The Pfister family: Aspen legends | Forensic Files

My name is Mark Seal. I'm a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and I call Aspen home.
Aspen is a place of intense natural beauty first and foremost, but other than that, it's also a real mountain
town with a great history and a long time lore and legend and story. Love you, Mariah. I love you so much.
There's so much more to it than people who read about the celebrity aspect and the glitzy aspect of it realize.
How was it, Paris? Awesome. There's just so much here. Aspen was born in the silver boom when
silver was the king when it was the monetary standard. And it became one of the most successful silver boom towns in
America. And then with the silver crash, it became a ghost town again until they
found new riches in snow. And that's what began the second boom of Aspen when people came here to ski.
From the silver miners to the Hunter Thompson era and beyond, Aspen has always been a town of renegades and and
people who came who left everything they had known behind to start a new. It was this wild and free-spirited Aspen
that Nancy Fister belonged. I mean, she was a true daughter of Aspen. She was wild and as beautiful as
the place she was born and raised in. Everyone knew her. She was born to great parents. She was
born to these Aspen originals. Artf Fister was a World War II fighter pilot from Minnesota who, like so many other
people, came to Aspen to ski and he stayed. Art Fister paid $30,000 for the 700 acre lazy chair ranch on
what is now Buttermilk Mountain. Betty Fister was as epic as Artf Fister. She was a legendary World War II woman
pilot. She flew gliders, hot air balloons. She had a a brightly colored helicopter that she called Tinkerbell.
She bungee jumped off a bridge in Australia when she was in her 70s. I mean, these are people who were
adventurous to the end. Although Nancy apparently traveled the world, she always came home here. And
so, in a sense, she never really left. She lived on the land that her father had bought way back in 1954.
Aspen endures as it always does, but Nancy Fister will not soon be forgotten. [Music]

From silver miners to the Hunter Thompson-era and beyond, Aspen has always been a town of renegades and people who left everything they had known behind to start anew. The family of Nancy Pfister fit right in.

Brief Summary

Mark Seal discusses Aspen's rich history and the legacy of Nancy Fister.

Key points

The Spirit of Aspen. Aspen is a town of beauty, history, and renegades.
Nancy Fister's Legacy. Nancy Fister embodied the wild spirit of Aspen, never truly leaving her roots.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Aspen has always been a town of renegades.

Describing the spirit of Aspen.

1:13WatchMar 7, 2015

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