
The Avalanche Hour Podcast
Podcast by Caleb Merrill
Latest episodes

Feb 1, 2020 • 1h 2min
The Avalanche Hour Podcast Episode 4.9 Ed Adams
We sit down with Ed Adams- recently retired professor from Montana State University. Ed was instrumental in the development and success of the SubZero lab at MSU. We chat about his career path, some of the research that he has worked on, and a few stories that happened along the way. Tune in. Music on this episode by Ketsa. Tracks: Night Fly and Greener Grass.

Jan 15, 2020 • 48min
The Avalanche Hour Podcast Episode 4.8 Jamie Laidlaw
Episode 4.8 highlights Guide, Educator, Patroller, Professional Expedition Skier Jamie Laidlaw. Jamie shares some of the lessons he has learned in the mountains, and what has caught him off guard in the snowpack. He details some strategy about going into areas where there is no readily accessed information to historical snowpack data. I know you'll enjoy this one. Cheers.

Jan 1, 2020 • 1h 5min
The Avalanche Hour Podcast Episode 4.7 CJ Svela and Laura Maguire
In this episode, we first chat with CJ Svela who is the Vice President of the Association of Professional Patrollers. He shares with us what the APP is all about, and some of the educational offerings of this winter for Patrollers across the West. We then chat with Laura Maguire, who shares some of her research concerning decision making and cognitive systems in high risk environments.
Check out all of Laura's papers: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Laura_Maguire5
If you would like to help merge further the theory and practice, contact Laura to collaborate:
Maguire.81@osu.edu
Music on this episode was Broke for Free and Anitek. Both tracks were courtesy of freemusicarchive.org and are made possible by the Creative Commons License

Dec 15, 2019 • 49min
The Avalanche Hour Podcast Episode 4.6 Danny Holland- Puckerface Avalanche
Danny Holland recounts his perspective of being part of the group that was involved in a fatal avalanche on December 26, 2013 on Cody Peak, WY. This is not meant to be an exhaustive analysis of the avalanche, but more a conversational piece about how the events of that fateful day unfolded. Thank you to Danny for sharing his story. This is not easy. For more information on this event, see the below links. We can all learn from this.
Accident Report: https://avalanche.state.co.us/caic/acc/acc_report.php?acc_id=510&accfm=inv
The Avalanche Review article by Alex Do: (Page 19) https://static1.squarespace.com/static/59d2a0f0e9bfdf20d6d654b7/t/5a5fbbb824a694f8d83e0d61/1516223431491/TAR3204_ALL_LoRes.pdf

Dec 1, 2019 • 1h 11min
The Avalanche Hour Podcast Episode 4.5 Doug Chabot
Hopefully you all are stuffed from the recent Thanksgiving holiday. More importantly, I hope you were able to spend some quality time with those people you care about. This episode features a great interview with Doug Chabot who is the current director of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center in Bozeman, MT. We chat about some of the strategies the GNAFC utilizes to get their message across to as many diverse user groups as they can. We also chat about his work with several organizations in Pakistan. Doug shares a couple stories of close calls and the subsequent lessons learned from those. Enjoy. Music on this episode was "Somebody" by Gramatik and "Boss O Nova" by Anitek. Enjoy

Nov 15, 2019 • 1h 10min
The Avalanche Hour Podcast Episode 4.4 BrendEn Cronin
We sit down and have a good ol time with BrendEn Cronin. Currently a highway forecaster for Wyoming DOT, BrendEn has been a guide, forecaster, ski patroller, and all around badass kayaker. We cover lots in this episode, and I think we had a pretty good time doing it. Hope you enjoy. Music in this episode: Funk it VIP by Gramatik and DeFunk as well as So Far by Anitek.

Nov 1, 2019 • 1h 12min
The Avalanche Hour Podcast Episode 4.3 Don Sharaf
I travelled to Jackson WY last week and sat down with Don Sharaf. Don has spent the better part of the past 3 decades working in the snow and avalanche realm while forecasting, guiding, and educating others in this high risk environment. We break down what we can do given all of our awareness of human factors, talk about how to measure success and failure in avalanche education, whether confidence is outpacing competence and so much more. We recorded this interview in a county library, and unfortunately there was some interference in the recording that needed to be scrubbed out, resulting in the interview sound quality becoming a bit dull. Sorry about that! After you listen to the show, make sure you check out Don's interview with Drew Hardesty on the UAC podcast. Below is a link to that. If you are interested in the Gordon Graham video referenced, there is also a link to that below. Music on this episode is Anitek- Courtesy of the Free Music Archive and made possible by the Creative Commons License. Enjoy!
https://utahavalanchecenter.org/blog/38344
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuVo4Nhy7Us

Oct 15, 2019 • 1h 16min
The Avalanche Hour Podcast Episode 4.2 Robin Pendery and Sara Cohen
This episode features a couple of Crystal Mountain's finest. Robin Pendery is the Assistant Forecaster for the avalanche program and Sara Cohen is the director of the dog rescue program at Crystal Mountain in Washington. We talk about the forecasting and mitigation program with Robin, then dig into the dog program with Sara. You'll learn about what goes into the thought process of an avalanche mitigation morning, as well as what makes a good dog team training program. Enjoy! Music by Broke for Free

Oct 1, 2019 • 1h 7min
The Avalanche Hour Podcast Episode 4.1 Joe and Mike Royer
Welcome to the 4th season of the Avalanche Hour Podcast! This episode features the first family of heliskiing in the US. Mike and Joe Royer sit down with me and discuss the history and the future of Ruby Mountain Heli Ski. We also dive into some of the characteristics of this uniquely situated mountain range, the snowpack that we deal with there, and how we forecast for and deal with Avalanche hazard in a busy heli skiing schedule. Music on this episode is Loungin' by Gramatik and Hicktronica feat Dirtwire by The Polish Ambassador. I hope you enjoy!

Jun 15, 2019 • 44min
The Avalanche Hour Podcast Episode 3.19 Roger Atkins
Last episode of season 3 highlights an interview with longtime Heli Ski Guide Roger Atkins. Roger presented the paper Yin, Yang, and You at the 2014 ISSW. He outlined how approaching each day with a strategic mindset might help guiding operations choose appropriate terrain and manage clients in the best way. This will be a timeless episode, that would be helpful to review once the snow starts flying again. The beginning of the show has some background noise, but it decreases throughout the show. A link to Roger's Paper is below:http://arc.lib.montana.edu/snow-science/objects/ISSW14_paper_O9.02.pdf
Enjoy!