Meditations
Are You Resilient?
I didnt mean I'd seen everything, John Grady said. I know you didnt. I just meant I'd seen things I'd as soon not of. I know it. There's hard lessons in this world. What's the hardest? I don't
Meditations
Meditations
The Power of Storytelling
I worked for many years as a climbing ranger in Grand Teton National Park. The old joke was that superintendents come and go, but the rangers stay forever. One of the more memorable superintendents was David Vela. Vela was a large man with an even larger personality. He had a
Meditations
The Cities of the Plain
Last week, two backcountry snowboarders in Colorado agreed to probation and community service. The year before, they had triggered an avalanche and submitted the GoPro footage and the relevant data to the Colorado Avalanche Information Center. But it wasn't just any avalanche. The slide destroyed an O'
Meditations
The Caineville Case Study
A few years ago, a shirtless man walked up to a Chevron gas pump with an empty gas can, paid for five gallons of gasoline and promptly dumped all of the contents over his head. Then he walked into the store. Within minutes, the cops arrived, cleared the building and
Meditations
Renny's Epic Failures
I've had some conversations with some good friends lately who are eager to cut their teeth and head out on some adventures. They're young and - in a nod to Joseph Campbell - keen to look not for the meaning of life so much as the
Meditations
Meditations on Heroism
My friend Carol rides the bus to work. One morning, an elderly man got on the bus who soon began to clutch his chest. Eyes wide. Sweat on the brow. Cardiac arrest. Carol checks for breathing, finds no pulse, points and shouts "You! Call 911!" and commences CPR.
Avalanche
Danger in the Danger Ratings
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
Avalanche
Human Performance in Uncertain Environments, by Laura Maguire
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
Meditations
Trust in Allah, But Tie Your Camel, by Russ Costa
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
Avalanche
Roping the Wind (Slab)
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
Avalanche
Blue Ice Accident Report
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
Avalanche
Low Danger - Chapter One
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