WINTER PARK, CO (KUSA) - Bob Brunson has never paid too much attention to numbers. Even when the number is 40 - how many years he's been skiing; or the number is 90 - his age; or the number of oxygen tanks he has to ski with - one.
"We'll see if we can get down that hill," he said on Wednesday at Winter Park.
Brunson and his fellow skiers with the Ski Meisters Club took over Winter Park to celebrate his 90-and-a-half birthday.
"Looking down a hill and feeling a challenge," he said. "It's the only way that you can get ahead, is to face challenges and conquer them."
"I don't think I've ever seen him not smile," Russ Farson, director of downhill skiing for Ski Meisters, said. "Just to think that he can stay that active at 90, he's kind of our hero."
Brunson started skiing at age 50 after being one of the first pilots to fly Nightflyers off aircraft carriers during World War II.
When he takes to the mountain, he skis like he's still flying a plane.
"No, he doesn't go slow. He doesn't know the word slow," Farson said. "He doesn't go into bumps anymore, but slow is not in his vocabulary."
"I feel very privileged to be physically able to do it," Brunson said. "Why slow down just because I got a number on your age?"
His fellow ski club members feel privileged to come out in numbers and celebrate skiing at 90.
"Sometimes, the work is getting to the point where you could put your skis on," Brunson said.
But once you get there, Brunson says it's all downhill.
"Why quit if you don't have to?" he said.
Brunson says his legs and knees feel pretty good even after a day on the slopes. When asked if he'll still be skiing on his 100th birthday, his answer: We'll see.
KUSA, Denver