The Avalanche Hour Podcast

In this episode of The Avalanche Hour Podcast, host Brooke Shiny Edwards talks with Nancy Pfeiffer and Blaine Smith, two of the original instructors and directors of The Alaska Avalanche School in it's 50th Anniversary year.  They share stories from the beginning, including many origin stories circling around Doug Fessler and Jill Fredston, partners whose baby the Avy school was and whom Brooke will be interviewing next for stories right from the horses mouth.  The stories they encounter here only serve as a teaser for what's to come in a sequel episode that goes all the way back to how it all began in 1976.  

Conversion Takeaways: 

- Some of the best avalanche education is hearing stories of how it all began!

- The origins of avalanche education evolved from digging up body after body and realizing it didn't have to be this way if we could only create a system where people could learn how to integrate the art of snow science into their recreational practice! 

Guest Bios: 

Through a combination of luck and fate, Nancy had the incredible privilege of being mentored through those early years by Doug Fesler, and later Jill Fredston and the Alaska Avalanche School. Her involvement progressed from student, to apprentice, to instructor, to director and back to instructor, over the course of decades. Nancy speaks of the camaraderie, the intensity, and the joy of teaching for Alaska Avalanche School during those early years. Nancy’s published works range from poetry to scientific research and include the book, “Riding Into the Heart of Patagonia." 

A lifelong Alaskan, Blaine started as an apprentice avalanche instructor in 1989. Blaine worked for the Alaska Avalanche School for 35 years as instructor, executive director, board member and board president. Blaine’s experience and association with the school, and Doug and Jill, launched him on a satisfying and full-time career conducting and teaching mountain rescue operations, mountain guiding, avalanche education and avalanche forecasting. Now in semi-retirement, Blaine spends his time skiing, hiking, boating and trail building throughout Alaska.

Thanks to the sponsors of the show.

Legacy Sponsors:

Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund

Drone Amplified’s Montis

The Guide Network

Partner Sponsors:

Austin Powder

Peak Visor

onX Backcountry

Episode Sponsor: 

The IPA Collective

The Avalanche Hour Podcast 

Music: Ketsa

Artwork: Mike Tea 

Production: Caleb Merrill, Angie Lake

Photo Credit: Mike Janes

In the second installment of our monthly Slabs & Sluff series with hosts Sara Boilen and Dom Baker, they debrief ISSW, sharing highlights and research nuggets. Our episode starts with a phone call chat between Dom and Sara debriefing a recent free lesson Dom got to witness on the Green River this fall. They share some lessons learned and some hot tips on staying safe (and warm!) while in the backcountry. 

Stick around for the entire episode and you can hear Sara and Dom’s tips on things that they’re reading and listening to! 

Episode Summary:

- Are garbage bags > Space blankets? 

- What’s the similarity between losing blood and losing heat in the backcountry

- Hot takes on research shared at ISSW 

- What we’re reading and listening to! 

Want to join the conversation, ask us a question, or give us your hot takes?! Leave us a voicemail: 541-406-0221

References

• Kelly McNeill’s research can be found here.

• Delayed recovery efforts and the challenges SAR teams face (and solution suggestions) in working with families wanting closure.

• Motorized avalanche rescue

•  Is “sled cutting a thing?” Using snowmobiles for slope scale testing

• Book: David Sedaris’s The Land and its People on libro.fm 

• Watch: JayZ and Rick Rubin on HBO

• Read: The Death of Expertise by Tom Nichols 

• Book: Cory Richards’ The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet the Chaos WithinF

• Watch: Fireside chats at The Whyte Museum with Chic Scott

• Watch: Sara’s talk at CSAW 

Raide’s fall line is out now! Run, don’t walk, to check out their ski / snowboard-specific packs while they’re in stock! 

Thanks to the sponsors of the show.

Season Sponsors of SnS:

Safeback and Raide

Music: Ketsa

Artwork: Max and Nina Baker! 

Production: Caleb Merrill, Angie Lake

In this episode of The Avalanche Hour Podcast, host Sierra Bishop interviews her mentor Gregg Oliveri, a now retired mountain guide and avalanche educator with an impressive resume, climbing & skiing alongside some of the most accomplished climbers and avalanche industry professionals of his generation in the Himalaya and around the world. 

