Latest / Adventure Sports Podcast / Ep. 1207: The Way Out & Winter Wilderness with Devon O'Neil

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Ep. 1207: The Way Out & Winter Wilderness with Devon O'Neil · Adventure Sports Podcast

0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: your listening to the Adventure Sports podcast.
0:09
[SPEAKER_00]: We talk with adventures from around the globe to give you the inspiration you need to get started in the outdoors or keep moving if you're already there.
0:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Now here's your host, Kurt Lindville.
0:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Hi friends, thank you for listening in today.
0:22
[SPEAKER_05]: It is April the 28th on a Tuesday, can't believe April's almost over.
0:27
[SPEAKER_05]: May is nearly here, schools almost out.
0:30
[SPEAKER_05]: I'll bet you have some amazing adventurous plans for the summer time.
0:34
[SPEAKER_05]: So jump in the comments, share what some of your plans are.
0:37
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm really curious what people are up to.
0:40
[SPEAKER_05]: I am looking forward to a glorious central Colorado summer.
0:44
[SPEAKER_05]: Summer here is so pleasant.
0:47
[SPEAKER_05]: But this episode is not about summer.
0:50
[SPEAKER_05]: This episode is about a book written by Devon O'Neill, and it's very much a book about winter.
0:57
[SPEAKER_05]: When Devon and I recorded this, I had not yet read his book, but since then I have.
1:03
[SPEAKER_05]: And I have to say, it's just very well done, Devon really took the time to get to know the people and the families involved in this.
1:11
[SPEAKER_05]: He really took the time to tell the bigger story, the broader story of what an adventurous life in the Colorado Rockies is like, but more than just that, it's also the heart and soul of the people of Salida, Colorado.
1:26
[SPEAKER_05]: I've read a lot of it in your books over the years, obviously, running this podcast.
1:31
[SPEAKER_05]: And they're all entertaining.
1:33
[SPEAKER_05]: I love them.
1:34
[SPEAKER_05]: But a lot of the books are just kind of like, and then we did this, and the next day we did that, and then the next day we did this, which is okay.
1:41
[SPEAKER_05]: That's not what this book is.
1:44
[SPEAKER_05]: This book really wrestles with the humanity of the people involved in this true story, and Devon knocked it out of the park.
1:52
[SPEAKER_05]: I don't know what else to say.
1:53
[SPEAKER_05]: I highly recommend it.
1:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Go buy the book, read it.
1:57
[SPEAKER_05]: It does a really good job of wrestling with some of the dangers of the adventurous lifestyle, but also a lot of the rewards that come with that.
2:08
[SPEAKER_05]: It really is a beautiful work.
2:11
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm really glad that you are here to hear this today and to be a part of this conversation.
2:16
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm not going to go on about it anymore.
2:18
[SPEAKER_05]: We'll let Devon share more about it in the interview.
2:22
[SPEAKER_05]: But before we dive in, I want to thank all the patrons that we have on Patreon who are supporting the podcast, keeping it going.
2:30
[SPEAKER_05]: We really appreciate you and I probably don't say that enough.
2:32
[SPEAKER_05]: So I just want to make sure I say it right now.
2:38
[SPEAKER_05]: Enough said, let's get into this interview.
2:44
[SPEAKER_05]: I have Devon O'Neill with us today, and Devon O'Neill has spanned over two decades, reporting on outdoor adventure, mountain culture, risk and back-country activities, including things like avalanches and winter risk, the emotional and social dynamics of life in Colorado Mountain Towns.
3:01
[SPEAKER_05]: his work is appeared in publications like outside minced journal, bike esp.com and various scheme magazines and he often explores the allure dangers and deeper human elements of mountain living and pursuits and welcome to the program.
3:18
[SPEAKER_01]: Thanks for having me, Kurt.
3:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, you bet.
3:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Devon, you recently released a book.
3:23
[SPEAKER_05]: It's called The Way Out, a true story of survival in the heart of the Rockies.
3:28
[SPEAKER_05]: So Devon does a lot of writing.
3:29
[SPEAKER_05]: He's an adventure of his own right.
3:30
[SPEAKER_05]: And we want to talk about mountain living and all of that.
3:32
[SPEAKER_05]: But I think first, maybe we should visit the content of this book, Devon.
3:37
[SPEAKER_05]: And the reason is because it's an amazing account, account of how things can be when things go really wrong.
3:44
[SPEAKER_05]: And we want to do so with all respect to the people involved, but I think that perhaps going through some of this story could help others to maybe avoid similar misapps.
3:57
[SPEAKER_05]: So,
3:57
[SPEAKER_05]: Devon, I know that the story starts with a family with a bunch of teenagers, they decide to go on a 30 minute outing on skis and in the backcountry that turned into a 30 hour ordeal, and it did not all end well.
4:13
[SPEAKER_05]: So can you fill us in Devon on what this was about?
4:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, this was a hot trip, like so many of us kind of seek any given winter or summer, and it took place at Uncle Buds, which is a cabin in the so-watch range, 11,380 feet outside of Leadville, Colorado.
4:34
[SPEAKER_01]: It's part of the 10th Mount of the Vision Hut Network, and this was three families all from the same small mountain town, Salida, in the Arkansas Valley, about an hour south of where this hut is.
4:45
[SPEAKER_01]: and three dots, and there are 14 age kids ranging in age from 15 to 19 went up to this hot on skis, as you said, in January of 2017.
4:56
[SPEAKER_01]: The three dots were all really, I mean, these were well known families from a town of 5,000 people.
5:01
[SPEAKER_01]: One of the dots, Brett Beasley, was a U.S. Forest Service employee of almost 20 years.
5:07
[SPEAKER_01]: At the time of this trip, he was the snow ranger for this lighter ranger district, so 440,000 acres of forest.
5:14
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, very experienced guy.
5:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, another dad, Joel Schaler was a family physician.
5:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And he had delivered more than 500 babies in Salida over a couple of decades.
5:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And the third dad was a guy in Chuck McKenna.
5:29
[SPEAKER_01]: Chuck was a former monk and turned educator and licensed counselor.
5:34
[SPEAKER_01]: He was the elementary school's principal in town at the time.
5:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the first morning that they were at the hut, storm started to move in and Brett and Joel's son, Cole, who was 15, kind of found themselves out on the deck.
5:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Before everybody else had finished breakfast and finished gearing up, and they just decided on this impromptu ski run.
5:57
[SPEAKER_01]: And they anticipated it would be super quick.
5:59
[SPEAKER_01]: They'd get back to the hut, reconvene with their group, and then everybody would go out.
6:03
[SPEAKER_01]: The unison has been kind of planned.
6:06
[SPEAKER_01]: in a Bretton coal set out and they just never returned to the hut and people tried to catch up to them.
6:11
[SPEAKER_01]: They tried to find them after a period of hours had passed without them returning and they never found them.
6:17
[SPEAKER_01]: They never came across any like super fresh signs of where they'd been after an initial sighting of their tracks soon after they left the hut and then this storm moved in
6:36
[SPEAKER_01]: and it really complicated any searching that was going to be done and ultimately the next day a massive search ensued involving members of the Lake County Search and Rescue team at a lead bill and a bunch of the hot parties, friends, and family members, you have a bunch of people's civilian showed up to help search that day and it was just a nuclear blizzard, sideways, snow, howling wind, very little visibility,
7:03
[SPEAKER_01]: very inherently dangerous day to be in the back country, especially on anything remotely steep.
7:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And so it was really chaotic, really complicated.
7:12
[SPEAKER_01]: There were multiple parties out, not everybody could communicate to each other.
7:17
[SPEAKER_01]: There were multiple radio frequencies.
7:20
[SPEAKER_01]: and it was really tough for the Lake County Search and Rescue team to manage this massive showing of civilians as well, and ultimately a pair of snowmobileers, a guy named Chris Burrant, who, when I worked for ESPN, I covered his gold medal winning freestyle snowmobile backflip over a giant gap in an aspect.
7:42
[SPEAKER_01]: This was known as the Michael Jordan of Stomobile and he had a guide a young kind of his right handman and Chase Bunting who was with him for the search and they kind of went rogue off on their own and they ultimately found Brett and Cole trapped in this very steep kind of ravini avalanche prone drainage called porcupine gulch.
8:05
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was the next day, early afternoon of the next day, after they had departed the hot, the prior morning, and only once survived.
8:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was a really difficult outcome for their community to grapple with.
8:20
[SPEAKER_01]: Not only, you know, did you have this like kind of a winning family and a losing family and some respects, but also just
8:29
[SPEAKER_01]: it was such a benign outing that they had gone out for that morning, you know, a quick ski run, like so many of us, myself included.
8:37
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm a hotmaster for the Summit Huts Association.
8:40
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm at Huts all the time and alone and going ducking away from my chores for a quick ski run if I have time and, you know, these things almost always end fine.
8:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And in this case, a very small outing turned into a tragic event.
8:56
[SPEAKER_01]: and also kind of a miraculous event that one of them survived after being out all night with very little clothing, minimal supplies, you know, no phone, no lighter, no way to start a fire, no map, no compass, no knowledge of the area, disorientation played a big role in this, but you know, hypothermia is this ever-present danger in the winter when we're recreating and that played a
9:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I heard about this story almost two years after it happened just from a friend at a concert.
9:28
[SPEAKER_01]: He kind of mentioned it to me because he lived in Salida and I started looking into it and at that point I was informed that the lone survivor was not ready to discuss it.
9:41
[SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't realize that he had never discussed the full story.
9:44
[SPEAKER_01]: And then he kind of depth with anybody, and so I sat on it for about three years and then ultimately got back in touch and he was ready to talk about it at that point.
9:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And we did this gripping interview on the five-year anniversary of the accident, which neither of us realized at the time.
10:03
[SPEAKER_01]: But there were all these signs that it kind of, I initially thought I was working on a magazine story for outside or somebody like that.
10:10
[SPEAKER_01]: And it just kept growing and growing and it touched all these aspects of not in life that, you know, I struggle with a struggle of balance, like what I want out of my timeout doors and these thrills that we get and seek.
10:23
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, the way that it makes us feel when we go to do something fun and radical in the mountains.
10:29
[SPEAKER_01]: But also, I'm a modad to young kids and
10:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the story ended up just, especially the more time that I got to spend with people who are really close to it, it touched all these things that made it much bigger than just this at one event.
10:45
[SPEAKER_01]: And I spent about four years full-time reporting and writing this.
10:51
[SPEAKER_01]: And ultimately, from when I did my first interview to when the book was published this past November, almost seven years had elapsed.
11:00
[SPEAKER_01]: and it allows for this long-term view of what are traumatic accidents and what are traumatic event, certainly in nature, but just in general.
11:10
[SPEAKER_01]: can do to us and grief is so idiosyncratic, how we deal with it, how we find our own way out of this hell that we have to live with sometimes.
11:21
[SPEAKER_01]: That things happen.
11:22
[SPEAKER_01]: It became a really anger and theme.
11:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But there are other themes as well that I carry in.
11:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think we're going to talk about some of that as well.
11:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Just the mountain life element and trying to communicate that at the ends of the Yans and the Yans.
11:36
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, the draw and the peril to those who don't live it.
11:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So this book, you know, is published by Harper Warren and Printer Harper Collins and it's at a national release and I have heard from people all over the country about how it's made them think differently, maybe about their own lives and certainly their lives as they relate to nature.
11:55
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, in the reviews that I've seen on the book, and I apologize Devon, I have not had time to read it, but I do want to, I plan to read it very soon, but the word gripping keeps coming up, and I don't even want to pretend to know how it felt for the families involved, and how scary things like this can be.
12:16
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, it seems innocent enough, just a quick little ski lap, right?
12:22
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's the part I think that gets us and quite often when we talk about tragedy, it's not the big epic thing that ends up being the danger, it's the thing we think is safe, that catches us on a wear.
12:37
[SPEAKER_05]: And I guess I would ask, do you feel like that's an alignment with how this unfolded?
12:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I think absolutely, I think, you know, complacencies crept into my own adventures, my own near misses and mistakes that I've made, and I think it's just human nature to drop our guard sometimes when we go on an outing that we expect, that we assume will be a certain way.
