The Avalanche Hour Podcast Hot Takes and Friendtorship with Moxie Mountain Guides
Be More Selective, Not More Careful: Hot Takes from the Avalanche Industry
Interview Highlights:
- A terrain-first avalanche education reset: clear language, fewer false certainties, better decision framing.
- Real-world mentorship you can actually build: “friendtorship” structures, debrief prompts, and partner feedback that scales from rec to pro.
- Inclusion that’s operational, not performative: how All In Ice Fest trains guides and changes who feels welcome (and safer) in mountain spaces.
Jason Antin sits down with Kristin Arnold and Sheldon Kerr of Moxie for a candid, wide-ranging conversation that starts at All In Ice Fest at the Ouray Ice Park—and quickly moves into some very real hot takes on the snow and avalanche industry. Tune in to hear Kristin and Sheldon pull no punches as they share experience-backed perspectives on avalanche education, decision-making, and the systems we’ve built around them.
Along the way, they unpack how All In has grown into a major gathering designed for BIPOC, adaptive, LGBTQ2SIA+, and neurodivergent communities—and how centering training and leadership development within those communities reshapes what access, authority, and representation can look like in the mountains.
The conversation then drills into the core of their teaching philosophy: terrain management first, valuing consequence over likelihood, and acknowledging that humans are fundamentally bad at probabilistic thinking (and that this is not a moral failing). They explore “friendtorship” as a more honest alternative to the mythical mentorship pipeline, the outsized impact of short, consistent debriefs, and why being more selective consistently beats trying to be more careful in complex snowpacks.
They wrap with a series of lightning-round moments—including a spirited debate on beacon harness vs. pocket carry, why avalanche accident analysis often gets overcomplicated, and each guest’s Personal Disaster Flag: the human-factor tendencies they actively manage to stay sharp in the field.
About our guests:
Kristin Arnold (she/her) and Sheldon Kerr (she/her), from Ridgway, CO, are the owners and lead guides of Moxie Mountain Guides. As of spring 2025, they are 2 of 19 total women AMGA/IFMGA guides in the U.S.*
Kristin and Sheldon started Moxie in January of 2023. As Moxie, they’ve guided skiing on Chilean volcanos, taught rock climbing clinics all over the Western US, built risk management plans and forecasted avalanches for Colorado silver mines, trained US Special Forces teams in mountain skills, instructed professional avalanche courses all over the country, and worked with small businesses and national organizations to improve their diversity, equity, and inclusion programs.
Both Arnold and Kerr are also on the Instructor Team for the American Mountain Guide Association, staff members of the American Institute of Avalanche Research and Education, and graduates of Habit Queer’s Fitness Beyond the Binary certification program. They have also completed training through Paradox Sports in working with adaptive athletes.
Resources discussed in the episode:
All In Ice FestMoxie Mountain Guide
Thanks to the sponsors of the show.
Legacy Sponsors:
Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund
Partner Sponsors:
Episode Sponsor:
Music: Ketsa
Artwork: Mike Tea
Production: Caleb Merrill, Bob Keating