This conversation takes a step back in time to the explosive age of alpinism during the 1980s and the early days of Yamnuska Mountain School, where Gregg spent most of his twenties teaching and guiding.

Gregg reflects on a lifetime of adventure, the people who shaped him, and the lessons passed down along the way. He shares some pivotal growth moments in his career - from a terrifying experience leading one of the early ascents and summits of the Super Couloir on Mt. Deltaform, to turning around a few hundred feet shy of the summit of K2 in 1986 due to avalanche hazard.

Sierra and Gregg tackle some difficult topics in the industry and Gregg reflects on the advice he would give his 20-year-old self with the knowledge he has now: from processing loss & grief, to risk tolerance changes with age, and grappling with loneliness from a lack of stability in this career. From a lifetime in the mountains, Gregg carries decades of experience, hard-earned wisdom and a deep understanding of risk, loss, and listening to intuition that he now shares as a mentor to many. 

Huge thank you to the sponsors of the show!

Legacy Sponsors:

Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund

Drone Amplified’s Montis

The Guide Network

Partner Sponsors:

Austin Powder

Peak Visor

onX Backcountry

Episode Sponsor: 

The Starting Zone eBook

Music: Ketsa

Artwork: Mike Tea 

Production: Caleb Merrill, Angie Lake

In this episode of The Avalanche Hour, Caleb sits down with Chilean guides Manu Oliveres and Cristóbal Cattan in Las Trancas, Chile, to talk about skiing, guiding, and the rapidly evolving avalanche culture in South America. Both are deeply involved in the local mountain community and search and rescue, and their paths reflect a growing professionalization of avalanche education in Chile. They talk about learning to guide in the Andes, traveling abroad to gain experience in different snowpacks, and the challenge of building professional avalanche education and forecasting infrastructure in a region where those systems are still developing.

The conversation also explores what it means to make good decisions in a changing backcountry culture. With more people entering the mountains through skiing, snowmobiling, heli-skiing, and social media, Manu and Cattan describe the need to move beyond simply having rescue equipment toward developing stronger avalanche knowledge, communication, forecasting, and decision-making. They share lessons from their own avalanche experiences, the importance of mentorship and learning from other snow climates, and why there are no shortcuts on the path to becoming a mountain professional. At its core, this is a conversation about a community building an avalanche culture from the ground up—and the value of sharing knowledge along the way.

Thanks to the sponsors of the show.

Legacy Sponsors:

Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund

Drone Amplified’s Montis

The Guide Network

Partner Sponsors:

Austin Powder

Peak Visor

onX Backcountry

Episode Sponsor: 

Roble Viejo Lodge and Brewery

Music: Ketsa

Artwork: Mike Tea 

Production: Caleb Merrill, Angie Lake 

Nikola and Stele are Croatian Mountain Rescue Service (HGSS) members.  The HGSS has been operating for over 75 years, primarily tending to cave rescues, ocean rescue, rock rescue, and more recently, avalanche rescue. It is a nationwide rescue organization with over 2500 members. The alpine terrain in the country is minimal, but the country is an exporter of avalanche victims. Including a prolific accident that killed a member of the organization and injured several others in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Nikola and Stele have been involved with HGSS since they were young adults and serve as lead trainers, organizing international workshops for their organization's avalanche commission. HGSS has gained status as an ICAR delegate organization, and as of 2019 they regularly bring US avalanche instructors over to teach their team the emerging standards of North America. Working with these two on several custom programs, I have gotten to know their team and admire the commitment they place on advanced alpine training, often traveling to neighboring alpine countries like Slovenia, Austria, Italy, and France to practice.

 Summary of their conversation: Nikola Brebric and Stele Stefanac give an overview of the history of the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service highlighting:

- Their involvement over two decades

- How the dynamic contrast of the recreational opportunities influence training, education and prevention, and rescue operations.

- The way a significant event shaped their organizations approach to internal training

- How they have made connections across the globe to keep their team up to speed on the latest advances in Avalanche Search and Rescue.

Croatian Mountain Rescue Service Website

Thanks to the sponsors of the show.

