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UG Op Ed: Response to Jamie Pierre’s Passing
[ 0 ]
November 17, 2011 | jsmith
By JSmith
This past Sunday afternoon, legendary big mountain professional
skier, Jamie Pierre, was killed by an avalanche within the boundaries of
the still-closed Snowbird Resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. I
first got the bad news in the hinterlands of Idaho while returning home
to Jackson from an ice climbing session in Bozeman. Driving through the
frozen darkness near Ashton, I spiritually joined many others in feeling
shocked and saddened at the loss of his life. Though we had not been in
touch recently, I met Jamie about 10 years ago when I crashed on his
couch in Sandy while in town to do some work for a magazine at the OR
show. Over the next few years, I was privileged to share several days of
Wasatch snow with him. Jamie Pierre was a memorable character and I am
glad to have had the opportunity to know him.
As much as I feel sadness at the sudden loss of a man who was an
influential and exciting skier, a father, husband and friend to many,
there is a separate aspect of the situation that is giving me an angst
that won’t go away and needs to be spoken.
Three days after the avalanche, the expected blitz of snow sports
media has flooded countless thousands of Facebook newsfeeds with a
string of sincere tribute articles and videos commemorating Jamie’s life
and achievements on the snow. Though dominant industry websites like
Freeskier and Powder have shared the accident report by
the Utah Avalanche Center, the discussion about what really happened on
the mountain screeches to a halt there. The snow sports community, with
the tone set by its endemic media, stops at paying tribute to the pro
skier and the man, instead of also discussing the exceptionally
dangerous conditions and decision making that led to the accident. If
there is discussion of the accident, it is quickly dismissed as part of
the inherent risks of backcountry skiing.
Both because this grief is fresh and because pro skiers, similar to
athletes of other heavily marketed sports, exist on a deified pedestal,
it is difficult for many to confront the sensitive core of this
situation. The risks that Jamie and his partner assumed that day were
well beyond industry standard and errant decision-making played a
central role in the accident. People make mistakes in the mountains and
however much they are idolized, the truth is that pro skiers are
actually not descended from an omnipotent hippy ganja snow god. With
that out of the way, let’s be straight up: Jamie Pierre made judgment
calls that cost him his life.
While I am no paragon of snow science, a read of the accident report
and its stunning photos clearly demonstrate that the thin early
snowpack was particularly volatile on 11/13. Jamie and his partner
experienced this volatility in dramatic form by (possibly unknowingly)
remotely triggering a large avalanche on a similar aspect just before
they made the fatal decision to drop into an arguably more dangerous
line – the South Chute – a 40 degree avalanche path/terrain trap
festooned with deadly, early season obstacles. Although the report
indicated that its absence was irrelevant to the final outcome, Jamie
and his partner decided to skip carrying avalanche rescue gear into the
mountains that day, nor did they read that morning’s avalanche report in
which the danger was reported at Considerable to High.
My analysis cannot credibly go much further, but I just can’t shake
the sense of disbelief that an elite 38 year old backcountry skier and
long-time Snowbird local would choose to jump into South Chute last
Sunday given the information that he must have gathered about the
dangers present in the snowpack at that time.
Instead of taking an honest look at a terrible accident that should
have been completely preventable, most snow sports media outlets have
traded genuine dialogue for fantasy-land fruit punch. Perhaps the most
egregious example is provided by Unofficial Networks. On Monday morning,
they published an article with the incredibly out of touch title, Skiing Alta on Avalanche Day.
Avalanche Day – that sure sounds fun. Kind of like Christmas?
Valentines Day? St. Pattys? As if the title is not strange enough under
the circumstances, the post features a pair of video edits that tacitly
encourage casual skier behavior in the backcountry, even though a person
was killed just across the same mountain that very day. The first
video, which is produced by Unofficial Networks and appears on their own
Vimeo page is titled “Alta Pow and crowds 11-13-11”.
The caption beneath the player reads: “Skiing at Alta with friends in
the new pow. There were lots of avalanches going off so we stuck to the
Lone Pine zone and lapped it up. Today was a sad day because we lost ski
legend Jamie Pierre in a slide today”.
If this groggy land of happy shred dreams is reality for some, there
is another reality that needs to be recognized; that of the rescuers
working at the grim scene in dangerous conditions last Sunday afternoon.
The Utah Avalanche Center’s 11/13 /11 Gad Valley accident report
concludes with this simple statement. “…other parties at Alta continued
to ski and knock down avalanches ….while the rescue was in progress.
Creating another incident during this situation is unacceptable.”
A look at the sport of climbing, another risky endeavor of passion,
provides a bit of perspective. When an accident strikes a well known
climber, it seems that the climbing community, supported by its media,
is able to simultaneously grieve and pay tribute while dissecting the
accident in order to learn and improve safety practices. In snow sports,
the opposite mindset holds court. The marketed image of a pro athlete
and the desire to keep that image intact regardless often comes at the
cost of the legitimate public dialogue that is needed to make us
stronger and safer. A candid discussion of the decisions and events that
led to Jamie’s death would not denigrate the memory of Jamie Pierre.
Instead, it would make the time that he spent on this planet, as a
person and a skier, even more valuable.
Jamie and his family had just moved north to Big Sky, MT. As this excellent interview by BombSnow.com shows, the community was welcoming him and he was clearly excited to be there. Jamie, you’ll be missed!
