Utah Avalanche Center Podcast

Laura Maguire, an expert on human decision-making in high-risk environments, dives deep into the complexities behind accidents. She emphasizes that decisions result from systemic influences rather than singular choices. Maguire advocates for a culture shift from blame to inquiry, enhancing safety through better understanding of cognitive biases. She explores resilience and adaptability in challenging situations, urging listeners to learn from failures for improved decision-making. Alongside insights on avalanche risks, she highlights practical tools for navigating and analyzing high-stakes environments.

A lifetime ago, back in 1981, Brad Meiklejohn was ski-bumming and working at Alta when he witnessed a full-depth avalanche on High Rustler. It was mesmerizing, and it changed his path in life. He went on to study snow and avalanches on the East Coast, moved back out West and joined what was then known as the Utah Avalanche Forecast Center. His life, or his sense of its preciousness, changed again when he recovered the bodies of four friends buried in the Talking Mountain Cirque slide in the La Sal Mountains. These days, he works as a conservationist in Alaska, and he joins us to share his memories of the evolution of the UAC and his insights on life, death and the true value of outdoor recreation.

After five years of hosting the podcast, Drew Hardesty was curious about the mindset of the young guns just now cutting their teeth and testing themselves in very real, very consequential ski mountaineering terrain. Is the old guard wasting their time wagging their tongues and fingers about the dangers of backcountry travel while the youth just roll their eyes? That's where Zack Little comes in. Hired by Exum Mountain Guides as a teenager, Little has climbed and skied all over the Teton Range and even climbed the Grand Teton before high school. He joins us to talk about risk management, mentorship and laying the groundwork for a long life in the mountains.

In the winter of 2002-03, 14 people were killed in a pair of large avalanches in British Columbia. Those horrific tragedies spurred Canada's national parks agency to find ways to better insure public safety in the winter mountains. That's where Grant Statham comes in. An accomplished mountain guide and avalanche forecaster, Grant led the development of new safety systems and methods that have been implemented around the world, but curiously, not in the U.S. Grant joined us to talk how we think about avalanche hazard and how we communicate that risk to the public.

It's been said that culture eats training for breakfast. In other words, you can take all the classes, read all the books, develop a fool-proof checklist and a dialed-in system, but when the snow falls, and when a social animal enters a high-risk environment, all that education and preparation can go right out the window. AMGA/IFMGA mountain guide Margaret Wheeler and Sawtooth Avalanche Center forecaster Chris Lundy join us for a conversation about the push and pull between cultural pressures, "selfish" rewards and the difficulty of actually understanding risk in the backcountry.

At first glance, financial advising and heli-skiing might not seem to have much if anything in common. But, think about it like this: Both take on clients who put a lot of money on the line, they put a lot of trust in their guides, and there are some heavy costs to getting it wrong. This time around we're joined by Ronna Cohen, a financial adviser and backcountry skier, and Jed Workman, an Alaskan heli-ski guide to talk about risk, reward and "accident cascades."

In the spring of 1971, Don Bachman walked into the mining town of Silverton, Colorado, with a mission, not quite from God, but from the federal government: Study avalanches in the San Juan Mountains. The Bureau of Reclamation had recently established a cloud-seeding program in the region, and it was Bachman's job—as part of a veritable 'Murderers Row' of snow science pioneers—to map and study the avalanche problem in the area and get a sense of how it would be impacted by atmospheric tampering. Bachman joins us to talk about the project and how conservative decision making in the backcountry can lead to a long life in the snowy mountains.

On the morning of February 6, two different groups totaing eight people went to ski in the Wilson Glade area of Alexander Basin in Millcreek Canyon. Both groups were ascending when the avalanche happened. Six people were caught and fully buried. Two of them survived. Four did not. In this episode, we break down what happened in this tragic accident. Drew is joined by UAC forecasters Nikki Champion and Trent Meisenheimer, and Alta Avalanche Office Director Dave Richards.

In this episode, we sit down with Dr. Scott McIntosh and Black Diamond's Andy Merriman to talk about, well first, good decision making, but then, in the event you get caught in an avalanche, how and why an airbag can potentially help you avoid the worst consequences. In particular, we're taking about BD's innovative JetForce Pro Avalanche Airbag. A study conducted by Dr. McIntosh et al. suggests the JetForce Pro pack could delay asphyxia, buying buried backcountry users valuable additional time for rescue.

Jeff Hambleton works with avalanche professionals from around the world and across disciplines to build avalanche education tools and train the next generation. In this episode: connecting to your audience; culture-shift after the Valentine's Day slide of '99 at Mt Baker and the Danny Woods avalanche of 2008; effecting deeper change through social clubs; zone-based comms strategies; the value of simple rules; industry efforts to educate users; the future of motorized safety education.