Avalanche

Looking Back at Terminal Cancer

Drew Hardesty

22 May 2025 — 2 min read

This was 10-15 years ago in the Ruby Mountains of Nevada. When your good friend with a diagnosis of prostate cancer calls on a Saturday night and says, "We're going skiing in the Rubies on Monday and you're coming as well", you have no choice but to pack your stuff. Fittingly, he and mutual friend Terry picked a line called Terminal Cancer, a striking line plucked by Joe Royer back in the late 70s.

After skiing the line, I wrote a short piece about the quick and dirty road trip. It wasn't a “trip report” (the line is actually not that steep) as much as a few notes about the homework we did prior to - and along the way - to access and ski the couloir. Weather, terrain, snowpack - You get the idea. You can find it HERE.

In regards to the outing, though, what I felt most confident about was my collection of ski partners.

“Terry and I worked together for a season on Rainier years ago and he currently works as an ER doctor. He's worked and climbed Everest many times. He's as low key and thoughtful as they come....cool under pressure and is a good communicator. Fit beyond belief.”

"Bubba" is almost 50 and you'd never know he was sick. We joked that he brought along his personal physician in Terry. Bubba's worked as an avalanche forecaster throughout the intermountain west and is the poster boy for the ISSW - a merging of theory and practice. He's a great communicator, has good mountain sense, and has nothing to prove. "Summit fever" was not even part of the game.”

I had been forecasting since the 99/00 winter and had worked as a Jenny Lake climbing ranger in the Tetons...but only a couple years before this trip, I had been caught and carried in a large hard slab avalanche 3-5 feet deep and 500 feet wide in Yellowjacket Gulch (Wasatch Range) and miraculously survived without a scratch. (I hadn’t meant to ski that line...and I’ll write more about this in a couple weeks.)

It was a great outing.

But there’s something you should know.

Two years ago, Bubba was caught and carried in a violent avalanche that raked him through trees in his home turf.

And last spring, Terry was caught, carried, fully buried and killed in the Lost River Range of Idaho.

What to make of all of this?

Are we reckless, poor decision-makers who have vastly underestimated the odds of an avalanche? An avalanche swallowing us whole?