Bodie Shandro Interview - backcountry safety

This episode is sponsored by Carv, the digital ski coach, and one of the updates I've really enjoyed this season is the addition of separate SkiIQs for moguls and short turns. In the past, Carv scoring was mainly built around carving metrics, which meant everything was viewed through that lens, but Carv have gone deep on that research and completely separated what makes a great short turn or mogul turn different from a carved turn. To give you an idea of how accurate it's become, the person at the top of the Carv leaderboard right now isn't a carving specialist, it's Olympic mogul skier Matt Graham. So the best SkiIQ in the world at the moment is coming from someone who lives and breathes bumps, and to be honest, my own highest SkiIQ is also in the moguls, which makes sense because that's my favorite type of skiing. What's really exciting this year is the addition of turn tempo, so basically your turns per minute. It's such a simple external output that's incredibly fun to play with. So good skiing isn't just about edge similarity or parallel skis, it's about how you interact with the terrain and whether you can change your tempo on demand. So seeing numbers like my quickest tempo of 117 turns per minute in the bumps gives you something concrete to compare, refine, and work toward. I've been working with Carv since 2020, and every year I'm genuinely impressed with how much the product evolves. They keep expanding what you can measure, and they're covering more and more of the turn types that skiers actually use all over the mountain. So if you're interested in tracking not just your carving but every turn you make on the snow, check out Carv. And a big thanks to the team for supporting this episode.

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Global Skiing Podcast. I'm your host Tom Gellie, and today I'm recording from Sun Peaks in Canada. I'm just over here working on a project and doing some training. And today on the show, I've got Bodhi Chandro, off-piste camp coordinator of Sun Peaks Resort. So it's a little bit different sort of episode today, focused, uh, more on off-piste safety education and backcountry skiing. Bodhi and I have known each other for quite a while now, a number of years, and become good friends. And, uh, he's just started, uh, in the last few years a really cool program that is basically bridging a gap, a space that is, is needed, uh, as all of the ski industry grows and becomes more into the backcountry. So I'm going to let him speak more about that, but I'd like to introduce, uh, Bodhi. Bodhi being a Level 3 CSIA ski instructor. He is a certified Canadian ski guide, an active member of the Canadian Ski Patrol Association, Canadian Operational Avalanche Technician, and is also an avalanche skills instructor for the Canadian Avalanche Association. So, Bodhi, hopefully I covered all that there. If there's a— if you wouldn't mind just giving us a little bit of a history of what brought you into this off-piste camps backcountry education program at Sun Peaks.

Great, Tom. Well, awesome to have you back here at Sun Peaks. Always great to have— great to have you back and do some skiing with you. Um, yeah, you know, it started, as you mentioned, a few years ago. The industry as a whole, whether it was social media, filmmakers, magazines, were all really romanticizing the lure of the backcountry, fresh tracks. And kind of at the same time, every ski manufacturer out there was starting to make equipment that made the backcountry that much more accessible. I remember back 17 years ago, you know, there was 2 or 3 manufacturers that made, you know, touring skis, touring bindings, AT boots. Now, you know, every major manufacturer is doing it. And as a result, you know, it's making the backcountry far more accessible for a lot more people. And after having gone through my training with the Canadian Ski Guide Institute, it really became evident to me that, you know, that there was a missing link, and that was the education. You know, far more than what you're carrying in your pack or what you have for equipment, it's what you're carrying between your ears. And that educational link really was the impetus for putting these camps together for Sun Peaks.

Excellent. So, you basically, like, how did the opportunity come about for you to introduce this at Sun Peaks?

It was all timing, as everything is, Tom. So at the time, I was, uh, I was guiding for Mike Wigley Helicopter Skiing, fantastic operation here out of Blue River. And some peaks during the 2014-2015 season incorporated what was formerly a backcountry area, about 500 acres of terrain, formerly— well, still known as Gill's, but formerly backcountry. They incorporated into the controlled recreation area, and this was an area that's always been, you know, fantastic off-piste skiing. You have to hike to it.

Yeah, kind of black pitch.

