Every one of ss is a disaster in the making
One of the perks of getting older is that you can occasionally take a poke at conformity and see what you can get away with. Because of my age, people tend to assume that I’m either wise or senile and it doesn't really matter which side they fall on because both buy greater tolerance and latitude.
A classroom story: I was recently teaching a course where I was training avalanche technicians. I went through this same program many decades ago and I remember the respect and near reverence all of the students had for our teachers. It was now my turn to stand before these eager minds and profess my wisdom, so from the front of the class I searched for the fittest, keenest student and I pointed directly at him and called him stupid. Encouragingly, about half the students were women, so in an effort to be inclusive I pointed at a promising looking female student and called her an idiot. I went on, and after verbally assaulting and tearing down about a third of the class I asked them to consider, with all the stupid people in the class, who was the most dangerous person in this room? No one spoke up, but of course the answer was me. My point was that I, by simply being the person in the position of power, made it difficult for others to question or challenge my judgment.
Do you really want to trust your life to this guide?
Every one of us is going to make decisions in our lives that are incredibly stupid. This is human nature and at times appears to be hardwired into our DNA. For example, my son is brilliant and there are times when he solves a problem with such speed, clarity and mental dexterity that it leaves me speechless. But my son is also an idiot. He will get into shouting match with his mother because he wants to ride off into the dark on his black bike, wearing black pants, a black jacket, black helmet and without any reflectors or a light. I love my son, but fully appreciate why some species eat their young.
People are stupid. Remember this because those three words may save your life. I work fairly hard to impress on people that I am intelligent and competent at my craft, but deep down inside, I am terrified of my stupidity. Every one of us should be scared of the idiot that is hiding inside us and waiting for the moment to take over and turn our world into chaos. To deny that you have an inner idiot is to seal your fate that someday you will suffer by your own hand. One of my guiding mentors gave me a simple piece of advice: remember that your client is trying to kill you. I will expand on this great advice and say that everyone in the backcountry is trying to kill you.
A scary story, very short: while managing a backcountry lodge I was helping clients unload from a helicopter. One client, a tenured mathematics professor (so, a really smart guy) got out of the helicopter and proceeded to walk upslope straight into the main helicopter rotor. I managed to reach him and pull him down to the ground, just one step before he would have been decapitated.
The point is that everyone makes these bad decisions and there is no shortage of stories about guides and leaders making them as well. It is every guide's nightmare that someone could die under their care. It is a relatively rare event in Canada, but fatalities do happen, and in many of these cases, I believe the guide was stupid and unlucky. Unlucky is the critical word here because many guides make stupid decisions, but when they aren’t unlucky at the same time, nothing bad happens.
Another scary story, slightly longer: Years ago I was guiding a group from the Japanese Alpine Club. They had travelled a great distance to ski tour in Canada and had specifically asked for me to guide them. The problem was that when they arrived we had a very dangerous snowpack. Nearly a metre of new snow had fallen on a buried surface hoar layer and if you don’t have any experience with avalanches just know that this is a recipe for disaster. We were skiing in big, steep terrain and I did not know the area well. Fortunately I had an apprentice guide who did know the area and as a bonus, he had just completed his CAA level two, which basically meant he was qualified to be an avalanche forecaster. The evening before our first day out he told me about new research regarding surface hoar and how the friction coefficient was much higher (stickier) than the industry previously believed. This was welcome news to me as sticky surface hoar makes snow conditions, such as what we were dealing with that winter, safer than we had thought. He also recommended a “safe” route for the group in the morning, one that would avoid the most avalanche-prone terrain.
The next day I was guiding 22 people plus my apprentice up a feature much bigger than I had expected. Using every trick I'd learned, I set a track up a ridge above a large bowl that threatened to avalanche. At times I stopped and dug through pillows of snow on the ridge with a shovel just to avoid stepping a metre off the line. And it was working: we were gaining ground and staying safe. The ridge we were ascending ended just short of the pass, which gave access to a lot of safe terrain and had spectacular views. But to travel the last 20 metres to the pass the only option was to step out into the bowl and ski up a 35-40 degree convex roll. My risk tolerance finally reached its breaking point and I hesitated. Internally, I was struggling with the pull between the high friction coefficient of the surface hoar on one hand, and on the other the thought of stepping directly on the start zone of a potentially devastating avalanche. While my brain danced with the seriousness of the situation, I noticed my apprentice was strangely silent. And then in a moment of divine intervention, the decision was made for me: the entire bowl released in a massive size III avalanche. In some places, the fracture line was only centimeters below the uptrack that I had set on the ridge.
I see two interpretations of this event. The one that I would like to embrace implies that I am a brilliant guide who maintained a safe route through exceedingly difficult and dangerous conditions. But the truth is that I was lucky. The only reason you have not previously heard this story is because no one was buried and no one died. There are several stories where people have died due to poor decisions and the only difference between their story and mine is luck. They were unlucky.
I would very much like to give this story a happy ending, but that would be stupid. People are stupid. After more than three decades of working in the backcountry, I have seen some of the most talented, experienced, and capable guides make incredibly stupid decisions. It is impossible for anyone to be focused on task and make the right decision 100% of the time. When we make mistakes and there are no negative consequences, it is a function of luck. What I am calling luck, many people misinterpret as experience.
Based on the most recent data available, at least 80% of all avalanche fatalities in Canada are the result of human error. Human error is by far the leading cause of workplace accidents, car accidents, and on and on. If people are stupid (and I think I’ve made pretty clear that I think this is the case), then our greatest opportunity to reduce accidents is not through new safety devices, but rather by beginning to learn about how we think and how we make decisions.
This moves the discussion away from hard mountain skills and into the realm of behavioural psychology. By the mid to late 20th century researchers began to learn that humans are not the logical calculating machines we like to imagine. The exploration of human decision-making is offering some new insight and tools that we can use to manage our stupidity. It’s not a silver bullet, but there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
I'll expand on this in my next article. Until then, if you’re interested in this topic, check this out.
And in the meantime, if decisions are being made that affect your safety, listen carefully and speak up if something sounds stupid.