12:59
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think in this case, absolutely, you know, there were, when we get these, like, kind of, positive reinforcing bits of feedback during our time,
13:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We learn to kind of trust that it usually does work out and then it will work out.
13:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that that has a way of making a stop our guard.
13:22
[SPEAKER_01]: Even when we, you know, we might wake up and be like every single day and say, okay, if you're going to go in an answer today, make sure you take every possible precaution.
13:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And still, we have this tendency to not do that.
13:42
[SPEAKER_01]: from that happening.
13:44
[SPEAKER_01]: In this case, in this story, absolutely a play to factor.
13:48
[SPEAKER_01]: It played a role, you know, it was a factor in what happened and how this whole were deal unfolded.
13:54
[SPEAKER_05]: In outdoor training courses they always talk about take your 10 essentials and some people have different lists on what really are essential and it has a lot to do with your skill set and the environment that you're in.
14:07
[SPEAKER_05]: But the idea that you have everything that you need for at least short-term survival if things go awry.
14:14
[SPEAKER_05]: It just makes so much sense.
14:16
[SPEAKER_05]: But I'm guilty myself.
14:18
[SPEAKER_05]: I jumped on my motorcycle just this last weekend.
14:22
[SPEAKER_05]: And I didn't take my overnight gear.
14:24
[SPEAKER_05]: And I thought, well, I'm just going to be on the highway for a little bit.
14:27
[SPEAKER_05]: I shouldn't have to worry about it.
14:28
[SPEAKER_05]: But that's the kind of thought process that I think can really get us into trouble.
14:32
[SPEAKER_05]: You have to be prepared for whatever's going to happen.
14:36
[SPEAKER_05]: And you have recommendations for people, just highlights of recommendations that they would say, okay, to stay out of trouble or to get yourself out of trouble.
14:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Make sure you're at least this prepared.
14:49
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
14:49
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that reporting on this story changed my view of what is the minimum I should always have.
14:56
[SPEAKER_01]: Ever from a lot of readers that have said, I now carry this and this and this and I never used or I never even used to consider that kind of stuff.
15:03
[SPEAKER_01]: So I do think that it's having an impact and that regard, you know, one of the biggest
15:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Mistakes made was, if you talk to, sorry, remember, surgeon rescue team members, they always want a subject to be searchable.
15:17
[SPEAKER_01]: So in a space, Brett and Cole didn't have their phones with them, and even if your phone is turned off or in a place without service, it still can be helpful to someone finding you, locating, even in a general area.
15:29
[SPEAKER_01]: In this case, nobody knew even a general area where they might be for a while of the search at least.
15:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And so a fire starter, like right now on my kitchen counter, I am making, I'm giving a talk at a school later today about the book, and I'm making this little improvised candle that that country traveler's some in this book.
15:51
[SPEAKER_01]: You have carried an impact for 20 years without ever using it, but it's basically a roll of cardboard that you stick inside like a
16:02
[SPEAKER_01]: and then you fill that can with wax.
16:04
[SPEAKER_01]: You just melt wax in there and fill it and then you like that cardboard.
16:07
[SPEAKER_01]: Now thing will burn for hours and it's a source of heat if you don't have heat and we think about avalanches being or a fall or rocks or whatever that kind of objective hazard do you or might be in your mind of kind of being our most ever present danger in skiing.
16:28
[SPEAKER_01]: That country's skiing.
16:30
[SPEAKER_01]: But let's not forget, right?
16:31
[SPEAKER_01]: It takes place in winter.
16:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And winter is a cold environment.
16:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And very, I'm forgiving.
16:35
[SPEAKER_01]: And if you don't have heat, then you're in trouble.
16:40
[SPEAKER_01]: So, whether that fire starter, I mean, people that I've talked to now carry multiple lighters, fire starter of all kinds from freedoms to cotton balls and gasoline, you know, a flint stick, all kinds of ways, matches, anything you have that can start a fire when
17:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So there's that, of course extra food and water, extra layers, there's stuff to fix broken gear, you know, that will prolong your time in an unforgiving environment.
17:21
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't have the gear necessary to escape a ravine with a steep wall or something, you know, if your skins don't function correctly, if the glue's not very good on the skins.
17:34
[SPEAKER_01]: If you don't have a ski strapper,
17:35
[SPEAKER_01]: some bailing wire to tie your skis, your skins to your skis, if the glue fails, you know, I mean all these kind of backup plans.
17:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that's one thing that we don't usually, or instinctively account for, is just like, okay.
17:53
[SPEAKER_01]: This is a bomber pair of bindings on great skis, and my skins I just got them two weeks ago.
17:59
[SPEAKER_01]: You just can't predict what might happen.
18:01
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, you drop your skins in a creek, whatever might happen.
18:04
[SPEAKER_01]: And then suddenly, their function is compromised.
18:07
[SPEAKER_01]: So having these backup plans, these spare parts, these tools that might help you improvise something out in the field are really crucial.
18:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, they way more.
18:17
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, the alternative to carrying more weight is pretty dire sometimes.
18:22
[SPEAKER_01]: So being prepared took on a bit of new meeting for me after reporting the story.
18:27
[SPEAKER_01]: And I know that it has for some of the folks who have read this book as well.
18:31
[SPEAKER_05]: I would encourage our listeners, think beyond just the immediacy of the sport.
18:37
[SPEAKER_05]: And what I mean by that is, if you're going to go in the back country, however you get there, snow shoes, skis, whatever it is, if you're going to go in the back country
18:46
[SPEAKER_05]: Then part of your sport is not just how to ski down a mountain or skin up a mountain.
18:52
[SPEAKER_05]: Part of your sport is learning avalanche awareness and avalanche safety.
18:55
[SPEAKER_05]: Okay.
18:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, that should be fairly obvious.
18:58
[SPEAKER_05]: But another part of your sport is how to survive overnight in the winter and extreme conditions.
19:05
[SPEAKER_05]: You need to have those survival skills.
19:06
[SPEAKER_05]: That's part of your sport.
19:07
[SPEAKER_05]: It's not just skiing, right?
19:09
[SPEAKER_05]: And that's what you're talking about.
19:11
[SPEAKER_05]: And so it's actually a lot of fun to learn and practice survival skills for every season of a year, learn how to, you know, create shelter, learn backcountry first day, learn the dangers of hypothermia.
