The Avalanche Hour Podcast

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