Legacy Sponsors:

Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund

Drone Amplified’s Montis

The Guide Network

Partner Sponsors:

Austin Powder

Peak Visor

onX Backcountry

Episode Sponsor: 

Arva Equipment 

Music: Ketsa

Artwork: Mike Tea 

Production: Caleb Merrill, Angie Lake 

Tune in for a great evening of live storytelling from ISSW 2026.  Sara and Dom brought the Slabs 'n Sluff vibe to the Whistler audience and were joined by an amazing crew 8 of professionals from the snow and avalanche community.  The theme of ISSW is “A Merging of Theory and Practice” so we let our storytellers loose with a request to “tell us a 5-7min story of a time when theory met practice in your career.”

The stories:

Erich Peitzsch - “Mistakes were made but we continued learning…Right?!”

Erin Talor - “When practice precedes their: turning an unexpected situation into a learning opportunity”

Chris Kaipio - “The memory factor and risk taking.”

Helene Steiner - “Retreat!”

Jordy Shepherd - “To heliski or not to heliski: managing a significant buried persistent weak layer while running a relatively new heli-ski operation.”

Eeva Latosua - “There must be a rule for this.”

Drew Hardesty - “Backcountry avalanche forecasting: from theory to practice.”

Penny Goddard - “When theory doesn’t explain practice.”

Thanks to the sponsors of the show.

Slabs 'n Sluffs Season Sponsor: 

⁠Raide⁠, ⁠Safeback⁠

Legacy Sponsors:

Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund

Drone Amplified’s Montis

The Guide Network

Partner Sponsors:

Austin Powder

Peak Visor

onX Backcountry

Music: Ketsa

Artwork: Mike Tea 

Production: Caleb Merrill, Angie Lake

Season 11 is just around the corner, kicking off October 1st.  Join us for a shout out to one of our sponsors - Austin Powder, a major manufacturer of explosive products for the avalanche industry.  Hear a bit about the history of the company, a time when the North American avalanche industry was close to starting a winter season without an explosive supplier, and stay tuned until the end to hear some observations and insights on cornice blasting and case charging.   Learn about the history of the Avalauncher, and how mining rock blasting and avalanche control blasting are more similar than it might seem.  

Host Dom is joined by Braden Schmidt, Austin Powder Avalanche Global President and Michael Blancher, Austin Powder Technical Manager.  Both Braden and Michael have decades of experience in the avalanche industry and bring their expertise to their role supporting avalanche operations with technical blasting challenges.  

Braden Schmidt has worked in Explosives Avalanche Control Operations since 2004. He is a Professional Member of both the Canadian Avalanche Association as well as the American Avalanche Association, and a member of International Society of Explosives Engineers. He sat on the Explosives Advisory Committee of the Canadian Avalanche Association for 3 years before moving into his current role with Austin Powder Avalanche in 2018. He has conducted Avalanche control mission in Canada, USA and Europe and has also consulted on jobs in Iceland, Japan and New Zealand.

Michael Blancher has spent 29 years in the avalanche patch hunting frozen forms with the Ski Patrol at Whistler Blackcomb, then MOT Hwy’s Avalanche Weather Program Supervisor, now proudly serving the community with fresh Austin Powder.  

Episode Summary:

- Learn about how a nearly 200 yr old privately held company is helping keep ski hills, highways and infrastructure open by supplying explosives for avalanche control.

- Hear about the evolution of the Avalauncher, as well as insights on better techniques and technology for case charging and cornice control.  

- Consider how surface rock blasting and avalanche control blasting have more in common than it might first seem.

- Tune in to catch up on the latest from one of the avalanche industry’s best supporters.

Thanks to Austin Powder for supporting the show!

Music: Ketsa

Artwork: Mike Tea 

Production: Dom Baker, Angie Lake

Setting the Track

Juliana Garcia grew up climbing the volcanoes of Ecuador and became an international mountain guide—but skiing was the piece of the puzzle she still wanted to solve.

In this episode, Brooke Maushund sits down with Juliana Garcia. Juliana takes us through her journey from climbing Cotopaxi as a teenager to becoming an IFMGA guide, learning snow and avalanche science as an adult, and bringing that knowledge back to the Andes.