19:27
[SPEAKER_05]: and exposure, learn all the things that you need to be able to survive in a difficult situation as a part of the sport that you love.
19:36
[SPEAKER_05]: And it's actually a blast to learn that kind of bushcraft.
19:39
[SPEAKER_05]: I just think it in it is so empowering.
19:42
[SPEAKER_05]: And so if you're going to ski in the back country, skiing is not all the sport.
19:48
[SPEAKER_05]: Backcountry is the sport.
19:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, it's like hyperthermia you mentioned.
19:53
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, again, a big part of this book and just the exposure to the elements.
19:58
[SPEAKER_01]: And I went down this rabbit hole, a type ofthermia, I talked to a lot of people, including the world expertise this guy in Canada nicknamed Professor Popsicle.
20:08
[SPEAKER_01]: He had just retired in the wrong career as a university professor when I,
20:13
[SPEAKER_01]: corresponded with him when we did some interviews and emailing and all that stuff and he was hugely helpful, but little is understood, I would say, by the mainstream, including, you know, avid adventures about that danger.
20:26
[SPEAKER_01]: It creeps in.
20:28
[SPEAKER_03]: Yeah.
20:28
[SPEAKER_01]: And the more time that we are out,
20:31
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, shivering or what, you know, eventually shivering stops.
20:35
[SPEAKER_01]: That's shivering is a survival mechanism that our bodies have within them, but we are not one of the creatures that generates heat internally without involuntary movement.
20:47
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, we don't, we don't have the advantages that like rodents or things that burrow into the earth, do.
20:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't part of our makeup as human.
20:58
[SPEAKER_01]: So, we have to account for that deficiency.
21:01
[SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, as you say, it takes initiative and it takes a focus on that very low, low likelihood event.
21:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Actually, all right, you know, and we are.
21:12
[SPEAKER_01]: We're all fallible beings.
21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: We're imperfect.
21:14
[SPEAKER_01]: We make mistakes.
21:16
[SPEAKER_01]: I really try to hard to leave little room for judgment in this story the way that I wrote it.
21:21
[SPEAKER_01]: and I tried to report it so thoroughly that the facts would tell it so it wouldn't leave room for this blame that makes me sure after so many backcountry accidents because they're really, really brave people who let me into their lives and let me see them and their private and they've been hurting for years from this event.
21:43
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to kind of honor that strength and how I recorded it and wrote it.
21:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And really the judgment, it just does so little good.
21:52
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like, yeah, I did not shy away from the mistakes that were made.
21:55
[SPEAKER_01]: And our care like makeup is humans, right?
22:00
[SPEAKER_01]: We just simply are, we're a family, but we all are.
22:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We all make mistakes even when we don't think we're going to.
22:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes, in some ways, we have to account for that fallibility in an existential way.
22:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's, uh, it takes focus and conscious effort.
22:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
22:25
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, Devon, I've made my own mistakes multiple times in the in all seasons of the year in the back country and add some really close calls and luckily I don't have a tragedy to tell a story about.
22:41
[SPEAKER_05]: But I will say that no matter how well you're prepared, things can be surprising.
22:47
[SPEAKER_05]: And there's no room for judgment, the really isn't.
22:50
[SPEAKER_05]: But if we increase our skill set, then we're mitigating some of the risk.
22:56
[SPEAKER_05]: We're playing the odds in our favor, you know, those sorts of things.
23:00
[SPEAKER_05]: And I just wanted to encourage the listeners to be prepared, you know, know a little bit about it.
23:04
[SPEAKER_05]: Right and I I'm not saying that these people were not I'm saying that the backcountry can be a hazardous place which kind of leads to I think a pressing question if people can get hurt or even killed in the backcountry doing these things that we love why do we do it I think people that have not done the adventures off and are like well why do you go out there in the first place right why do we do it Devon what's the draw what's the benefit
23:33
[SPEAKER_01]: That was a big goal that I had with this book in the story is informing those who have not found or chosen a life in the mountains or that really is intimately interconnected with nature on a daily basis.
23:52
[SPEAKER_01]: What is this draw?
23:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Why do we live this way, where we do?
24:03
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people's view every day will be gone, our trail runner, whatever, small thing, it might be.
24:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And I wanted to explain the mountain life, but not in a car machining way.
24:17
[SPEAKER_01]: I thought that would be counterproductive.
24:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, you just don't get it.
24:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It's so much better than my life.
24:23
[SPEAKER_03]: Right, that doesn't know, it doesn't work.
24:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Personally, I feel that way.
24:26
[SPEAKER_01]: But I have a lot of friends and family members who really don't understand the why or what would inspire anybody, let alone their own family member, friend and be.
24:38
[SPEAKER_01]: To do this, but you know, I moved to recognition 2002 was going to stay for a night and it just grabbed me and kind of never let me go.
24:46
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's the same thing in Salida.
24:49
[SPEAKER_01]: It's a town at 7,000 feet.
24:51
[SPEAKER_01]: The Arkansas River runs right through downtown.
24:53
[SPEAKER_01]: It's ringed by big peaks.
24:55
[SPEAKER_01]: Has this amazing world-class trail now where it is just, it's own little knuckles of Utopia in some ways.
25:03
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to let people in the mainstream readers who might not understand that and show this unbelievable, difficult to describe fulfillment.
25:16
[SPEAKER_01]: So I did that through the characters in the book and their own stories.
25:20
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of them came from non-mountainy places, Kansas, Ohio, just really all
25:30
[SPEAKER_01]: you know, it is this like intoxicating draw and yet you can't get the draw without a little pair of no matter what you're doing or where there is always the chance of some weird freak thing happening and then nature takes hold and it can consume us.
25:50
[SPEAKER_01]: And I also kind of, you know, we've been talking a little bit about judgment and judgment arose in the wake of this accident, you know, there were, he's kind of barbs, he's darts thrown at the survivors like how could, how could you do that, how could you go skiing in the back country with a minor.
26:12
[SPEAKER_01]: why would you go into this environment even, you know, what are you doing?
26:17
[SPEAKER_01]: You people kind of think, and so I wanted to defend not in life.
