Against The Wind: a memoir

Outback ski enthusiast Kirk VanHee received the wake-up call of a lifetime after a monster avalanche atop Aspen Mountain nearly took his life. A child of the sixties with a troubled past, Kirk found the family he’d never had among Aspen’s close-knit hippie community. But his new life of peace, love and self-discovery turned menacing after a recreational drug habit quickly escalated into a full-on battle with addiction in a dangerous underworld of drug dealing and drug running. He knew that sooner rather than later he was going to die—in an overdose or a drug deal gone bad. What he didn’t know was that Mother Nature would come calling first, and that in one powerful moment, he would be given everything he’d need to turn his life around.

This 268 page memoir, brings to life the enlightenment, excitement and anxiety of the hippy era.  Against the Wind chronicles Kirk’s dramatic story, beginning with a childhood spent with a vacant, hard-partying young mother who made no secret of never intending to have a child, a father who took off when Kirk was still an infant, and a series of abusive, alcoholic stepfathers. This is a story of a boy becoming a man and experiencing the excitement and imprisonment of drugs and how hard work, determination and a life changing experience finally gave Kirk the wake up call he needed to mold himself into the successful man he is today.

Proceeds from this book will go to the Denver Urban Scholars Foundation to help young boys and girls with troubled pasts  graduate high school and enter higher education with a meaningful life plan for success.