Today is a day where I can’t help but feel moved by the sadness in the world.  I journeyed to Montana over the past four days.  On the drive there I cried, uncertain of why I was crying.  I was overwhelmed with emotion and told my sister that maybe I was mad that she was going to be a mother instead of just my sister (she was due that day).  We both laughed and I apologized for my inexplicable crying– something that is not common for me these days.  I learned later that on that day two souls were taken by an avalanche, one directly and the other indirectly.  The former was a person I worked with in a pizza shop many moons ago, who was just a teenager at the time.  She was probably 10 years younger than me, but she (being zealous), and me (being a poor decision maker), had nearly the same job.  She worked as a dishwasher in the pizza shop and rode a bike around town with her skis attached.  I would always refer to her and her brother as “the mini adults of Bozeman” because they were small replicas of all the 20 and 30 somethings living out the Bozeman dream. I recall a Halloween where her brother had talked her into working on his behalf (if I remember correctly, and it’s possible I don’t).  She showed up, clearly not thrilled to be working, in a full scuba costume.  She was wearing flippers, a snorkel, mask and bikini.  She stood semi-sulking at the dish pit the entire night.  And I laughed about it.  So, so much.  And I have told that story many times over, usually on holidays where I prefer not to be working but am any way.  It was such a perfect way to pout, and it really tickled me at the time, and still does.  And I’m pretty sure that is the person this little lass will always be in my mind.  A few months ago her picture showed up on my Instagram feed and it was neat to see what a little crusher she had become.

She was never my close friend, nor I hers.  I have no reason to grieve her loss any more than a stranger would.  And there is a really horrible feeling that accompanies feeling sad about something that is not yours to feel sadly about.  It conjures up the reminder that one should not borrow trouble.  But my heart feels inexplicably heavy, nevertheless, in the wake of this event.  I attribute this sadness to the ties that bind the mountain community.  My soul is tied up in backcountry skiing and I don’t know that it’s possible to lose someone to an avalanche and not feel the reverberation within yourself.   I think a lot of the idea that we claim to know the risk, mitigate the risk, and accept the remaining risk when we set out each day.  However The Risk looks very different when played out than it does conceptually.  I can liken it to a patient who smokes tobacco.  They accept the risk by saying, “We all die of something,” as if one day they will be told they have cancer and the next they will pass.  I have to explain to these patients that the dieing is the good part– that the inability to exercise, then walk upstairs to your bedroom, then the gasping for breathe while sitting still, then the terror of knowing you’ll feel it all until the very end– that that is the problem with tobacco.  Not the dieing part.  I think the same of avalanches.  All who choose to ski accept the risk on some level, but the actual reality of that risk is unknown to us.  The frantic searching for your partner, the knowledge of what it means as time marches on, the sun setting on a new reality where you go home and your partner doesn’t- even though that’s never what you intended at the start of the day.  That’s the risk.  Death isn’t the risk.  I saw this for the first time on an avalanche recovery in Montana years ago where two teenage boys set out to backcountry ski and only one made it out alive.  It’s the first time I ever thought about what it would be like to start the day as two and finish as one.  It’s the first time I ever felt heartbroken about snow.  And I can’t help but feel the same way now.

There is a collective soul of mountain lovers.  And a collective memory.  These young humans will never reap the benefits of the lessons learned from the mistakes they made.  But there is no one in this community who will not internalize this event.  This event is etched into the hills, the sky, the breeze, as are the memories of the people involved no matter how small or insignificant.  “…to any skier or rider, living or deceased, who’s shaped, led or simply participated in this sport.  From pioneering steep skiers and to friends who break trail, everyone in our small community matters.”