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February 21, 2012

What is acceptable risk?

I think we all understand why we do what we do in the mountains. We understand the joy skiing untracked powder gives us and, those of us who make our living as guides and instructors, understand the impact it has on our guests. That’s the easy part. But where do we draw the line between pushing the limits of safety on our own or with clients? I have a list of people who have pushed the line both personally and professionally, and they or their clients are not around to testify to the wisdom of their decision or to the benefit found from crossing the line - Hans Saari skiing a more extreme entrance to the Gervasutti Couloir in the Alps, slipping on ice that he did not know was there because he had not climbed the route on the approach; An Argentine guide acquaintance who marched a large university group across an obvious avalanche path in the Andes. The slope avalanched, and several died as a result; George Gardner, who died soloing the Lower Exum Ridge on the Grand Teton. George’s accident is the most personal. He was a dear friend and my mentor at Exum mountain guides. I strived to emulate his teaching skills, his enthusiasm for sharing the mountains, his love for his fellow guides and human beings. After the initial grief from finding his broken body at the base of the Exum Ridge, I was pissed at him for walking away from his friends for some “personal time” to go solo this route. Why hadn’t he asked one of us to come along and climb it with him? Was soloing it really that important? Was leaving a wife and two children worth whatever personal transcendent experience he was seeking on that day? We all experience the mountains in our own way and find our own personal joy from them. These days, skiing groomers with my kids is as joyful an experience as skiing a steep couloir in Grand Teton National Park. I love pushing my own personal physical and mental limits, but due to my responsibilities, that’s generally pretty mundane by today’s increasingly dangerous standards. I’m amazed at what the “youth” are doing these days, whether they are doing it to make a name for themselves in the industry, fuel their ego, or are genuinely interested in pursuing a purer form of their sport. I’m impressed, but also at times incredulous of these accomplishments. What I deal with more these days as a guide and educator is making decisions for individuals or groups. Most of the time it’s easy - I take the most conservative line and that is what my guests can handle. Sometimes I have folks who are more advanced, and I can think about pushing them and the terrain a little more in an effort to 1) show them more advanced skills and 2) find better snow or a more exciting experience. But even in those instances I feel like I need to make the decision based on solid knowledge of the conditions and their abilities. I’m not making the decision for myself. The decisions I make on a day-to-day basis in the mountains with clients affect my guests certainly, but more importantly, they affect their loved ones - spouses, children, parents and friends of the folks that are skiing with me that day. It would be a living nightmare to have to sit in front of those people and explain why I decided to take them to a place that killed or injured them. I often think about my Argentine friend and what he must be going through. I don’t think he’s working as a guide anymore. In Europe, he likely would have been prosecuted and put in jail if his decision was found to be unsound. The hardest thing is when I have clients that are better skiers than me, and that have a certain agenda. It’s sometimes tough to ratchet them back and look at terrain and risk from my perspective. The problem is that I want to give them what they want and need to really think about my decisions and what could go wrong on those days. Here are some tools I use to help me make decisions and manage terrain:   Follow the snow pack on a daily basis - Only by knowing what is going on below can I hope to make wise, educated decisions about what to ski. Ask those you trust about what they are seeing and experiencing in terrain that you want to ski.   Know my clients abilities and desires. Ask questions, find out what their goals are for the day and what they have done in the past. For bigger objectives, make sure they work their way up to their goals. Preparation is key.   Do a pre-mortem check - What is the likelihood of something happening on this slope and what would the consequences be? What would really happen to that “safe zone” if the slope went big? If I got caught here, would my client be able to dig me out? Could I really hope to dig them out in time if something happened? Do I even want to risk that possibility?   Work the terrain - Use the macro and micro terrain features to help keep you on the right side of the snow. Decided to ski the avalanche path? Ski the small ridge within it, for example.   Use double checks - I will often “check” my decision with ALPTRUTH and/or FACETS before dropping into an avalanche path. A great exercise that we did in AAI’s guide training this year is figuring out where on the FACETS scale each of us live in our decision making model. I live in Acceptance - I want my clients to have a great time and to think I’m an awesome guide. That often affects my decisions and I need to recognize that every day.   Reflection - Every day I sit down and think about my day and the decisions I made. What could I have done better? Where did I make a questionable decision? What did I do well that I should remember for next time? In the end, what’s important as a guide or personal skier is to always ask questions, to strive to learn more, to be open to questions or criticism from our peers. Humility will help to keep you on top and open to learning. Christian Santelices Aerial Boundaries, Inc. www.aerialboundaries.com