Ski resort pioneer Kingsbury Pitcher, whose family owns southwestern Colorado’s Wolf Creek ski area, died in his sleep on Dec. 29, 2017, at his home in Santa Fe. He was 98. They called him Pitch. Born in 1919 in southern California, he spent his youthful summers in Silverton with his grandfather, Otto Mears, the “Pathfinder of the San Juans” who forged toll roads that became railroads that connected the remote villages and mining towns in southern Colorado’s rugged San Juan mountains. Pitcher ski raced for Stanford University, where he studied business and economics.