We talk about breaking into the guiding world as the first woman in several of her training programs, the mentors who helped shape her career, the evolution of avalanche education in Ecuador, and her work supporting the next generation of mountain guides.

From Ecuador to Colorado, Alaska, and beyond, Juliana's story is about persistence, curiosity, mentorship, and finding a way to keep learning—no matter how long the journey takes.

In this episode: Ecuador • Andes • Ski Guiding • Avalanche Education • IFMGA • Women in Guiding • Mentorship • Snow Science

Thank you to the sponsors of the show:

Legacy Support:

The Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund

Drone Amplified's Montis

The Guide Network

Partner Support:

Austin Powder

PeakVisor

OnX Backcountry

Episode Sponsor:

A3 Avalanche Resilience Project

Unlike a lot of snow and avalanche professionals, Jerry Roberts spent a fair amount of time hanging out around San Francisco, soaking up the Buddhist-infused literary scene of the '60s. He developed a deep affection for some very old school snow enthusiasts: Basho, Issa, Buson, and other 18th-century Japanese poets. He went on to a lengthy career forecasting for the Colorado Avalance Information Center, the Colorado Department of Transportation, even Quentin Tarantino. Along the way, he's written a number of his own wintry haiku. He joins us to share stories and wisdom from a lifetime in the snowy mountains, as well as a few poems.

Jerry passed away in September of 2023.

Drew's writing for Jerry:

Summer's End

The Assistant Spiritual Director Gets a Promotion

Summer Series #3

We continue our summer series with a cross-air of one of our favorite podcasts, ⁠Delivering Adventure⁠.

Why is it so important to imagine the worst-case scenario? What happens when we don’t?

In this episode of Delivering Adventure, Chris and Jordy share a few examples from their adventure industry careers to illustrate the importance of considering the worst-case scenario. They also talk about some of the factors that can compromise our ability to foresee what can happen if things don’t go to plan and how we can avoid falling into these traps.

Chris Kaipio has been working in the adventure guiding industry as a guide, instructor, trainer, manager and content developer since 1991.

Jordy Shepard is an internationally certified ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide, guide trainer, an avalanche educator, rescue specialist, and a former park warden.

Key Takeaways

How we can imagine the wort-case scenario:

Consider What can Reasonably Happen: This involves asking ourselves what all the possible negative outcomes could be and identifying if we are prepared if they come to pass.

Be detail oriented: The difference between a professional and an amateur is being detail oriented. Considering all the details before hand gives us an opportunity to identify and plan for all the likely outcomes that may happen.

Think ahead: This can require us to step away from complex situations so that we can fully consider the situation and what lies ahead.

Ask if we are Missing Anything: Is there information that we might be missing? This is something that we should always be asking ourselves. This helps to avoid developing tunnel vision.

Do your research: This can involve talking to others and looking at case-studies.

Training and Simulations: This can give us firsthand experience with what can happen.

Communicate the Risks Thoroughly: This creates an opportunity for everyone to understand what hazards they can expect to encounter.

Guest Bios

Chris Kaipio is the produce and co-host of Delivering Adventure.

He has worked in the adventure industry as an instructor, guide, trainer and manager since 2001.

Chris is currently developing the Managing Risk on Snow eLearning Certification for the Professional Ski Instructors of Canada. When complete, this will be a robust four level online risk management and decision-making certification for guides and Instructors.

Chris has written the book Power to Influence: How to get the best out of ourselves and others. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides. This is where he met Jordy Shepherd.

Jordy Shepherd is the co-host of Delivering Adventure.

Jordy is an internationally certified ACMG / IFMGA Mountain Guide, guide trainer, an avalanche educator, rescue specialist, and a former park warden.

His work experience includes Canadian Avalanche Association Course Leader for Avalanche Search and Rescue Advanced Skills, Provincial Park Ranger, National Park Warden, Wildlife Conflict Specialist, Wildland and Structural Firefighter, Mountain and Industrial Rescue Specialist, Heli-skiing Operations Manager and Lead Guide, and Licensed Real Estate Agent. 

In addition to all of his work in the adventure guiding industry, Jordy runs a successful real estate company in Canmore Alberta where he currently lives with is family.

Follow, Subscribe and Listen to more Delivering Adventure Podcasts here.