First off, I always felt lucky to call Josh my friend. He was a great guy who I could always count on for anything. I loved his honesty and integrity in any situation. I have many experiences with Josh from snowmobiling, skiing, wakeboarding, and hiking. We always seemed to be doing something together. I never really just "hung out" with Josh. Most of our experiences involved daring each other to go bigger or faster until we were both too scared to attempt the next step. A lot of times we broke equipment or ourselves trying to one-up each other.
Snowmobiling: I was always so excited when Josh would call me to go snowmobiling with him. I never owned or had any cool toys like Josh, so to go out and enjoy the Utah backcountry on some nice machines was awesome! One trip in particular Josh and I decided to take a couple sleds up from Midway to guardsman pass by Brighton. We took our skis and had hoped to do some "extreme skiing" as Josh would say. We got to the top of the mountain and found a nice big bowl to ski in. We took turns skiing and towing with the sled. Later in the day we found a large bowl on the backside near Park City resort area. Josh told me that I could ski in and he would give me a ride back to the top of the pass were our other sled was. I dropped in on skis and Josh followed down to the bottom on the sled. Well when we got to the bottom we realized how steep the hill was and that getting two of us out of the bowl was going to be quite the task. Josh could barely get up the hill on the sled by himself. We made several attempts to get out and it was not looking good. It was getting late and would be dark soon. So he said to me, "just hold on!" I jumped on the back of the sled and he pinned the accelerator. As we are shooting up the hill at nearly 50mph the front of the sled starts coming off the ground. Josh was literally laying on the hood as I am hanging onto his pants as we shoot up and over this hill. When we made it to the top we were so happy we were hugging and dancing and just laughing forever. We felt like we cheated the odds that day. Hahaha.
Skiing: Josh was one of my favorite ski buddies. I have a million ski stories about Josh as we skiied together a lot. He was a good skier and was always up for a jump or cliff to huck off of. He would laugh nervously a lot when he didnt want to do it, but he would still go for it. This usually ended with a lot of nasty Fitts crashes where we would pick up all his gear. I remember one day we had skiied really hard and we were getting tired. We were heading down the mountain and we are just flying down the Big Emma groomed run at the bottom of snowbird. Josh yells to me, "I cant go any more!" As I look at him to say "what?" he disappeared into a cloud of snow and flesh and skis. He was so tired and didnt want to stop he just kept going until his legs gave out. I was laughing so hard that he about killed himself because he didnt want to stop. I know Josh loved skiing and dreamed of being a great skiier. We always talked about how great it would be to get sponsored and get paid to ski.
Wakeboarding: I was first introduced to wakeboarding by Josh and Scott. This was new and Josh was so excited about it. He would teach me all the names of the tricks and how things happen on the boat. Punk rock was a must as we cruised the lake in search of glassy water. We worked construction and would always try to find a way to get out early so we could head down to Utah Lake and get a few pulls in before the sun went down. Josh was always very generous with his boat and taking me and others out on the lake. He was very meticulous though. We would be cleaning the gear and boat out and he would follow behind us scrubbing and cleaning the spots that we had just cleaned. I would say, "I just cleaned that!" Josh would reply with something like "I can still see spots." He had to have everything just perfectly clean. I admired that in Josh. Sometimes I thought he was crazy for it, but I respected it. We spent a lot of time on the lake and planning trips to the lake. Josh became a very good wakeboarder and I always enjoyed watching him ride. He took it serious and it showed.
I have many many more stories I could write, but these were a few of the ones that came to mind. I want Teague and Reece and any others that want to know more about Josh to know that he was a really great friend and person. He was so excited to be a father. Up until he became a father we usually just spoke of our hobbies to each other. When he became a father all he talked about were his kids and family life. I know he loved being a dad was an awesome father. We will miss Josh, and will always feel privileged to have known him. He was a great example of love, honesty, integrity, and general playfulness.
Sincerely Jarom Taylor