Exactly, black, double black, deep snow. The perfect aspect to get, you know, yeah, when the report says 15 centimeters, I guarantee you there's 30 out there. Yeah, all the time. So it was just, just, it's incredible terrain, you know, what, what Avalanche Canada would rate as, as challenging terrain. It wasn't simple terrain, it wasn't really complex terrain, but challenging enough terrain you know, some 38-degree pitches, lots of trees, gullies, but it was incorporated into the CRA. As a result, it is now controlled and patrolled through our snow safety program here at Sun Peaks, but it's still sidecountry. And so it was great when it— well, it was kind of good, it was good and bad. It was great when it was incorporated with the CRA because it presented an opportunity, but it was an area that I spent a lot of time in for the last 17 17 years just on my own touring. The season prior to it being incorporated into the controlled recreation area, there were a couple of incidents where people were involved in involuntary overnight camping trips out there. Okay. Because again, it was out of bounds and people at that time were sort of ducking the rope and finding themselves in less than desirable situations. Mm-hmm. So I seen a great opportunity, number one, to keep myself closer to home, to my wife and family. But two, to bring to Sun Peaks, who has always been really open-minded about new programs, an opportunity to sort of pioneer some education. And I presented or proposed to them a number of different camps that all fall under our Off-Piste Camps programs, just to help promote backcountry safety. So a variety of different programs, 4 or 5 in all now this season, and they just They took it with open arms. Yeah, it's been fantastic.

So, um, because I remember when we sort of first met, you started tail guiding for Mike, for Mike Wiggly Heli Skiing.

That's right.

And so when you were doing that, you would obviously be seeing these guests coming in to go on their, you know, this amazing heli ski operation. Is that kind of where you saw there was a bit of missing education or these people come in and it's like going from playing in the playground to being thrown in the Atlantic Ocean and sort of swim?

Yeah.

Or, you know, is that what you saw and there's a big jump? Is there a chance that we can make people, you know, safer, more aware, more educated So when they go from skiing in bounds at a resort where it's a lot safer, still dangerous but a lot safer, to really out in the elements.

Absolutely, and you know, great analogy. And the analogy I often use even in teaching my ST courses is as a surfer we talk about, you know, are you playing in the whitewater on your own, coming to the beach, or are you actually, you know, out in a lineup with a group. And you know, it's a different dynamic and there's a lot more hazards or considerations when you're out there. So there's no question, I mean, what I've seen going on in any backcountry environment, whether I was out in Gills on my own prior to it being incorporated with the CRA, or experiences up at Mike Wiggly's, is that yeah, people are coming out there. The biggest obstacle perhaps that everybody faces going into new territory, whether it's surfing, whether it's skiing, whatever it might be, is that you don't know what you don't know. If you're not able to identify or if you're not aware of a hazard, it's very difficult to avoid it, much less know what to do in the event of an incident. So this is really what we've tried to do here at Sun Peaks is take these programs and it's hazard awareness, you know, preventative maintenance versus crisis management for a better way of saying it.

Yeah.

But you know, once you know what things are and I can arm you with some strategies to avoid them, yeah, and if something does happen, you know what to do, it's going to be a much safer world for everybody. And that's whether it's in— whether you're heliskiing, snowcat skiing, backcountry touring, or literally inbound skiing, because these hazards do exist everywhere.

So once you're out there, on that topic, so say I join your, uh, your program, what are some of these hazards that I, that I may perhaps just overlook without realizing that are perhaps even just within the resort boundary.

Interesting you bring that up because one of the latest courses that we've sort of put together here, just due to demand based on some of the other, other programs that we've had, is our new All Mountain Safety session that's coming out next year. So this is— it's a shortened session developed for skiers and snowboarders of all ages who just want to develop a greater awareness of the hazards and develop some safe skiing strategies in all-mountain terrain within the resort. And they include everything from colder exposure injuries, variable snow conditions, terrain traps. Tree wells is a really big one. We could spend hours talking about tree wells.

Yeah, because that's the one I remember we've talked a bit before about, the tree wells thing. So for instance, what, what is some, you know, like, to really open people's eyes, like, can you tell us a bit about tree wells?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

And it's funny because nobody really talked about tree wells until, uh, recently, right? You've been skiing in a resort far longer than I have. And, and, and the discussion of tree wells really hasn't surfaced. Um, tree wells exist everywhere in the world that there's a tree on a ski resort. And essentially the way a tree well is formed, what a tree well is, is it's if you have, say, a meter of snow that as that meter of snow falls, the boughs of most coniferous trees or evergreen trees, as we know our Christmas trees, as everybody around the world knows them, the boughs prevent that snow from filling in around the trunk.

Yeah.

So all you have to do the next time you're skiing, just reach over, it can be a foot or a meter off of a groomed terrain, and poke your pole in next to a tree. And if there's a meter of snow, there's a good chance that you'll sink that pole a meter. So So there's a hollow in around that tree. What can happen is, is, you know, oftentimes we're skiing in the trees, they're a little bit tighter, you trip up, you can either end up falling into that tree well, either in a, in an upright and/or in a worst-case scenario in an inverted position. The danger there being asphyxiation.

Yeah.

