Drew Hardesty
Forecaster
January 5th 2019. Low Danger in the Wasatch.
By the end of the day, the UAC heard about 8 skier triggered avalanches, four catch and carries...a partial and critical burial, and a trip to the emergency room.
What happened?
The podcast below tells the story in six parts:
Drew Hardesty- forecaster - Low Danger Chapter 1 - We're All in This Together
Derek DeBruin - ski guide, accident report - Low Danger Chapter 2 - Blue Ice Avalanche Accident Report
Greg Gagne, forecaster - January Faceting Event
Vlad Pascu - partially buried in Broads Fork, hero - Low Danger - Chapter 5 - A Second Personal Account of the Blue Ice avalanche
Jaclyn Long - critically buried in Broads Fork, survivor and hero - Low Danger - Chapter 6 - A Second Personal Account of the Blue Ice avalanche
Russ Costa - cognitive scientist, Westminster College - Low Danger - Chapter 3 - Trust in Allah, But Tie Your Camel
Laura Maguire - cognitive systems engineer, researcher, Ohio State University - Low Danger - Chapter 4 - Human Performance in Uncertain Environments
One can read each of the individual pieces on our blog page
Take a listen -
EPILOGUE
In his novel, The Crossing, Cormac McCarthy describes a scene where the two boys, having just crossed the border into Mexico, come into the company of an old man and ask him directions to the ranch of which they seek.
He sketched in the dust streams and promontories and pueblos and mountain ranges. He commenced to draw trees and houses. Clouds. A bird. He penciled in the horsemen themselves doubled upon their mount. Billy leaned forward from time to time to question the measure of some part of their route whereupon the old man would turn to squint at the horse standing in the street and give an answer in hours.
All the while there sat watching on a bench a few feet away four men dressed in ancient and sunfaded suits. When the old man had gone, the men on the bench began to laugh.
Es un fantasma, they said.
One of the men threw up his hands. He said that what they beheld was but a decoration. He said that anyway it was not so much a question of a correct map but of any map at all. He said that in that country were fires and earthquakes and floods and that one needed to know the country itself and not simply the landmarks therein.
He went on to say that the boys could hardly be expected to apportion credence in the matter of the map. He said that in any case a bad map was worse than no map at all for it engendered in the traveler a false confidence and might easily cause him to set aside those instincts which would otherwise guide him if he would but place himself in their care. He said that to follow a false map was to invite disaster. He gestured at the sketching in the dirt. As if to invite them to behold its futility.
Another man on the bench nodded his agreement in this and said that the map in question was a folly and that the dogs in the street would piss upon it. But another man only smiled and said that for that matter the dogs would piss upon their graves as well and how was this an argument?
And yet.
The last man gestured. He said that plans were one thing and journeys another. He said it was a mistake to discount the good will inherent in the old man’s desire to guide them for it too must be taken into account and would itself lend strength and resolution to them in their journey.
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