Letter to a Young Avalanche Forecaster
(thanks to Tom Kimbrough, Janet Kellam, and Heather Thamm)
First, I want you to know that your job is more important and the role that you play in your community is more significant than you might imagine. In our line of work, we help people walk the line between joy, tragedy, grief, and renewal. Don’t underestimate this. Friends, family, and partners may come to you to help answer the unanswerable questions. Know that you may need help or mentorship in navigating these things.
In the event of an accident, it may be that your understanding of snow metamorphism, fracture mechanics, or atmospheric science can help friends, family, and partners understand What happened?, but it will fall short in helping them understand the more human or spiritual questions of How could this have happened? It’s not enough to try to understand the natural world; one must also strive to understand both human nature and one’s own.
Before you embark on this career, I would ask you to examine your motivations for becoming an avalanche forecaster. I have seen forecasters whose entire motivation has been to be in the mountains and ski powder. There’s no question that this is one of the benefits of the job, but it is not an end in itself and should not be confused with purpose. I have also seen forecasters whose entire motivation has been to establish themselves as part of the snow and avalanche cognoscenti, to elevate themselves to the status of Snow God, or to become a mainstream or social media celebrity. These motivations and pursuits are only to serve one’s ego and not the people for whom we serve. For the highway or ski area forecaster, it may be that many of the public for whom you serve have no idea of the risk that you assume, let alone the fact that you exist at all.
Second, I would ask you to fully consider and understand the weight and gravity of your opinions and words. There will be times when people die on your forecast. When (note that I write ‘when’ and not ‘if’), this happens, it’s natural to look back at your writing and see what you might have done differently or if any parts of your forecast were wrong. I was mentored early on to believe that if I had both the right intentions in my work and the right disposition of mindfulness, then everything that followed would be both right and ethical. In other words, one would be able to look at oneself in the mirror.
This should not be confused with whether your forecast is both accurate and precise: it is the inherent nature of forecasting to be wrong. What is most important is that the public takes away some key messages from your forecast to allow them to make good decisions in the backcountry. Optimally - and this can be viewed as what I would deem the sharing of risk - the public will sometimes hear your voice and intonation, see your words on paper or your image in media, and feel a type of guidance and support. And in doing so, they will be making life (joy) and death (tragic) decisions in the mountains. If you don’t feel a certain weight after publishing your forecast, then I can safely say You’re doing it wrong.
Last piece of advice: If, over the course of the winter, you’ve forgotten much of this letter, just remember a couple of things: Beware the attachment to ego. Understand your motivations. Then go ski powder.
