About Kasha
Catherine “Kasha” Rigby was born in Stowe, Vermont in 1970. She started skiing as soon as she could walk and honed her skills on the East Coast ice, becoming a telemark skier as a teenager, before moving out to Crested Butte, Colorado where she began competing in telemark racing and extreme-skiing competitions at the age of 22. Her love for skiing and travelling were the driving forces in her life.
She soon became known as a pioneering ski mountaineer. She had a love for experiencing different cultures, and skied first descents in the biggest mountain ranges of the world. She impacted generation after generation of skiers, many of whom recall having posters of Kasha on their walls growing up.
Pure and simple, she was a legend. A 1996 article in Outside Magazine sums up Kasha’s feelings about skiing well: "Alpine skiers look like their feet are stuck in cement. Tele skiing is about mobility, rhythm, and balance. And, of course, speed. I love to go fast--really fast."
She was living an impulsive, non-stop travel-filled life after joining the North Face Team in 1995 and she skied all over the U.S., Canada, South America, New Zealand, Russia, Asia, Europe, India and the Middle East.
She skied first descents on many of the world's most revered peaks, including the Five Holy Peaks in Mongolia. She telemarked off the top of Cho Oyu with Hilaree Nelson and Willie Benegas in 2005, which was only the second and third time an 8,000m peak had been skied by American women.
When she was on the cover of Outside magazine’s Women Outside in Fall 1998, they credited her as being "the best female telemark skier in the known universe." Yet, with her humble nature, you would have never known this about her.
She wasn’t sure the rural town of Boulder, Utah, would have enough excitement for her, but soon fell in love with the wide open slickrock, slot canyons, endless exploring, fresh food, and the amazing Hell's Backbone Restaurant that she worked at for many years. She changed the life of everyone she met in Boulder, and it became her sanctuary. One of her nicknames was ‘Flight Risk,’ because she could drop everything and head off to another country in an instant.
There was no one better to be with than Kasha on an expedition, in the mountains, or travelling the world. She had a calming presence even amidst the blizzards, the summit attempts, the life-saving rescues.
Kasha had that special energy where complete strangers would welcome her into their lives and into their home. She was a free-spirited adventurer, a kind and brilliant friend. She wore her femininity with ease, even in the most intimidating, masculine environments.
She was always ready to dance. She glowed from within with her love for the world and the people around her. She was a role model and mentor through the mountains and through life. As far as we know, she never compiled a full list of her mountaineering achievements, because that wasn’t what was important to her. It was the experiences themselves.
Kasha had been skiing less over the past few years, as she first took a job in Nepal doing earthquake relief work in Kathmandu and then for the World Food Program for three years in Cox’s Bazar [Bangladesh], helping with the Rohingya refugee crisis. Here, on the coastline between Bangladesh and Myanmar, a small but passionate local surf community exists, including a significant number of young girls who are rarely seen in sports (or outdoors after puberty) in that country.
Kasha worked with a local school set up by the World Food Program, helping keep kids from poor families in school and providing ocean safety and surf training. She threw herself into this work, becoming fierce friends with everyone involved. She loved surfing with the local kids and brought her trademark spark of joy to an otherwise devastatingly difficult situation. When she sent a photo of her surfing on the same wave with a good-looking Scottish guy, her longtime friends wondered - could this be the one?
There was always that deeper something that Kasha was searching for, and it seemed that she’d finally found it in the form of Magnus. He began working in the humanitarian field in his early 20s and spent the next 30 years aiding in global disaster relief.
Kasha had access to surfboards in Cox’s Bazar, and Magnus didn’t – they met through this connection and over the following weeks often shared dawn patrols on the Bengal Bay waves alone, forging a connection. They were meant for each other, they knew it, and everyone around them knew it too. Soon, they were engaged, and travelling with so much joy, Those who encountered them couldn’t help but recognize the bright energy and happiness emerging from them both.
Sometimes people define you by what you have done, which is not necessarily who you are right now. Much of the mountain life is admirable but often ego-driven. Kasha's choice to move into a new dimension was a positive evolution and her friends knew she had finally chosen to settle down.
It was the happiest they had ever seen her.
Last year, Kasha and Moona moved to Eastern Turkey for new humanitarian work. In January of 2024 their Turkish visas were delayed and they decided to work remotely from the Balkans, finding the best snow, in Brezovica, Kosovo, a place they could work and ski. It was in Kosovo that a small avalanche dragged Kasha down a slope and took her life.
Kasha always loved paths unknown, and she followed many of them throughout the beautiful winding trajectory of her life. She has touched so many lives, and she will be dearly missed. In the enormity of grief that those who know her feel at her passing, and especially Moona, you can picture her smiling down at us, pouring a cup of tea and saying ‘We have no choice but to put one foot in front of the other, so we may as well make it fun, right?’
Kasha La… a gypsy spirit with a Buddhist heart and soul that was too generous to be contained by this small world…always to be remembered as a beautiful and talented athlete, world traveller, humanitarian, guide, yogi, glittering fairy, seeker, goddess, good witch, desert hiker, ambassador of light and love ❤️
When Einstein gave lectures the question young people asked him most was: Do you believe in God? And he always answered: I believe in the God of Spinoza. According to Spinoza, God would say:
“Stop praying. I want you to go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made for you. “Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I express my love for you."
In the light of Kasha’s death, Magnus will continue her legacy through the start of a charitable organisation aimed at helping young people most in need.
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