County public health orders at the time discouraged such a gathering, but the boys, who hadn’t seen each other in weeks, were hurting. They stayed for five hours, releasing their grief in primal screams each time they took off: “This one’s for Toby!”
Toby Gard was a second-generation Breckenridge boy. His grandfather, Bill Tinker, had founded a well-known local electric company; his mom, Heather, spent part of her childhood living in an 1800s mining cabin up Browns Gulch. Toby fit the stereotypical mountain kid mold: He was a gifted athlete who played five sports, made the honor roll, and had charming dimples. He competed hard and suffered three concussions playing hockey by the time he was 13. “The third was a doozy,” Heather says. “He knew his first name but not his last. He was fully in retrograde amnesia.”
That third concussion ended his hockey career, but he had been looking forward to the 2020 lacrosse season at Summit High School before it was canceled as a result of the pandemic. Stuck at home, Toby began to rebel more than a usual teen might. He snuck out late at night to drink, vape, and smoke marijuana concentrates. He argued with his mom and dad. They told him the pandemic would be over soon, but it didn’t ease his anxiety. “He said to us many times, ‘I’ve got to get out of here,’” Heather says. “‘This is really not good for me. I can’t handle this isolation. I need to be with my friends.’” Heather asked him if he wanted to see a therapist, but Toby demurred.
In the early hours of April 20, sleep-deprived from sneaking out that night, he argued with his parents over the use of his phone. He did not want to give it up when he went to bed. “You don’t know what you’re doing to me,” he said repeatedly.
As he and his mother stood in his room, “He said, ‘Mom, I just don’t know what to do,’” Heather recalls. She hugged her son. “I didn’t know to ask him if he was feeling suicidal. I didn’t know to ask him to clarify. He had started to calm down.” Heather left his room and went to take a bath. By the time she got out of the tub, Toby was gone. He was 16.
in his bedroom on Frisco’s Main Street, sobbing. He had