26:23
[SPEAKER_01]: Again, not in an antagonistic way, but in an explanatory way.
26:29
[SPEAKER_01]: and hopefully just enlighten somebody because it's a life I grew up on that we lived on a sailboat in the Virgin Islands.
26:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I was born in Connecticut, but then grew up mainly in the Virgin Islands and went to school on a different island from where we lived and
26:44
[SPEAKER_01]: All these things, right?
26:45
[SPEAKER_01]: I did not understand what my wife was, but my grandpa was in the 10th Mountain Division and he died right before my twin brother and I were born.
26:54
[SPEAKER_01]: So we never got to meet him, but then here we were, rolling through Colorado 22 years old, stopped for one night and it just grabbed us.
27:03
[SPEAKER_01]: And I've been here ever since.
27:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I live at 10,200 feet, and it's really a rewarding version of life to me.
27:10
[SPEAKER_01]: But I know that it's not to everybody.
27:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's hard.
27:13
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sacrifice a lot.
27:15
[SPEAKER_01]: Or once wrote an essay, called What It Takes and Why It's Worth It.
27:19
[SPEAKER_01]: And it was all about this life.
27:21
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's not a real clear, easy to distill a question.
27:25
[SPEAKER_01]: But for those who, like me, feel just home in this environment,
27:33
[SPEAKER_01]: And so yeah, I really wanted to like get that across through this book without again being this like direct forced part of any of the story
27:44
[SPEAKER_05]: That makes me want to read the book even more, Devon.
27:47
[SPEAKER_05]: I, I align with that, you know, we raised our family at 8600 feet, not quite 10,000, but people would come up in the summertime and buy a house because they love the cool air, they love the smell of the pines, it, there's a romance about it, a draw.
28:06
[SPEAKER_05]: and then every spring there it'd be a whole new crop of for cell signs that would pop up.
28:11
[SPEAKER_05]: And when I say a crop, I mean, dozens of for cell signs, you know, state that the end of all the road intersections.
28:17
[SPEAKER_05]: I finally just started telling people, it's not a location.
28:20
[SPEAKER_05]: It's a lifestyle.
28:21
[SPEAKER_05]: And if you understand that lifestyle, think great, you'll probably love it here.
28:26
[SPEAKER_05]: But if you think it's just a cool location, then dig a little deeper first.
28:31
[SPEAKER_05]: You know?
28:31
[SPEAKER_01]: not literally because of the whole issues that always have a snow.
28:36
[SPEAKER_05]: They did dig out all the time.
28:39
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, and I mean, where we were, we got the upslope events constantly, and we had an average of about 10 feet a snowier, and the big years we might have 16 feet of snow that year, you know, in the small years, it might be only six, where you are is probably even
29:01
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, absolutely.
29:02
[SPEAKER_01]: There's a quote in the book that says that exact.
29:07
[SPEAKER_05]: Well, and it's not for everybody, and there's no judgment for people that would say, well, it's not for me.
29:11
[SPEAKER_05]: I totally get that, but I was like you, 10 years old, my family drove to Colorado.
29:16
[SPEAKER_05]: We went on a vacation here.
29:18
[SPEAKER_05]: I stepped out of the car.
29:18
[SPEAKER_05]: I took a breath, and I said, this is him.
29:21
[SPEAKER_05]: Took me a while to get here.
29:22
[SPEAKER_05]: I think that people that get
29:29
[SPEAKER_05]: made a life there.
29:31
[SPEAKER_05]: It's amazing.
29:33
[SPEAKER_05]: What are some of the surprises that you think people have when they first move into a mountain community and think, okay, I'm here?
29:41
[SPEAKER_05]: What are the unexpecteds?
29:43
[SPEAKER_01]: The moment the sun goes down, it gets wakled.
29:50
[SPEAKER_01]: That's kind of jarring to some.
29:52
[SPEAKER_01]: I also think that it took me even a couple of years to realize that the bounty wasn't the ski resort.
29:59
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't like the trails, right?
30:01
[SPEAKER_01]: right from town, it was this massive surrounding allowance of public land that's open to everybody and you know that is I think it's a bit of a light bulb moment when it went off for me but it's it's not just about what's in these towns.
30:20
[SPEAKER_01]: There's great community there I've found and I should say so I just community I've been living in Warren and have been reporting in many for years and years so I just
30:31
[SPEAKER_01]: mountain community have ever come across.
30:34
[SPEAKER_01]: Wow, that was a unique factor within this story.
30:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It was trying to earn the trust of them while asking about something really hard that it permeated their beings, their community for years at that point.
30:51
[SPEAKER_01]: But you know, going back to your question, I think stuff that surprises people is like, man, so you want to see
30:58
[SPEAKER_01]: you want to take a plane, you got to do all these things that aren't available in these places, and I think that's probably what drives people out to.
31:06
[SPEAKER_01]: They have this like romanticized version sometimes of like what it can be to live in the mountains, to move to the mountains.
31:14
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think you know, senior explosion and cost of living and and livability in general and prices and on all kinds of things.
31:21
[SPEAKER_01]: And I think that's because a lot of people are willing to
31:26
[SPEAKER_01]: monetarily is amenities, you know, good restaurants, having this, having that available, culture, all that stuff.
31:33
[SPEAKER_01]: But to me, it's what surrounds us.
31:36
[SPEAKER_01]: It's the natural resources that aren't available elsewhere.
31:38
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, restaurants are everywhere, cool cultural things are everywhere, you know, movies, talks, whatever that might be, concerts.
31:48
[SPEAKER_01]: But up, you know, here, it's like you really do have.
31:52
[SPEAKER_01]: You can wake up and go down a list of things that you could do that day that will make you feel more alive than anything in a city.
32:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And that menu is always available.
32:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Day or night, no matter the weather, I went to college in Vermont and the New England winner is really harsh, it's like, you can,
32:16
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just like a little bone-chillinger.
32:19
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, yeah.
32:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Letter-cold, I remember it making me want to stay inside.
32:25
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would kind of have to like force myself sometimes to get up and go out and do something.
32:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And here, I think it could be 20 below.
32:34
[SPEAKER_01]: If that's sunshineing as it does, whatever the facts are, like 300 days a year, you know, right?
32:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It just sucks you outside, like you can't stay inside.
32:43
[SPEAKER_01]: You want to be outside, even if it is that cold, you want to be out there moving through these places that are just so powerful to just simply be in regardless of like powder going over your head, but just simply standing in them.
32:56
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just, it's really awesome, but it also,
33:01
[SPEAKER_01]: is harder to find community.
33:04
[SPEAKER_01]: I do a lot of my things so low, just because I have this little window in my day, so I go do it while I have the time.
33:11
[SPEAKER_01]: I've found that in other places that are not as mountainy or big and tall and high, that there's much more like a group ride, culture or tradition.
33:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's just more, I think it's why we see a lot of mental health struggles even in these awesome places.
33:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, and that that was a compounding factor to this accident, the heart of my book, the way out.
33:38
[SPEAKER_01]: There was a lot of people didn't, you know, there wasn't a lot of group debriefing.
33:43
[SPEAKER_01]: It wasn't like, hey, let's gather as a group of A and talk about this and figure out how, it's like, discuss how it's making us feel and what, what shouldn't you spurring us to maybe do differently or to reconsider?
33:56
[SPEAKER_01]: But people did reevaluate their lives, who had been living this life for 20 or 30 years, and they were like holy cow if it can happen that quickly, let's such a benign outing, what am I doing wrong?
34:08
[SPEAKER_01]: Am I doing it right?
34:10
[SPEAKER_01]: Do I want to keep doing this?
34:11
[SPEAKER_01]: Some people back away from the mountain life, some people didn't even want to see mountains, and then eventually they returned.
34:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And that was a really powerful part of the later part of this book was, you know, seeing people kind of come full circle and getting these character arcs that, to me, were inspiring, they showed amazing strength, but they're still part of this hard thing.
34:31
[SPEAKER_01]: So, it's just very multi-layered and nuanced, yeah, they're kind of finding that balance individually.
34:40
[SPEAKER_01]: is something that I think is lifelong but it can be informed by these stories that pop up here and there and these experiences that others went through and then had kind of had a dark deal with in some way, in this case when it ends poorly.
34:53
[SPEAKER_01]: But I think we can take a lot from those and see ourselves in these kinds of stories and think long and hard about what what am I doing and is it really what I want to get out of my life?
35:04
[SPEAKER_01]: We have our finite time here
35:10
[SPEAKER_01]: am I doing it right for me?
35:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And I realized both through the reporting and through this really close call with a massive half mile wide 10 foot deep at the crown avalanche that a friend and I triggered during the like heat of the reporting for this book.
35:26
[SPEAKER_01]: That I was out there for reasons that weren't true to where I was at that stage in my life as a parent now and You know, we are life evolves.
35:36
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, we're not 24 anymore.
35:38
[SPEAKER_01]: Just out there like seeking that thrill that feeling that is so intoxicating But I realized I wanted to be there for my kids and and didn't necessarily need to have the powder going over my head anymore So it really changed my perspective in a healthy way I think but
35:56
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, I think that's, again, like very idiosyncratic and it makes people think different things and we really have to be honest with ourselves too when we're having these kind of internal dialogues.
36:07
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, get to the absolute bone of what you want out of your life and how you're doing it right now and do those alive and it really good words for me.
36:20
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, good words, Devon, I agree 100% with that.
36:23
[SPEAKER_05]: I had an experience kayaking when my children were very young that we were on a flooded creek, we're both scouting it.
36:29
[SPEAKER_05]: It wasn't a known route.
36:31
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, we were getting ourselves into some sticky situations and.
36:34
[SPEAKER_05]: I had a close call there and that's when I decided that my kids mattered more than what I was doing.
36:40
[SPEAKER_05]: And I changed my behavior, you know.
36:43
[SPEAKER_05]: But I want to touch on one thing just a kind of balance this conversation.
36:49
[SPEAKER_05]: I did an episode.
36:50
[SPEAKER_05]: about how dangerous our adventure sports are, how safe our adventure sports is the case may be.
36:56
[SPEAKER_05]: And I did quite a lot of research.
36:58
[SPEAKER_05]: I dug deep and I said, how many people you know are injured doing this or that or the next thing and what kind of injuries are the fatalities or minor injuries and you know you try to say, well, how many people participate?
37:08
[SPEAKER_05]: How many people get hurt?
37:10
[SPEAKER_05]: I did mountain biking, road biking, skiing, backcountry, rock climbing, mountaineering, just, you know, you go down the whole list.
37:19
[SPEAKER_05]: I did all the major sports.
37:21
[SPEAKER_05]: All of them were safer than driving to the trailhead, except one.
37:25
[SPEAKER_05]: and the one that actually was as dangerous as driving a car was downhill skiing, but that kind of puts it into alignment.
37:33
[SPEAKER_05]: We all jump on our cars and don't think that much about it.
37:36
[SPEAKER_05]: We can do these sports safely, but it doesn't mean it's risk-free.
37:40
[SPEAKER_05]: People will get hurt and people actually will get killed doing adventure sports, just like people get hurt and die in cars every single day.
37:50
[SPEAKER_05]: So you have to evaluate, am I doing this in a safe way, am I being responsible, am I, do I have my priorities right, and then also what are the benefits?
38:00
[SPEAKER_05]: And I have found, you know, I wanted to be there from my family from my kids, so I changed the way that I was voting.
38:06
[SPEAKER_05]: But I also found that introducing my family to adventure sports had so many benefits from my family.
38:14
[SPEAKER_05]: That outweigh the risks for us, for us.
38:17
[SPEAKER_05]: I get it, tragedy is going to strike and it gets our attention when it does and I don't want in any way to minimize what that must be like.
38:28
[SPEAKER_05]: But I can also say that if we do things with a touch of wisdom, training experience, risk mitigation to the point that we can.
38:37
[SPEAKER_05]: kind of gets at the heart to what really living is.
38:41
[SPEAKER_05]: I think Devon, you know, we can try to live as safely as we can, we may not really be living, or we can figure out what real life feels like to us and how to do that in the safest way possible.
38:55
[SPEAKER_01]: That's why it's so individual, it's not as simple as saying don't go.
39:00
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not willing to not go.
