Ned Gillette was a U.S. Ski Team cross-country ski racer and adventurer, visiting many parts of the world.

Ned Gillette was born in 1945 in Barre, Vermont where he was involved in more than 20 expeditions.

Starting in the late 1970s, the former U.S. Ski Team cross-country ski racer pioneered routes around Everest and McKinley, navigated an oversize rowboat to Antarctica and arced turns down the highest mountain ever skied from its summit, namely the 24,757 foot Mustagh Ata in the Pamirs. He opened new frontiers for skiing, traversing Ellemere Island in the Canadian Arctic and cross-country skiing in China’s former Manchuria.

A Vermonter and Dartmouth graduate (and captain of their ski team), Gillette was 1967 NCAA cross-country champion. He was a member of the 1968 U.S. Olympic Cross-Country Ski Team and a member of the “A” Team from 1967 to 1969.

Later, he headed the cross-country ski school at Stowe’s Trapp Family Lodge when the idea of ski touring centers was new. He also served as Director of Skiing at Yosemite Mountaineering School.

He wrote a book about the sport, Cross-Country Skiing, published in 1979. It is a practical guide designed to make both the novice and experienced skier more at ease on skis.

Gillette’s life ended on August 5, 1998 at the age of 53 when he was brutally murdered in his tent in Pakistan.

Ned Gillette was elected to the U.S National Ski Hall of Fame in 2000.