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."

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.

Could our evolutionary history help explain why we enjoy putting our lives at risk?

Dr. Angela Dunn is the State Epidemiologist for the Utah Department of Health. In this episode: messaging the problem as you're learning about it; public safety and risk guidelines; cascading risks; marketing problems; the risk/reward balancing act; the single overriding communications objective; effecting behavior change; sticky messaging; culture eats strategy for breakfast; irreproducible accents.

We're all in this together.

Sarah Carpenter is a co-owner of the American Avalanche Institute and a ski guide in the Tetons. In this episode: Giving backcountry users the keys to the castle; the evolution of avalanche education; snow science as equal parts science and voodoo magic; education vs air bag; checklists and systems for safety; sharing stories when you get it wrong; Don Carpenter and the qualities of good backcountry partners; and painting!