What is it about these two profound words that you hear with any decision of consequence? You’re looking over the tips of your skis down onto the Bobsled, a perfect white canvas on the north side of Gobblers Knob*. Shadows of blue pierce the canvas, but that's
I always considered my father to be a master gardener. In the last quarter of his life, he would enter his strange and inspired flowers into the county fair and talk shit to his competitors, often well-heeled ladies that had, as he wryly described it, “the help.” My wife’s
Who was it that said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the other ones." Mark Twain? Rather, Winston Churchill, just after the war, and it's likely he borrowed it from someone else. (Perhaps Twain, again.) I think it's the same
by Laura Maguire How we perceive risk and make decisions can be subject to flawed thinking and dangerous biases, but this is only one small dimension of a much broader understanding of what constitutes expert performance in uncertain, changing environments. This article will describe the conditions that makes snow safety
by Russ Costa This is a continuation from the Blue Ice avalanche from January 2019. You can find the accident report and my introduction “Low Danger – Chapter 1” in the essays. Having spent the morning of Saturday, January 5th sitting in a classroom, I was excited to get up in
Years ago, I worked for a rancher in northeast Utah named James Gunn. Wranglers, boots, cowboy hat, the full deal. Hard saying if he was a philosopher on horseback or a cowboy who just contemplated life as is. One thing's for sure. James never missed an opportunity to
This is a continuation from the Blue Ice avalanche from January 2019. You can find the accident report and my introduction “Low Danger – Chapter 1” in the essays. Thanks so much to Jackie for sharing her story. These stories need to be told - As told by Jackie - On
This is a continuation from the Blue Ice avalanche from January 2019. You can find the accident report and my introduction "Low Danger - Chapter 1" in the essays. Thanks so much to Vlad for sharing his story. These stories need to be told - As told by
by Derek DeBruin We’d been home just long enough to say hello to my wife and son and then unload the car from a few days of winter mixed climbing in Utah’s west desert. With both work and personal outings coming up in the next week, I was
On Saturday, January 5th, I issued what turned out to be the most blown avalanche forecast of my 20-year career. And not by a little. My forecast stated that the avalanche danger in the backcountry was LOW. By the end of the day, we heard about eight skier-triggered avalanches with
Mike Hattrup skiing the Idaho Express, GFT. photo: Doug Workman Two winters ago, my partner and I headed toward the Pine Hollow area in upper American Fork Canyon to access the north side of Timpanogos. It may be one of my favorite places in the entire Wasatch Range. We got
Tom Kimbrough in the easy chair. Lupine Meadows, Grand Teton National Park It was my first season as an avalanche forecaster and I felt our basal depth hoar had finally gone dormant. I forecast a Low avalanche danger. It was February 19th, 2000. By early evening, I heard about the
Avalanche
Avalanche travel decisions are about risk vs rewards and penalties – we use an assessment of hazard to choose how to satisfy our desires without realizing our fears. The traditional focus is on assessment and management of the risk side of the process and assumes that the reward side is a
Meditations
The Next Step BY STARR JAMISON, WITH INTERVIEWS WITH LAURA MCGLADREY AND DREW HARDESTY In the last few years, momentum has exponentially grown to promote conversations about mental health, stress injuries, grief, and trauma in the outdoor industry. Many avalanche professionals have stepped forward to share their stories, which helps
Avalanche
A piece of fiction: I was touring up in Mineral Fork of Big Cottonwood yesterday. Never liked it in there - spooky, full of ghosts. Always feel claustrophobic. Know the parable of the scorpion and the frog? The persistent slab and I talked for a bit on the uptrack. Snow
Avalanche
Not long ago, I was invited to give a talk on any subject of my choice to a Level 3 avalanche class with the American Avalanche Institute. The owners of AAI and I have known each other for 15-20 years. They should have known better. So. The night before, I
Meditations
Salvation We were camped a few hundred yards beyond the perimeter of the Timber Carnival fairgrounds near Albany, Oregon. Lumberjacks competed in various events: speed climbing up a 50’ limbed spruce, hacking apart a 25” diameter fir, flinging a single-bit axe onto a target, and my favorite, log-rolling. Log-rolling pits
Avalanche
Some of the following is true. It was late January. Overcast and lightly snowing. No hint of wind. Temperatures in the low twenties and dropping in the late afternoon. Silent, but not serene. I sat half-buried in the avalanche debris with two broken legs. Blood had already filled my ski
Avalanche
What is your Level of Acceptable Risk? How did you determine this? Some will center-punch Superior on a CONSIDERABLE danger while others feel happy going to Powder Park everyday. It's insulting at worst and a waste of time at best to look askance at others who are on
Avalanche
Not long ago, I found that I was running late to a talk I was to give at Black Diamond in Salt Lake City. I stepped on the gas, running through traffic, stop-signs and lights to get there on time and soon saw the unmistakable red, white, and blue lights
Avalanche
Summer's eve, how can falling ice have broken my favorite walking stick? Utah Avalanche Center forecaster Tom Kimbrough's tribute to colleague Seth Shaw who was killed in an ice fall in Alaska May 2000. It was around Memorial Day. March 2016 An open letter to Barbara
Avalanche
Scene 1. The Room. Jean Paul Sartre's 1944 play No Exit depicts an afterlife where three people sentenced to Hell find themselves locked in a room together. Each of them wait and wonder how they will be tortured...until after some great length of time, they come to
Avalanche
(A Companion Piece to #nothingbadhappened) All too often, we find ourselves unable to predict what will happen; yet after the fact we explain what did happen with a great deal of confidence. This “ability” to explain that which we cannot predict, even in the absence of additional information, represents an
Avalanche
(photo credit: Mark White) I cribbed the name from an essay by Iain Stewart-Patterson, a mountain guide and faculty staff member of Thompson Rivers University in British Columbia. His dissertation: The Role of Intuition in the Decision Process of Canadian Ski Guides. You can find his essay in a recent