Solving for Z | A Calculus of Risk

as a veteran you feel like I've really narrowed that Gap and I can perceive what nature is telling me I can read the signs around me [Music] there's always this like Gap [Music] between what we perceive is going on in the mountains and what's actually going on foreign [Music] to the mountains through experience and education everything we like narrow that Gap the part I'm most worried about is a little wind speed [Music] that Gap is uncertainty and that's at the root of risk and that's why the experience is so worthwhile because it's one of those experiences where you feel like that demanded everything of me my physical body my mind history of all my experience my education and mentorship everything has been called on in order to like make this thing possible boom made it possible [Music] it can be dangerously empowering [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] I live in Jackson Wyoming with my wife and two kids and I'm a professional Mountain guide [Music] I was born in London in England and when I was about five we moved to Switzerland as a family and my first connection to the mountains was really through my parents I just remember how much my dad just loved being in the mountains the truth is like the first time I really got psyched on the mountains is when I saw cliffhanger hahaha but really you know I always wanted to get into the mountains and I always had like photos of climbing and the karakoram and Himalayas and just all these really gnarly places I for years had been like idolizing this guy Christoph profi who is this legendary French Mountain guide and the way he just like moved through the terrain was just like Flawless right there and then I was like okay well whatever it takes like that's what I need to be what's that called Mountain guide okay cool let's do that I went to this small school on the North Shore of Boston Gordon College if people from all over the world I was like oh yeah I get I can do this like this is cool we met in our first class of our freshman year the Icebreaker activity was like turned the person behind you and you know talk about something and I turned around and the person sitting behind me was a hunt he's definitely someone I connected with right from the get-go Timber of 2003 my wife and I left our jobs on the east coast and decided to take a one-year Hiatus and we rolled out here with a budget of ten dollars a day and that's what we lived on for three months in the back of our truck and we climbed every day until our fingers were Raw first time I laid eyes on the Tetons I'd been waiting for that first sight since we left Massachusetts I swerved off the road onto this little dirt pullout and I ran down to the river and I just stood there I thought I'm home [Music] we weren't like terribly patient about wanting to have kids or have this whole life before kids or whatever like we were like no like let's do this you know where [Music] right out there what's he gonna do I was so sure I'd made the right decision at that point it was just like it's game on like if you want that guy dream you've been talking about you better go get it now wow that's lead it's good [Music] the culture of the mountains in Jackson was entirely driven by the guide Community you could just immediately feel that the only guide operation on my side of the hill was yoastmark and it was run by this very well respected local bridge Rinaldi he eventually tracked me down at the shop and uh told me he wanted to be a ski guide I remember he told me he's like everybody wants to be a guide and I was like yeah but I like I really want to be a guide like I'm not kidding you know I quickly learned that he had What It Takes meaning that he has the patience and the focus it could think two steps ahead very ambitious you know the human-powered scheme snowboarding experience is booming right now and back country skiing is dangerous simply because there's so many things out there that can kill you whether it be the weather the Avalanche conditions and what I think makes the best guide is someone who observes people and the environment really keenly and then is decisive enough to act upon those observations and act properly foreign first day and I've like never been so psyched in my life I was just like this is for real like it's happening and then after a couple years I applied to work at Exum that's really what allowed me to transition to like guiding full-time and then really just like sinking my teeth 100 into this career in this like way of life [Music] I talked to tgr about the idea of starting to film in the park and so we started hatching plans to bring all the tgr operation and storytelling into the high peaks and that really gave me the opportunity to like massively expand my skill set [Music] s 100 [Music] . foreign [Music] motivated to be the most challenge that he can be and he certainly saw Big Mountain guiding with Elite skiers as the top of the game like this is the most challenging and yet most rewarding guiding that I could do by the time we're on that thing it's gonna have to be pretty settled zahan is very precise super on point I've watched his commitment and dedication I love his attitude in the mountains and like he's just the guy [Music] thank you yeah it's warming rapidly we gotta go okay a lot you come out propel all four down and clear Hallelujah yeah boys thanks