A Life Affected

A photo I took of Jim Jack skinning in the North Cascades in the spring of 2011.

When I interviewed Heidi Biber — a family friend of mine — about her experience as a survivor of a major Class 3 avalanche that killed seven people in British Columbia in 2003, I had no idea that someday I’d be in the same horrific situation as Heidi. I interviewed Heidi for a story for Backcountry magazine — you can read it by clicking the "Life Affected" link here — and hearing her story was profoundly moving for me. But it wasn’t until Feb. 19, the day an avalanche in the backcountry near Stevens Pass, Washington, took the lives of three incredible people, that I truly understood Heidi’s words. I was there that day at Stevens Pass and there are simply no words I could use here to describe the sorrow and the sadness. So, instead, I’m going to use some of Heidi’s words, from the story I wrote. Because in many ways, they are the same things I would say.

"I went into this surreal, this-isn’t-happening mode. It was as if I were looking through this weird lens and a movie was rolling."

"There were a couple of miracles that day. But not many."

"I don’t use that old cliché, ‘At least they were on the mountain when they died.’ It was a disaster."

“I felt tons of survivors’ guilt. Why not me? It took a long time to get beyond that.”

"The chemistry in your body and brain can change after an episode like that. Now, when I sense danger, my fight or flight endorphins start surging more rapidly than they did before."

"I think about the experience more frequently than you can imagine. It’s random. Sometimes it’s when I’m out skiing, but not always. The tapes go through my head, but they’re not as emotionally charged as they used to be."

“I still backcountry ski. I love it. It’s a huge passion.”

Risk

It’s been a pretty tough month for me and there are a lot of things I could write here about it, but I’m just not ready yet. So, instead, I’m going to share a poem that a friend of mine sent me recently. I think it sums up the way I’m feeling now pretty well. Enjoy.

"To Risk"

by William Arthur Ward

To laugh is to risk appearing a fool,/
To weep is to risk appearing sentimental./

To reach out to another is to risk involvement,/
To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self./

To place your ideas and dreams before a crowd is to risk their loss./

To love is to risk not being loved in return,/
To live is to risk dying,/
To hope is to risk despair,/
To try is to risk failure./

But risks must be taken because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing./


The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing./

He may avoid suffering and sorrow,/
But he cannot learn, feel, change, grow or live./

Chained by his servitude he is a slave who has forfeited all freedom./

Only a person who risks is free.

She Jumps

She Jumps is a non-profit started by pro skier Lynsey Dyer and writer/skier/pilot Vanessa Pierce. The organization does a ton of inspiring stuff to encourage girls to get outside, help them build a community, and push them to accomplish their goals. This past weekend, She Jumps organized a “Get the Girls Out” campaign to rally female skiers and snowboarders at resorts all over the country. My friend Ainsley and I tried to organize a group at Crystal Mountain and although we didn’t have the best turnout (OK, fine, nobody showed up), we still had fun skiing all day in florescent jackets (mine is my mom’s reversible, flowered jacket from the 70s). Here are a few pictures from the day.

Brains in the family

I’m not sure why, but I often feel compelled to write something on this rarely-updated blog of mine when something bad happens. Maybe the best way I deal with tragedy is by putting words to paper or maybe it just doesn’t feel right to keep quiet. This week, pro skier Sarah Burke crashed in the halfpipe in Utah, doing a normal thing she does every day — nothing extreme or unusual, for her anyway. Despite what other journalists are saying about her crash, no, I don’t believe it’s an indication that action sports have gotten “too extreme.” I think it was just the world’s worst kind of bad luck. Sarah was seriously injured in the crash, which I’ve been covering for ESPN. She’s currently in critical condition at a hospital in Utah with what doctors are describing as a traumatic brain injury.

No brain injury is the same and I am by no means an expert, but I have had some experience with a traumatic brain injury, not my own, but my brother’s. It was 2005 and we were skiing together when the accident happened. Much like Sarah, my brother was airlifted to a trauma center, underwent surgery to relieve the pressure on his brain, and then placed in an induced medical coma. Sitting by his bed in the intensive care unit was one of the most difficult things I’ve done. My brother is 100 percent recovered today. It was not a quick or easy recovery and it took months and years of family support, rehabilitation, surgical operations and sleepless nights. Mountain Magazine just recently published an essay I wrote about my experience with my brother’s head injury. You can find it here, in the article titled Guilt.

I wish Sarah and her family the best during this tough time.

Buena Historia

Photo by Eben Mond, from Sayulita, Mexico

The makings of a good story: A beach in Mexico, a mysterious drug injected by needles, an aging doctor who once killed a man in Las Vegas, and a skier from Montana who dresses like he’s from Jamaica. It’s not everyday I come across stories like this. But I just finished up one for ESPN.com that combined all of these components. The skier, of course, is Tanner Hall, who’s suffered a series of nearly career-ending injuries but still has the drive (or lunacy, depending on how you look at it) to attempt a comeback for the 2014 Winter Olympics, where ski halfpipe will have its debut. It was an interesting story to report and after talking to Tanner about the treatment facility in Mexico he was going to, I was nearly ready to sign up myself. “You get the injections, you spin on the bike for a bit, then you go sit in the hot tub at a five star resort,” Tanner told me about the treatment. “Then you sit on the beach and eat ceviche. If you get hurt and you want to get better, there’s no better way than this.” You can find the story here.

1,000 Words

I spend a lot of time writing, editing and thinking about written stories, but you know the ol’ saying: “A picture is worth 1,000 words.” And often, this is truly the case. One image can say so much about a moment, a person, a landscape. So, I’m going to stop filling this space with words for once and give you a few photos to drool over. These are from some of my favorite ski photographers - I grabbed them off their blogs, which are all worth checking out, so click on over there for more images like these.

Photo: Grant Gunderson

Photo: Ian Coble

Photo: Erik Seo

Photo: Re Wikstrom

Photo: Jay Beyer

A backyard wedding

I shot some photos at a close childhood friend’s wedding recently and thought I’d share some of them here. This wedding was actually held in the backyard of my mom’s house, the house I grew up in, so it was extra special for me (and that meant I had the unique ability to wander anywhere I wanted in the house to snap photos, including the upper deck while the bride and groom were dancing with their parents).

Ode to Books

Mark my word: I’m anti-e-readers. I hope I never own an iPad or a Kindle (I also said this about cell phones until, of course, I finally got one). But books are different. I like pages you can turn with your fingertips and hardback covers. I like sitting in my chaise lounge, the world’s ugliest but most comfortable chair ever, and reading a real, tangible book that doesn’t need to be plugged in. And one day, I hope to write a book. Or 10. With any luck, that one day might actually be soon…

But for now, I’m a reader. Which is why I especially appreciated this blog written by Rosemarie Urquico called “Date a Girl Who Reads.” It was written in response to this story: “You Should Date An Illiterate Girl" by Charles Warnke. Definitely worth reading if you’ve got the time.