So you're into, if there's snow, there's more snow that's just suddenly filled in, there's more snow that potentially has dropped off of the boughs. When we hear about— your oxygen is cut off, you have— they say statistically, you know, 15 to 20 minutes once you've created an airspace for somebody to come and get you. So it's— it happens. I've seen it happen so many times backcountry skiing. I've seen it happen in resort. Yeah, it's just— they're out there, they're out there, but they just haven't been spoken about. So we talk about things like, okay, here's— this is what a tree well is. I'll take a group out and and I've got one going out tomorrow. I've got, you know, one of the local race clubs here from Sun Peaks has hired me to take them out. And, you know, we'll go and I'll jump in a tree well and they're absolutely amazed. I'll be in a tree well like up to my neck looking out at them and they're going, my God, well, I ski, this is my favorite run, I ski in here all the time, I never knew this existed.

One meter off the side.

Exactly.

Yeah.

So if there's a meter and a half of snow, there could be a meter and a half deep tree well. If there's 4 meters of snow in some backcountry areas in British Columbia, there could be 4-meter deep tree well. So the consequences are considerable when you think about that.

Yeah, so like, uh, I really, you know, I was kind of shocked when you were talking about— so say now I've gone through this, this training, I'm aware of tree wells, I'm at Mike Wiggly's, you and I are skiing together, I, I ski down, you're my buddy, and I fall into a tree well and you are having the time of your life and you ski down, say, you talk about seconds, every second being a certain amount of time to get back up the hill. So, say I fall in a tree well and then you count 5 seconds, you ski down the hill. How long, like, have I got before you can come and help me?

This is great. I'm glad you remembered that. 'cause we ski in the trees a lot together. And I see you have a whistle on your jacket now too, which is fantastic. So, number one, we identified what a tree well is. And then, if I can jump to safe skiing in trees. So, you nailed it. Number one, you're always skiing with a buddy. Your buddy is your lifeline. So that buddy needs to be within audible or visual distance. You either need to see them or hear them. And let's face it, we all want fresh tracks. You don't want to be skiing in my tracks. Usually it's me skiing in yours anyway. You ski a lot faster. With that being said, you know, it's— we always want to see or hear our buddy. So there'll be that call out, "Eh-oh, eh-oh." I'll call it out, you call it back. I'll call it out, you call it back. If suddenly I don't hear you reply to me, I stop. Okay. So, and then I'm listening for hopefully your whistle.

Yeah.

So this is the other thing we train. So if you've gone down, if you've been and found yourself inverted in a tree well or even vertical in a tree well, once you're in there, I'll talk about a couple of things you need to do. But you know, you're going to get on your blow your whistle. And by the way, whistle is the cheapest and the most effective safety device that you can have on the mountain, whether you're lost, whether you're in a tree well, just even to guide your friends through the trees for a regroup, which is really important when you're skiing in trees as well. So you talked about the second rule. So let's say I didn't stop after I missed hearing your "ayo." Yes. For every second that I continue down the hill— and this is kind of a general rule in unconsolidated snow. Anybody that's tried to run back uphill for anything knows how difficult that is.

In powder snow.

In powder snow.

Yep.

One second is one minute. So if I just keep going for 15 seconds past where I last heard you because I was just having too good a time, That's potentially 15 minutes for me to just get back up to find you, if I can find you.

Yeah.

Which is pretty much utilized the majority of the time that you have if you are asphyxiating. So the whole idea of skiing with your buddy and really listening, regrouping often too, you know, don't wait till, yeah, we'll see at the lift, or until we get out on the next, on the next run, or at the bottom of this run. Regroup often, pull them in with those AOs. You know, let's say, okay, we're going to do 20 turns, Tom, and let's regroup again. Okay, good, high five, let's do it again. And that's the biggest thing that we can teach in tree wells. Obviously, you know, the obvious things. Number one, don't ski with pole straps. Pole straps, uh, in any backcountry situation aren't a good idea. They get hooked on trees, you'll pull your arm out of the socket, or they can impinge your arms if you do fall in a tree well. Um, you know, secondly, ski for white White spaces, if you look at a tree, generally you go to the tree. Try and turn on the downside of a tree as opposed to the uphill side of a tree are important things.

So I'm gonna bring you back to, so I've fallen in this tree well headfirst, we're gonna take the 5 seconds you ski down because it's an awesome day, and then you don't hear my 'eyo' but you hear my whistle you know, come back up. Takes you 5 minutes to hike up. What's happened to me in that 5 minutes time roughly? Like, what do you think? How long have I roughly got? You know, what am I probably going to be experiencing in that tree well upside down?