39:02
[SPEAKER_01]: They're almost everybody in this book or not willing to not go.
39:06
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, because it is too rewarding.
39:09
[SPEAKER_01]: So, that's why some of these questions don't really have answers.
39:13
[SPEAKER_01]: If you bring them out and you present both sides, like,
39:17
[SPEAKER_01]: in a detailed fashion and with respect to the frankly very fair arguments to be made on both sides.
39:26
[SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
39:27
[SPEAKER_01]: Then you let the person decide for themselves and for their own family.
39:31
[SPEAKER_01]: And absolutely like introducing this stuff the way my wife and I live to our sons is greatly rewarding.
39:39
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's essential when I first heard about the story in this book.
39:45
[SPEAKER_01]: my contact at a real, real key source.
39:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And she said, I give you my blessing to pursue this, but only if it's not something that tells people don't go, you know, because this can happen.
40:00
[SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, oh, good.
40:02
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm not willing to tell people don't go.
40:05
[SPEAKER_01]: I don't believe that myself.
40:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I think that it really comes down and just give yourself the best chance if something goes wrong and still go.
40:12
[SPEAKER_01]: And choose your environment.
40:14
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, the pitch of your ski descent wisely based on the conditions and what you really want out of that day And you know, I realized that my wants and needs were confused for myself I thought I needed to go do these big bad things and I need to be out there But I want the big bad thing.
40:33
[SPEAKER_01]: I want that thrill and the feeling.
40:36
[SPEAKER_01]: I didn't need that
40:37
[SPEAKER_01]: And it comes with stress, you know, when you're going to do a big thing, you're just like I'm at least a little fearful that day and I realize like even that fear of going to it, it's it's awesome still in it and it like just fills you with this kind of tingle, but it's not a
40:55
[SPEAKER_01]: It's not all great, kind of stress me out.
40:59
[SPEAKER_01]: So, yeah, I think find it for yourself.
41:02
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's what I think these stories are helpful.
41:04
[SPEAKER_01]: The inform us they can broaden our perspective, what can go wrong.
41:09
[SPEAKER_01]: Okay, let me protect for that one that I never really had considered before.
41:13
[SPEAKER_01]: That potential outcome or something, but.
41:16
[SPEAKER_01]: Ultimately, it's just, yeah, we've got this limited time and sit around and not go.
41:21
[SPEAKER_01]: It is because there's this miniscule chance that something could end poorly is not the answer for me, at least.
41:26
[SPEAKER_05]: Will you share with us a story about a hut trip that you've done and help the listeners who have never done anything like this?
41:34
[SPEAKER_05]: I've never been in the back country in the winter time.
41:35
[SPEAKER_05]: Maybe they've never even been to the mountains, but help them to get a little insight into what you experience when you go into the back country on one of these hut trips and what the dries.
41:50
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, there's multiple versions of a hut trip.
41:53
[SPEAKER_01]: You can go to something really far and remote and hard to get to.
41:56
[SPEAKER_01]: And with, you know, big peaks to ski, you can go to one that's a mile from the parking lot, but you can take your kids to, it's a very easy, straightforward get-in to the hut.
42:09
[SPEAKER_01]: And there's not big bad terrain and you're really just there to like poke around, you know, nowhere farther than like a quarter mile from the hut.
42:18
[SPEAKER_01]: And so our sons are 10 and 7, and we take them on more of the latter version.
42:25
[SPEAKER_01]: Francis Cabin, one of the huts that I helped maintain through the summer huts association is really close to our house.
42:32
[SPEAKER_01]: And we went there last year, and that's a very popular huts.
42:35
[SPEAKER_01]: The most book-tut in Colorado for a reason.
42:38
[SPEAKER_01]: It's beautiful.
42:39
[SPEAKER_01]: It's in the Crystal Creek drink.
42:40
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like stunning to serve of wildness around you and there's a crackling fire and you make your own food and you're hanging out reading and playing cards and just like really quality time with those who you are there with.
42:59
[SPEAKER_01]: Then there's the trip set once a year I do with a group of friends and we're all dudes in our 30s, 40s.
43:06
[SPEAKER_01]: I think a couple guys have just touched 15 now but I'm 46 and you know we go to the farther away hut and we hope that the conditions will allow us to go do something safe but maybe a little more on that
43:23
[SPEAKER_01]: kind of thrill-side conditions dependent, of course.
43:27
[SPEAKER_01]: But it's still like you are in the middle of nowhere.
43:30
[SPEAKER_01]: Your cell phones don't work.
43:32
[SPEAKER_01]: You are a unit.
43:34
[SPEAKER_01]: You're laughing.
43:35
[SPEAKER_01]: You are telling jokes you're talking about.
43:38
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, we go around in a circle on those trips and just talk about our year and like, how are things with your family, with your spouse, with your friends?
43:45
[SPEAKER_01]: Like, are you getting out of life?
43:47
[SPEAKER_01]: What you want to be getting out?
43:48
[SPEAKER_01]: And that's a different version of fulfillment than the trips that I take with kids.
43:53
[SPEAKER_01]: I just took my son, you know, for these hot master shifts, we have a little hot master quarters at each hut and
43:59
[SPEAKER_01]: I took my 10-year-old up to sister's cabin on Bald Mountain, a different aspect of the same mountain where this giant avalanche spared me in my friend four years ago and we went up and how this awesome thing and he had never really done a backcountry ski run and of course we're on this very, very low angle slope, there's no avalanche danger but
44:29
[SPEAKER_01]: And to show that to him, to be the portal through which he gets to experience it, I'll be at, you know, here I am, I'm like this wounded aging lower back problem and I'm carrying 50s, 50 patterns because you can't show it or that kind of weight yet and we need all the things in the food and the safety here, all that stuff.
44:52
[SPEAKER_01]: He's on alpine trekkers and all the muck of that kind of trip is dwarfed by the reward, the fulfillment as a dad and watching your kid get his perspective completely changed by the fact that this is available to him and he can do it physically and now he's gaining the knowledge to do it.
45:15
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's right above the town where he lives and goes to school and, you know, it's just like a really powerful thing.
45:22
[SPEAKER_01]: And I would, you know, not everybody has the same view of that or desire or ability or whatever, but for those that do, it's a really cool thing.
