Black Diamond TV released its second webisode this week, titled, The Forecaster: A Message from the Backcountry. This time around it features Utah’s own Drew Hardesty, an forecaster for the Utah Avalanche Center. While we get to know the guy who’s voice we hear on the daily avalanche report phone message, the real thrust of the edit is an important message: the backcountry is getting more crowded, therefore the stakes and our responsibility towards other people is now higher.
The video hits home. We are at the edge of disaster in the Wasatch. All it will take is one major avalanche accident caused by a reckless skier or snowboarder in the backcountry, to effectively end the freedom we enjoy in the backcountry. As Hardesty says in the video, “If we do nothing to offset the trend of increasing accidents, when a skier triggers an avalanche that runs down across the open road and knocks that school bus full of kids into the creek, if we’ve done nothing, then what can we say?”
If something as tragic as that were to ever happen, you can be sure that lawmakers will pass regulation that would affect backcountry users forever. We have to police ourselves, and be responsible for our actions in the mountains. It’s a message we can all benefit from as we skin up a trail in the Wasatch.
Here’s the video: