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Backcountry Symposium Recap: Adventurers Discuss Safety, Storytelling, and Faith in the Mountains

Backcountry Symposium Recap: Adventurers Discuss Safety, Storytelling, and Faith in the Mountains

Amid the growing popularity of outdoor recreation, backcountry guides and seasoned adventurers have been pushing for more public education about wilderness responsibility.

That effort was a driving force behind the inaugural Backcountry Symposium last weekend, hosted by The Arts Campus at Willits with Aspen Public Radio. Panel topics ranged from snow safety to storytelling; the program also featured a resource fair with local outdoor-focused organizations.

Filmmakers focus on “Documenting Responsibly” 

In a panel on the ethics of adventure media, photographer and filmmaker Pete McBride said he believes respect for the natural world is part of his job — and he wants to share that ethos with his audience, too.

“We have better ability, better access, better tools to document these places than we've ever had before,” McBride said. In turn, he feels a “responsibility” to teach people about their impact on the natural world and “the traces we leave” — in hopes that it can change the way that they interact with their surroundings.

“There's a lot of people that see our wilderness, our backcountry area, as a backdrop of entertainment and less of a place of reverence,” McBride said. He’d like to see more people view nature as “outdoor, open-air cathedrals,” much like indigenous communities have done for thousands of years.

Filmmaker Michelle Smith often collaborates with McBride, and shared his philosophy during the panel. Short films and longer documentaries are ripe with opportunity to tell thoughtful stories, but Smith said that it’s possible to educate and inspire people with short, quick-hit social media posts, too.

“Give meaning to whatever it is that you're posting. … I just think it's very responsible and important to do that in a world right now where everything is being loved to death,” Smith said.

Professional skier Sierra Schlag joined Smith and McBride on the panel. She was a star and producer in “Advice for Girls,” an all-female ski film, and she’s currently wrapping up a documentary about skiing and her Japanese-American identity.

Schlag said it’s important to “leave your ego at the trailhead” — when it comes to impacts on the environment and conversations about safety and decision-making.

“I think, living in this valley, there’s so many people who are so talented and athletic and amazing and we get caught up with conquering the next line and doing all these things when, like, we need to have a little bit more respect for the places that we recreate in,” Schlag said.

Schlag also spoke about respecting the people who care for those places, especially when traveling and documenting different cultures.

Avalanche safety experts discuss risk factors, decision-making tips

Mountain guides and avalanche experts focused on decision-making and snow safety during their panel, which also touched on the growth of backcountry recreation.

Brian Lazar, the deputy director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, said that when he started ski touring decades ago, people could generally avoid avalanche risk if they could manage their own decisions with their group.

But “that's not true anymore,” Lazar said. “There's an increasing frequency of avalanches being triggered onto groups from people outside, from other groups.”

Lazar says people might be strong athletes, but that doesn’t always translate to a knowledge of snow safety.

Plus, some people are heading into more dangerous terrain to avoid the crowds — and everyone wants a taste of untracked powder, according to Aspen Expeditions owner and guide Amos Whiting.

“The hunger, it's as strong as ever,” Whiting said. “And people are fitter, gear is lighter, and now it's a scarcity issue, so people are taking greater risks to get that.”

At the same time, there’s still a lot that backcountry users can do to manage their own risk in the snow. Lazar has noticed a pattern in his investigations into avalanche accidents, and he said “it’s rarely people making one giant mistake that got them into trouble.”

“It's a series of small decision-making errors that often come out of our human frailties,” Lazar said.

“We make emotional decisions when slopes look good or conditions look good — or they look bad, and you're just trying to beat the weather and get the hell out of there,” he noted.

Sarah MacGregor, a certified splitboard guide and avalanche safety instructor, cited a number of books on psychology and avalanche safety during the panel — and pointed to Daniel Kahneman’s book “Thinking Fast and Slow” as a frame of reference for some of those human frailties.

“The idea is that when you are less exposed to stress and thinking slow, you make less error-prone decisions,” MacGregor said. “And when you are thinking fast, you are more prone to making errors.”

It’s the reason that planning ahead with your backcountry partners is so important, MacGregor said, because when you’re warm, relaxed and comfortable at home, you can put a lot more thought into the avalanche forecast and the choice of terrain. Then, you’ll be better prepared to make the right call when the going gets tough in the field — or when a steep slope loaded with snow starts to look tempting, despite the avalanche risk.

“If we make these good decisions when we're in a good mindset, then we're more likely to access that part of our brain when we're thinking fast,” MacGregor said.

Another one of MacGregor’s tips? Listen to the newbies. A beginner’s question about terrain decisions can help everyone in the group take a step back and think twice before they ride.

“This is my invitation for anyone else who ever goes into the backcountry with more experienced people to speak up, because your voice has a much better ability to point out blind spots than maybe somebody who is more experienced,” MacGregor said. “And then, vice versa, if you are more experienced, it is so important for you to elevate the voices of the least experienced.”

Lou Dawson shares reflections on life in the mountains

Legendary skier and mountaineer Lou Dawson was reflective during his keynote presentation, sharing insights from his new memoir, “Avalanche Dreams.”

He was the first person known to climb and ski all 54 of Colorado’s official 14,000-foot peaks, among many other outdoor feats. His guidebooks have inspired generations of outdoor adventurers, and he wrote thousands of posts as the founder of a backcountry skiing blog called “Wild Snow.”

When it came time for a memoir, Dawson said he was driven by a creative impulse to write, “but I also thought there was a cautionary tale to be told about avalanches and about … having a family in Colorado in the mountains.”

The book highlights Dawson’s passion for alpine sports, like rock-climbing and ski mountaineering. But it also covers the consequences, through the details of several avalanches and mountain accidents.

Dawson says his faith and spirituality help him cope with tragedy and the loss of his friends — while also recognizing the beauty of his surroundings.

“I feel like the wilderness and the mountains are really a manifestation of my higher power, let's say, and to me, that higher power is all about love, but it's tough love,” he said.

Dawson was speaking in conversation with extreme skier Chris Davenport — both are valley locals.

A couple of shorter “spotlight” talks were part of the program as well, with a focus on backcountry safety basics and the forecast for the 2024-25 ski season. Each session from the Backcountry Symposium has been recorded and archived on Aspen Public Radio's Ideas, Speakers and Lectures page.

Click here for the full audio of the live discussion.

 

By: Kaya WilliamsI Aspen Public Radio I October 10, 2024


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