Utah Avalanche Center Podcast

What happens to a community when the mountains get more crowded but the snowpack gets thinner? Ski guide and avalanche educator Jenna Malone and IFMGA mountain guide Chris Brown join guest host Brooke Mauschund to dig into the state of Wasatch backcountry culture, how it's changed through the years, what's been lost, and how we can cultivate it going forward. It's about skin track etiquette, the gap between skiing ability and actual backcountry competence, and making sure scarcity and individualism don't erode the communal ties that keep people safe out there. What it really boils down to is the social contract of the mountains, an unspoken agreement that when things go sideways out there, we're each other's first line of help.

The avalanche forecast is shot through with uncertainty. The variables of terrain, snow, and weather, dispersed across vast areas, are simply too numerous to fully account for. If that's the case, if there's just a lot we don't know, then how much should uncertainty be foregrounded in the forecast? And would expressing uncertainty impair your operation's reputation with backcountry users? Eeva Latosuo, an associate professor of Outdoor Studies at Alaska Pacific University, and Brian Lazar, deputy director of CAIC, join us to discuss the work they've done studying what forecasters don't know and how they can communicate that to an audience. 

In late winter, 2025, a new AI tool developed by the Utah Avalanche Center flagged a layer in the snowpack as posing a potential risk. Then, just days later, nearly two-dozen avalanches failed on that same layer. It was a powerful demonstration of the potential benefits of the Utah Computer-Assisted Avalanche Support Tool (UCAAST), the UAC's new AI-powered asset. Travis Morrison and Chad Bracklesberg helped develop UCAAST, and they've built several different models into its programming aimed at improving forecast accuracy and efficiency. Morrison and Bracklesberg join Drew to discuss how the tool could inform the development of the daily forecast and supplement the deep well of expert knowledge already on hand at the UAC.

Bill Glude is something of a trans-Pacific snow monk, with a deep knowledge of the winter mountains in both Alaska and Japan. He's spent more than 40 years skiing some of the most scenic terrain in the world. In that time, he's helped compose a sermon on the virtues and sins of various snow crystals, conversed with ravens, and even invented a snow block test. He joins us to discuss what's he's learned in a lifetime on the snow and why experience is an incomparable teacher.

Bill Glude is something of a trans-Pacific snow monk, with a deep knowledge of the winter mountains in both Alaska and Japan. He's spent more than 40 years skiing some of the most scenic terrain in the world. In that time, he's helped compose a sermon on the virtues and sins of various snow crystals, conversed with ravens, and even invented a snow block test. He joins us to discuss what's he's learned in a lifetime on the snow and why experience is an incomparable teacher.

The Utah Avalanche Center is more than just a corps of extraordinary forecasters. Since 1990, a group of dedicated, visionary, and hard-working people has helped the UAC expand its range and helped push it to the forefront of the industry. This episode, we're joined by all five men and women who have helmed the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center through the years. Wendy Zeigler, Colleen Nipkow, Paul Diegel, Chad Bracklesberg, and Caroline Miller have helped fund UAC's operations and shape its future, while providing the leadership and support necessary for the center to develop innovations in avalanche education, target unique user groups, develop the Know Before You Go program, embrace new technologies and media platforms, and share what works and what doesn't. It's all in the service of keeping those who love Utah's winter mountains on top of the snow rather than buried beneath it.

The Utah Avalanche Center is more than just a corps of extraordinary forecasters. Since 1990, a group of dedicated, visionary, and hard-working people has helped the UAC expand its range and helped push it to the forefront of the industry. This episode, we're joined by all five men and women who have helmed the Friends of the Utah Avalanche Center through the years. Wendy Zeigler, Colleen Nipkow, Paul Diegel, Chad Bracklesberg, and Caroline Miller have helped fund UAC's operations and shape its future, while providing the leadership and support necessary for the center to develop innovations in avalanche education, target unique user groups, develop the Know Before You Go program, embrace new technologies and media platforms, and share what works and what doesn't. It's all in the service of keeping those who love Utah's winter mountains on top of the snow rather than buried beneath it.

Brett Kobernick's nickname may be "Kowboy," but he's actually something of a Leonardo da Vinci of the snow. A garage tinkerer who builds the tools he needs to better understand winter conditions, he's also an early adopter of the snow bike, and he helped invent the split-board. True story. Kowboy joins us to talk about all of that, as well as the science, the excitement, and the tragedy of avalanches. As he says, the hardest part of the job isn't forecasting for a PWL on the mend, although that is very difficult. No, the hardest part is talking to the survivors or family members of the victim of a deadly avalanche.

If you were looking to move somewhere because you love to ski, Moab, Utah likely wouldn't be anywhere near the top of that list. Dave Garcia loves to ski. It's why he came to Utah in 2002. He spent 12 seasons skiing the Wasatch, then he moved to Moab, and not for the snow. But the thing is, there's actually some pretty good skiing in the mountains that loom over the deserts of southeastern Utah—if you know how to manage the hazards. These days, Garcia forecasts for Avalanche Center office in Moab, and he joins us to talk about the challenges, and the rewards of moving from a resource- and input-rich environment to one where the info is sparse and terrain is immense and remote.

Dave Kelly's career on snow has included stints forecasting for a remote narrow-gauge, trans-national railroad on behalf of the Alaska DOT. He's also put in time at Turoa, one of the largest ski areas in New Zealand. And for 16 years, he worked as a ski patroller at Alta. He joined the Utah Avalanche Center in the 2022-23 season as a forecaster for the Salt Lake area. And he says it was the challenge of forecasting for bigger terrain that drew him to his new gig. Kelly joins us to talk about making the transition from an operational forecaster to a public one. And we also try to wrap our heads around the mysteries of radiation recrystallization.