45:34
[SPEAKER_01]: And there are absolutely novice friendly huts and just to go in there with
45:39
[SPEAKER_01]: yourself or with one friend or with ten friends, you know that it's a really cool part of the life that we get to lead here.
45:47
[SPEAKER_01]: And granted, as we know, from this late Tahoe avalanche, which should also involve the hut trip, two and a half weeks ago, horrible things could happen from some of the stuff.
45:57
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's essential, you're going into a wild area.
46:00
[SPEAKER_01]: It's essential that you know exactly where you are at all times and you're prepared for the conditions you might encounter and all that stuff.
46:08
[SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, and all that stuff makes your pack heavier.
46:11
[SPEAKER_01]: It makes your lower back hurt more.
46:13
[SPEAKER_01]: And you know, it's just the equations got to be one where the overall impression is worth it.
46:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Every time we talk about backcountry skiing, I always stress the avalanche safety.
46:24
[SPEAKER_05]: You need to take the courses, and that's not so you can ski avalanche terrain.
46:29
[SPEAKER_05]: It's so that maybe you'll choose not to.
46:31
[SPEAKER_05]: Or you'll understand a little bit about how to hedge your bets.
46:35
[SPEAKER_05]: What recommendations do you have for people when it comes to avalanche safety?
46:39
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, courses are important, I think.
46:42
[SPEAKER_01]: I've never taken an avalanche safety course, and I've been back on your scheme for more than 20 years, and I've been very lucky to have had amazing mentors, and to have lived in a place where it's right out the door where you can just go spend time in that environment, and you know, the moment I'm on.
47:02
[SPEAKER_01]: It's weird, but you're just getting these sensual awareness of where you are and whether you're in danger or all that stuff.
47:10
[SPEAKER_01]: So I think just times spent, and if you can find a mentor, it's really important to not duck from any of the lessons that are available to you at all times out there.
47:24
[SPEAKER_01]: eyes and ears, all that stuff, but digging into the snow, so you learn a little bit more about, especially in a continental snow pack, like we have in Colorado with really dry snow that's prone to avalanching, more than a maritime snow pack.
47:37
[SPEAKER_01]: It's just really essential to learn as much as you possibly can at all times and to steal yourself against complacency and against thinking that because you've gotten away with it before, because that's really what it is when you ski in avalanche slope.
47:52
[SPEAKER_01]: in any kind of objective danger, it's you get away with it, you guess right, and I've gotten lucky many times and also I've triggered or been in a party that triggered some big not good avalanches and if you can walk away from those experiences that I think that's really important to absorb every shred of lesson that's available in these things.
48:17
[SPEAKER_05]: Absolutely.
48:18
[SPEAKER_05]: I think sometimes, well, I'm just going to put a public service announcement, having taking the avi training courses doesn't make you immune to what avalanches can do, and most of the people that get hurt or die, and avalanches actually have been trained.
48:33
[SPEAKER_05]: But most of the people that are in the place where an avalanche could be, get the training for safety purposes, so I don't know that those two things
48:41
[SPEAKER_05]: really correlate except to say knowledge is important.
48:45
[SPEAKER_05]: And just as a general for people that are from out of state, you know, you see this beautiful, cool, the trees open up.
48:53
[SPEAKER_05]: It looks like powder, it's bottomless, and you think, oh, that's it.
48:56
[SPEAKER_05]: That's so rad.
48:57
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm going to jump into that one.
48:59
[SPEAKER_05]: The reason the trees aren't there is because avalanches take the trees out.
49:02
[SPEAKER_05]: That's an avalanche slides zone.
49:04
[SPEAKER_05]: If it looks awesome, that's probably the place you might want to think twice about, you know, just don't be sucked in by the sirens call.
49:13
[SPEAKER_05]: It learned to read the snow, learn what slope angles about, and be safe.
49:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah.
49:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Devon, I appreciate your candor in this conversation.
49:23
[SPEAKER_05]: And I appreciate the way that you reported the story of it.
49:34
[SPEAKER_05]: But it's also a story about community and mountain living and why we do these things, and I think that everyone can gain by experiencing second hand, what others have gone through.
49:47
[SPEAKER_05]: I think it makes us to make better choices, maybe.
49:51
[SPEAKER_05]: Part of our responsibility is to make sure that we learn what we can.
49:56
[SPEAKER_05]: Gain the experience that we can, and then we share that experience with others so that they can be safer too.
50:02
[SPEAKER_05]: You know, all the things you've already described.
50:05
[SPEAKER_05]: I just think it's part of what Mountain Life is about.
50:09
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, absolutely.
50:09
[SPEAKER_05]: And where can people find the book?
50:12
[SPEAKER_01]: Oh, it's available in any independent bookstore and certainly in any mountain town or most cities.
50:20
[SPEAKER_01]: And of course, Amazon and any other online retailer bookshop.org.
50:25
[SPEAKER_01]: It's out there.
50:26
[SPEAKER_01]: If you know how to Google, you'll find it.
50:30
[SPEAKER_05]: Yeah, if you just Google Devon O'Neill, you'll find it.
50:33
[SPEAKER_05]: I'm sure.
50:33
[SPEAKER_05]: Do you have a website, Devon, where people can learn more?
50:36
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, it's just Devon O'Neill.com.
50:38
[SPEAKER_01]: So, D-E-B-O-N-O-N-E-I-L.com.
50:41
[SPEAKER_01]: There's plenty of information about the book there as well with using and link to get the book if you're interested.
50:48
[SPEAKER_05]: I have the honor of interviewing a lot of authors, Devon, and I read through all the books that I can, and I can't wait to read through years, but I didn't get it read in advance of the interview, which would have been fantastic, but you did a wonderful job of encapsulating the flavor of the book, the nature of the book, the mission of the book.
51:07
[SPEAKER_05]: And it sounds wonderful, so thank you for putting the energy in the effort into sharing the story of these families and the story of what that country mountaineering is about.
51:19
[SPEAKER_05]: Thank you for taking the time to do that.
51:21
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thanks for having me on your shirt.
51:24
[SPEAKER_05]: Oh, you bet, and for all of you out there, make sure that you learn to do it safely, but make sure you do get out there and have some fun.