‘I lost five people in 18 months’: Chilling mystery behind America’s ski town ‘Suicide Belt’ – and why FOUR out of the six states with highest suicide rates are in the Rockies

A disturbing number of suicides are sweeping America’s party-obsessed ski towns, raising alarms about why so many residents of vacation hotspots are killing themselves.

Often called the “paradise paradox” by mental health experts, the Rockies’ high-altitude party towns are seeing record suicide rates that stand in stark contrast to the picturesque lifestyle they claim to offer.

Factors leading to the rise include the transient way of life on the slopes, financial instability, isolation from the cities and a lack of proper investment in mental health care by tourism-oriented local authorities.

As Victoria Mendoza, a 17-year-old resident of Grand Junction, Colorado, put it NPR in 2018, after seven teenagers committed suicide in her town that year: “It feels like a cloud hangs over our entire valley.”

Professional snowboarder Ben Lynch committed suicide in 2021, one of the most high-profile suicides in recent years in the Rockies region, which has seen an alarming wave of similar tragedies

For those who choose to live in the mountains, an escape from the hustle and bustle of city life is one of the main attractions; but in recent years there has been increasing calls for action from residents who feel not enough is being done to help those who are struggling.

According to the CDC, four Rockies states made up six of the highest suicide rates in 2021 — with Wyoming’s rate more than 4.5 times higher than New Jersey’s.

The region, particularly New Mexico, Colorado and Montana, has been nicknamed the ‘Suicide Belt’, with towns designed for a getaway from the city becoming epicenters of the crisis.

Mendoza said that after seven students committed suicide in her town years earlier, along with her uncle, “it got to the point where we were just waiting for the next one.”

In nearby Telluride, Colorado, about a two-hour drive from Grand Junction, the town made headlines in 2016 after a wave of suicides hit promising skiers in the region.

The story of Tom Slocum, a 57-year-old avid outdoorsman, highlighted the struggles experienced by many in the region that have led to such disturbing suicide rates.

A talented athlete, Slocum moved to Telluride as a young man after college to enjoy the slopes, but over the years found himself forced to eke out a living working primarily in hotels, as described in National Geographic.

As he grew older, he lived in a small caretaker’s house behind a multimillion-dollar home for those vacationing on the mountain, while the remoteness meant the town had little publicly funded mental health care.

When Slocum shot himself atop a mountain overlooking the Bear Creek Basin in March 2016, he became the first of three suicides in San Miguel County in just two weeks.

For many, ski towns in the Rockies offer a weeklong escape from the city. For those who live there, the communities offer poor access to mental health care, employment opportunities and a lonely pace of life

Ski resort residents say living through a winter that seems to last nine months a year can also wreak havoc on a person’s mental health

Within months, several other suicides occurred in Telluride, making the county’s firearm suicide rate more than six times the national average.

The tragic story is certainly not a rarity for people in ski resorts, where life in cold, year-round darkness bears little resemblance to the week-long vacations enjoyed by the wealthy in the same place.

Christina King, a therapist in Aspen, Colorado, where the suicide rate is more than double the national average, said the crisis is the result of a negative cycle in which struggling people still have little access to help.

“When people say, ‘We are lucky to live here,’ I have a hard time with that statement,” she said Aspen Public Radio.

‘A lot of people work really hard to be here. I don’t know if it’s just luck.’

She argued that there is a distortion between the reality of living in a ski town and vacationing there; Living 24/7 in a holiday hotspot is hardly a constant paradise.

“I think we need to recognize that a walk at the Maroon Bells or a powder day doesn’t take away the pain and suffering,” she said.

“It can help to change perspective… but I often think we miss the point of holding space for people and finding compassion and empathy before we jump into that action mode of, ‘just go outside, take a deep breath.’

One of the biggest losses to draw national attention to the issue in recent years was professional snowboarder Ben Lynch, who took his own life in 2021.

Lynch’s suicide rocked the snowboarding world, but a childhood friend said it was far from an anomaly. “This is much bigger than just Ben,” he said. ‘I lost five people to suicide in eighteen months’

The suicide rocked the snowboarding community and led to a renewed effort to draw attention to the crisis in the Rockies, which filmmaker Brett Rapkin has turned into the upcoming film “The Paradise Paradox.”

“Once we realized some of the statistics in these mountain areas, particularly in the Rockies, where people were calling it the Suicide Belt, it was like, if we do it right, this is something that can help people,” Rapkin told the Denver Post. .

“The problem seems to be everywhere.”

One of those featured in the film, ski director Bob Holme, said he knew Lynch since he was a child and felt his sad decline sums up the struggles of many in the mountains.

“This is much bigger than just Ben,” he said. “I’ve lost five people to suicide in 18 months.”

‘Everyone will talk about how great it is to live in the mountains with all that snow. When people say, ‘What is life like in the mountains?’ I said, ‘It’s really hard,’ to be honest,” Holme concluded.

‘It feels like it’s winter nine months a year. You have to be strong to make it here. That toughness is accompanied by an emotional numbness. People will kind of push it aside and say, “No, it’s fine. It snows nine months a year, no problem.’ But the cold days and the dark days are starting to add up.’