guys [Music] [Music] that was a really exciting error in the Tetons because it felt like opening up a new way of traveling and a new understanding of the terrain that was making things accessible that hadn't felt accessible before that was really exciting it was a really thrilling time but it was also a time that seemed to have a lot of death [Music] as people were venturing out into that really big terrain the margins were really small and the catastrophes were rarely survived that was the beginning of an era of like losing friends [Music] and that really hit me hard and really started to awaken me to the downside of this whole game that I'd been playing when I look at like the things that I was doing and I come back through photos of that era like I hadn't slowed down at all really and I had kids through all of that and I was just going for it in my mind I was very very thoughtful about what I was doing I was very studious and and engaged and I think I came to a point where I started feeling like if your studious and engaged enough you'll be fine [Music] thank you in 2015 it was the end of the season and my friend Brooke was having a birthday and we were gonna just get us a boy's mission in the mountains so we set our sights on the sickle and we were in a rush of course because we wanted to get there before it got warm so we were kind of approaching with some trepidation but as soon as we got to the Basin we found that a massive D3 Avalanche had already run which meant that the conditions for skiing were going to be pretty poor but that there probably wouldn't be any Avalanche Hazard because the whole thing is already run so we climbed over the debris pile and we're booging up the kuar and it's just really firm when we're on the front points of our crampons and there's like a little skiff of new snow like maybe quarter to half an inch just a tiny little skiff of snow and everybody's fit we're moving fast and we figured we'd pull off for a quick sip of water where we're forced to pull off is not really a very sweet spot and I'm looking up and you can kind of see that we're riding the barrel of the thing so we're like you know what we'll just pull off to the left and I pulled off as far as I could and the boys all stacked up next to me and I hear this hissing sound come from above and I look up and I see the small stream of snow just like hissing its way down this Rundle that's formed above us so I yell quickly heads up boys and I step to the left to just pull out a little bit further but my concern level is pretty low it was pretty small fans out as it approaches us and hits my right boot and starts washing over my boot but it's not hitting my left Boot and I'm just kind of standing there looking at my feet and realizing like oh it's not that big it's going to be it's gonna be fun that was kind of a scare and I like look up and everybody's gone and I was floored I was like that's not possible like I didn't hear a sound and there were three dudes right there it took a moment before I like fully reckoned with like no they've been washed off they've all been knocked off their feet and they're gone and I'm looking down a thousand feet of icy cooler and I can't see anybody and I just turned around and I just ran straight down as I'm approaching kind of the apron I can see this body like crawling across the snow and it's Brooke um and he's like I'm fine and you know so we're like okay so we're the boys they're off on the left and they're not really moving I find Luke and he's not breathing and he doesn't have a pulse and I turned Stephen who's just within a few feet and as I approach him I can share that he's breathing it's really labored but he is breathing and he has a pulse so we start treating him and just trying to take care of him dug out a platform out of Harm's Way and started warming him and putting him in a position of comfort and we're coordinating with search rescue and you know we gave him the best care we could but it wasn't enough and he didn't survive [Music] you just looked down you knew like life's gonna be different [Music] permanently there's this inevitable experience of wondering why you survived I stood right there and I didn't hear anything or experience the horror that all three of them did tumbling down this icy crew are over a cliff I was lucky seeing children who've lost their parents their fathers is just you know that's a lot to reckon with and I just felt like they need to not be around like that much death [Music] you know I don't wish that on on them [Music] I think I couldn't correlate reality with my perception of risk it just seemed like I need to do that every day I need to do more I need to go bigger you know and then the accident happened and a lot of that way of being just did not make any sense and that's why I just had to start back with really simple terrain like to just like find the Love Again find the flow just experience the joy of being in the mountains and sun on your back and just stayed in like pretty mellow Terrain he was devastated he was distraught he lost two close friends Z seemed to like voraciously seek out new information and develop systems for himself that allowed him to be more confident and I think Z's motivation is to facilitate experiences for people to be able to travel through the mountains and ultimately not experience what he experienced himself for me you know I trust