UG Op Ed: Response to Jamie Pierre’s Passing
[ 0 ]
November 17, 2011 | jsmith
By JSmith
This past Sunday afternoon, legendary big mountain professional
skier, Jamie Pierre, was killed by an avalanche within the boundaries of
the still-closed Snowbird Resort in Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah. I
first got the bad news in the hinterlands of Idaho while returning home
to Jackson from an ice climbing session in Bozeman. Driving through the
frozen darkness near Ashton, I spiritually joined many others in feeling
shocked and saddened at the loss of his life. Though we had not been in
touch recently, I met Jamie about 10 years ago when I crashed on his
couch in Sandy while in town to do some work for a magazine at the OR
show. Over the next few years, I was privileged to share several days of
Wasatch snow with him. Jamie Pierre was a memorable character and I am
glad to have had the opportunity to know him.
As much as I feel sadness at the sudden loss of a man who was an
influential and exciting skier, a father, husband and friend to many,
there is a separate aspect of the situation that is giving me an angst
that won’t go away and needs to be spoken.
Three days after the avalanche, the expected blitz of snow sports
media has flooded countless thousands of Facebook newsfeeds with a
string of sincere tribute articles and videos commemorating Jamie’s life
and achievements on the snow. Though dominant industry websites like
Freeskier and Powder have shared the accident report by
the Utah Avalanche Center, the discussion about what really happened on
the mountain screeches to a halt there. The snow sports community, with
the tone set by its endemic media, stops at paying tribute to the pro
skier and the man, instead of also discussing the exceptionally
dangerous conditions and decision making that led to the accident. If
there is discussion of the accident, it is quickly dismissed as part of
the inherent risks of backcountry skiing.
Both because this grief is fresh and because pro skiers, similar to
athletes of other heavily marketed sports, exist on a deified pedestal,
it is difficult for many to confront the sensitive core of this
situation. The risks that Jamie and his partner assumed that day were
well beyond industry standard and errant decision-making played a
central role in the accident. People make mistakes in the mountains and
however much they are idolized, the truth is that pro skiers are
actually not descended from an omnipotent hippy ganja snow god. With
that out of the way, let’s be straight up: Jamie Pierre made judgment
calls that cost him his life.
While I am no paragon of snow science, a read of the accident report
and its stunning photos clearly demonstrate that the thin early
snowpack was particularly volatile on 11/13. Jamie and his partner
experienced this volatility in dramatic form by (possibly unknowingly)
remotely triggering a large avalanche on a similar aspect just before
they made the fatal decision to drop into an arguably more dangerous
line – the South Chute – a 40 degree avalanche path/terrain trap
festooned with deadly, early season obstacles. Although the report
indicated that its absence was irrelevant to the final outcome, Jamie
and his partner decided to skip carrying avalanche rescue gear into the
mountains that day, nor did they read that morning’s avalanche report in
which the danger was reported at Considerable to High.
My analysis cannot credibly go much further, but I just can’t shake
the sense of disbelief that an elite 38 year old backcountry skier and
long-time Snowbird local would choose to jump into South Chute last
Sunday given the information that he must have gathered about the
dangers present in the snowpack at that time.
Instead of taking an honest look at a terrible accident that should
have been completely preventable, most snow sports media outlets have
traded genuine dialogue for fantasy-land fruit punch. Perhaps the most
egregious example is provided by Unofficial Networks. On Monday morning,
they published an article with the incredibly out of touch title, Skiing Alta on Avalanche Day.
Avalanche Day – that sure sounds fun. Kind of like Christmas?
Valentines Day? St. Pattys? As if the title is not strange enough under
the circumstances, the post features a pair of video edits that tacitly
encourage casual skier behavior in the backcountry, even though a person
was killed just across the same mountain that very day. The first
video, which is produced by Unofficial Networks and appears on their own
Vimeo page is titled “Alta Pow and crowds 11-13-11”.
The caption beneath the player reads: “Skiing at Alta with friends in
the new pow. There were lots of avalanches going off so we stuck to the
Lone Pine zone and lapped it up. Today was a sad day because we lost ski
legend Jamie Pierre in a slide today”.
If this groggy land of happy shred dreams is reality for some, there
is another reality that needs to be recognized; that of the rescuers
working at the grim scene in dangerous conditions last Sunday afternoon.
The Utah Avalanche Center’s 11/13 /11 Gad Valley accident report
concludes with this simple statement. “…other parties at Alta continued
to ski and knock down avalanches ….while the rescue was in progress.
Creating another incident during this situation is unacceptable.”
A look at the sport of climbing, another risky endeavor of passion,
provides a bit of perspective. When an accident strikes a well known
climber, it seems that the climbing community, supported by its media,
is able to simultaneously grieve and pay tribute while dissecting the
accident in order to learn and improve safety practices. In snow sports,
the opposite mindset holds court. The marketed image of a pro athlete
and the desire to keep that image intact regardless often comes at the
cost of the legitimate public dialogue that is needed to make us
stronger and safer. A candid discussion of the decisions and events that
led to Jamie’s death would not denigrate the memory of Jamie Pierre.
Instead, it would make the time that he spent on this planet, as a
person and a skier, even more valuable.
Jamie and his family had just moved north to Big Sky, MT. As this excellent interview by BombSnow.com shows, the community was welcoming him and he was clearly excited to be there. Jamie, you’ll be missed!