him and I trust his process and what people don't often see is just how much methodical like intense work he's just put into every aspect to be good at what he does how he sought out mentors how he you know chooses his Partners all that stuff but it's but it's that reality of like things can go wrong [Music] he's been seeking more opportunities to learn whether it be from the research community of international snow science workshops or what are people thinking about or researching right now he's a perennial student if you will start a guiding again and I spent a lot of time with people who I felt like yeah I can do that with you know these are people who hunger for the mountains but they're people who understand risk and they're going to be good if I need to you know turn around so that everybody comes away being able to pull somebody out of a group ass you know I've never really worked with another guy that I learned so much from every time I'm in the mountains his ability to assess snowpack and his skills with ropes and just everything to do with being in the mountains yeah boys we're out using all our clinking anything yeah he's just a wealth of knowledge and I not only feel really comfortable being in that environment with him but I'm constantly learning and it's pretty special [Music] there's this sense that now I'm on another side of this curtain the curtain's kind of like grief or loss and that you know tempers your vision for adventure in a way that's very healthy it's just real it's um it's a reckoning and to like impart what I've learned from that journey of of surviving that living through that and then choosing to come back to the mountains and having a chance to like pass it on to a younger generation that is just so hungry and so keen and that's been really fulfilling you can start going up I've got you time Optimus vlog [Music] I think I'm an infinitely better Gauger of risk than I was before I need to exercise more restraint for the sake of my family and my kids you know like I absolutely have every intention of surviving my career all the way to the very end like that's my goal [Music] [Music] foreign getting his shoulder checked out it's pretty painful and pretty mobile so I'm thinking it's uh it's gonna be a more long-term injury you ready okay you're gonna add in for my MRI okay I'll take your key okay [Music] hey babe how's that going good a bit confused or surprised I'm just really not yeah I just don't know I don't I don't I don't really know why I'm still here the first thing that was going through my head is I was just really angry actually I was just really mad I was really angry at myself um I just felt really disappointed myself and I felt like I just really misread the situation I should have known better I'm surprised I'm surprised at myself for that that's like almost a 20-year career without Ever Getting ever taking a ride then I also just felt like a lot of sense of like remorse over what I'm you know putting my family through that comes to mind pretty quickly as a veteran you feel like I've really narrowed that Gap and I can perceive what nature is telling me I can read the signs that are around me you know um the rhyme the wind the direction the texture of the snow all these environmental factors that are just like speaking to you and and they allow you to like close that Gap and have this better sense of like what's actually going on below the surface here but you never eliminate that Gap and um when you have an accident it reveals that Gap but looking back on yesterday or day before yesterday I'm not I'm not feeling like oh that was a large gap I was um it wasn't it was a misjudgment [Music] are you using heat considering your right ear down towards your room it's kind of ridiculous really how yeah how selfish what um what I do is you know I think I've just reckoned that a lot yeah so I mean I don't really know you know what's coming next but I'm really not very afraid of it I'm like yeah change is good evolution is good like growing is is good you know my life was just accelerating so fast as much as I would have felt that I was fully present and fully engaged I think I can look back now and see like oh man you just had so many things going on and your head was in so many different places and the best mind frame for understanding natural processes that are going on around you is a very very quiet State of Mind and for this next chapter like how I'm processing the last few months it's like I have got to slow down I've got to like live a life that's in bounds yes I still want that yeah that's still part of my life but like I don't need to live that every day I mean risk is why we love and hate the mountains the experiences that a high-risk environment yields are very very special and I do feel for me that they are like inherent to what it means for me to be human we're on the right side of the grand it's like steeper and then there's like a flat tabletop it humankind seeks risk like it's very healthy you know it's not Disney World that's why it's special like that's why we all seek it in our own ways but I feel like human beings belong in there nice one [Music] [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] [Music]

Channel: Patagonia

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Id: QHVSeqzI1vU

Length: 27min 16sec (1636 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 11 2020