Okay, and I'll go back to one of the really important things we're talking about whistles. Don't keep your whistle in your thigh pocket of your pants. Okay, really difficult to get out if you're jammed in a tree well. So make sure that that whistle, number one, is either attached to that upper— your zipper, like up on your main zipper, on your collar, or on your chest. But make sure it's readily accessible.

Yeah.

So what are you potentially experiencing if you go inverted in a tree well? You're gonna pile in. If you're in on skis, the skis might hold you up. But at the same time, a lot of times we'll double eject, and that's how we end up as skiers into a tree well. So the first thing you want to do is self-arrest. Try and get a hold of the trunk of the tree or the branches of the tree to prevent yourself from going in any deeper. As hard as it is, try not to shake the tree. The reason there's no snow in that little space that you've fallen into is because it's sitting on the boughs.

Yeah.

If you shake the tree in panic, the rest of that snow comes in, can fill in potential airways or breathing space, but also can make you more difficult to find if it covers up your skis if they're— if you haven't lost them, or it covers up your tracks. So once you're in there, you know, self-arrest, create an airspace with your hand if you can, because sometimes there is low-density snow gets pulled in there. So make sure you've got an airspace, not unlike in an avalanche situation. Yeah, blow your whistle. From there, if you've done due diligence, your buddy's going to come and find you. Yeah. If they haven't, it's going to get to be a fairly precarious situation. We've trained, and I've inserted myself upside down, inverted, into a tree well, and I have not been able to get out. So it's a very, very scary situation.

How long were you in there?

We were maybe 5 minutes. Okay.

But it was enough to really start panicking?

It was very uncomfortable. It was uncomfortable immediately in there. Just being in an inverted position, I think, automatically throws us off a little bit. But all of a sudden it's inverted, you've got snow, it's muffled voices if you're lucky enough to have voices around you because you were training with partners. So yeah, it's uncomfortable situations. You've got to also, you know, important thing to consider is not panic. Yeah, just like in an avalanche situation, you know, I hate to talk about these things, but conserve your air. Yeah, there's a lot of air and snow. Um, just make sure the biggest thing is we breathe in our own carbon dioxide. And thus the asphyxiation. But ever go on a backcountry touring trip and take a big pot of snow out to go boil for your soup and you'll find out that there's about an inch of water in the back. That's because there's so much air in snow, which is great. But that being said, we still have a fixed amount of time. You know, it varies, no general rule, but you know, 15-20 minutes.

So there isn't a general rule? Okay, over 15-20 minutes things are getting pretty bad.

They can be, absolutely, if you've got a blocked airway. So the next consideration, you know, okay, you're hoping your buddy is coming. Sure enough, if I'm hiking back up that hill, and I promise you I'll never leave you for 5 minutes up there, right? You know, I'm gonna try and find you. I'm gonna try and follow that whistle. The most common error that people make in a tree well rescue is they get up to where they see the skis or the feet and they want to pull somebody back out the top of the hole. So two things happen there. Number one, you're working against gravity, and the likelihood of you doing so is slim to none.

Yeah.

But two, as you're pushing and pulling, you're pushing more snow into the hole, so that becomes a little more dangerous, obviously, for the individual stuck in the tree. Well, what we want to try and do is just like first aid, is it's ABCs, right? Airway, breathing. So you're not breathing through your feet. I want to get to where the head is.

Yeah.

So always go to the downside of the tree Thinking if they're inverted, where their head might be. Got it. And that way you can dig towards their face. I don't care if I see, you know, a lot of bleeding, fractures. Bottom line is airway is what's going to keep them alive. Yeah, get to their head. If you find them— and what I'll do in a situation, unfortunately I haven't been in this situation outside of training, but call out. So if I, if I see, okay, there's Tom Gellie. Tom, Tom, can you hear me? Can you hear me? If you reply, I know one thing right away.

Yeah, there's some, there is some air, you know, you, yeah, you're breathing.

Yeah, you've got a patent airway. Okay, great. Not that I'm going to slow down at all, but I'm trying to establish that as I'm working my way towards you. If you're unresponsive and I get to you, the first thing that I want to do is check inside your mouth for an ice plug. So what can happen is, just as in avalanches or in tree wells or even SIS, which is snow immersion suffocation, where you just fall in deep snow, you know, you're going in with your mouth wide open and you choke on that snow. Open the mouth, look for an ice plug. You might have to reach in and pull out a little snow cone. And at that point, hopefully, you know, I think first aid, CPR, artificial ventilations, and so on. Once you've reestablished a patent airway and/or hopefully they are breathing, then it's much easier to dig and pull them out with gravity down the hill versus trying to tug. Tugging them off the top.

Okay, awesome. So I just got rescued.

You just got rescued. Sweet. Good job, mate. Yeah, awesome.

Cool. I mean, that to me, being an Australian, I mean, I've skied in North America, Canada, you know, many seasons, lots of time. That is really a big wake-up call, you know, just to be aware of that and to have that knowledge in the back of my head. You know, I can look at if we get you know, 50 centimeters. Hmm, I'm gonna make sure, you know, I'm eager to ski this powder, but I'm going to get my buddy behind me and we're just going to have a quick 30-second chat. Might even be before we get there. Hey, let's keep together. These are the rules. We're calling out, you know, this amount of turns. If you don't see me, you stop and you see where I am.

Yeah.

This episode is sponsored by Carv, the digital ski coach, and one of the updates I've really enjoyed this season is the addition of separate SkiIQs for moguls and short turns. In the past, Carv scoring was mainly built around carving metrics, which meant everything was viewed through that lens. But Carv have gone deep on that research and completely separated what makes a great short turn or mogul turn different from a carved turn. To give you an idea of how accurate it's become, the person at the top of the Carv leaderboard right now isn't a carving specialist, it's Olympic mogul skier Matt Graham. So the best SkiIQ in the world at the moment is coming from someone who lives and breathes bumps, and to be honest, my own highest SkiIQ is also in the moguls, which makes sense because that's my favorite type of skiing. What's really exciting this year is the addition of turn tempo, so basically your turns per minute. It's such a simple external output that's incredibly fun to play with. So good skiing isn't just about edge similarity or parallel skis, it's about how you interact with the terrain and whether you can change your tempo on demand. So seeing numbers like my quickest tempo of 117 turns per minute in the bumps gives you something concrete to compare, refine, and work toward. I've been working with Carv since 2020, and every year I'm genuinely impressed with how much the product evolves. They keep expanding what you can measure, and they're covering more and more of the turn types that skiers actually use all over the mountain. So if you're interested in tracking not just your carving but every turn you make on the snow, check out Carv. And a big thanks to the team for supporting this episode.

Because I want to live.

Yeah, if you wait to get back to the lift or get back to lunch and go, yeah, you're a big group, yeah, where's Tom? Oh, we haven't seen him since we're up in the trees.

Yeah.

And you know, it's, it's posted at most resorts, it's posted here at Sun Peaks as well. You know, gladed areas are not patrolled. I mean, patrollers are doing an amazing job in every resort They cannot possibly on their sweeps check every tree well.

That's right.

So it's really up to that buddy and you've got to stick to that buddy system and that's what will invariably save you in the event of an incident.

So what, like, sorry, not what, who would you say would be the kind of person that these products programs would be targeted towards?

Literally—

Who would get some really good benefit out of it?

Anybody that skis off-piste. The moment you leave the groomed trail, and I show this all the time on our way out to our Gills tour when we do our camps, there's a cat track. The cat has just freshly groomed a track and I can stand on that track, reach over, I go to my go-to tree and I just lean over, literally while still standing on the cat track, and I'll sink my pole right to my elbow. And it's so the second you leave groomed terrain, you want to know this. You want to know what terrain traps are, you want to know what gullies are, you want to know about cliffs and roads and, and all these types of things. Even simple things like low light, people take, you know, take for granted low light. I wake up in the morning, the first thing I look at, whether I'm guiding within the resort area boundary or whether I'm guiding in the backcountry is, you know, what's the forecast for the day? What's the light out there? What goggle lens are you choosing? Again, if you can't see a hazard, pretty difficult to avoid it. Yeah, you know, no, we're not skiing up an alpine terrain where there's crevasses that can eat you alive, but at the same time, if you can't even recognize variable snow condition, a crust, or sastrugi wind waves that might trip you up, yeah, you know, that's a hazard. That's a hazard, right? Or if you miss a shallow or a gully So, you know, the first thing I do is I look at the weather, I dress appropriately, I pick the right lenses, and then I usually, you know, based on just local knowledge, which way the winds are coming from, what the temperatures are, what the humidity is, generally you can find the best stashes of snow. So it's not only to, you know, to avoid hazards, but it's also to ensure a great experience for myself, my friends, or my guests.

Yeah, cool. So yeah, anyone really, even people who probably started venturing in the backcountry country should really get some education. It doesn't have to be through your program, they just need to start finding out about all these hazards, become aware of it, because without that knowledge you just, you're clueless, right?

It's incredibly important. And there, you know, in today's internet world there's just so many resources out there. I mean, check out Avalanche Canada for resources for the public. There's a plethora of information out there. Backcountry Access, in my mind, the best backcountry gear out there. Probe, shovel, transceiver. By the way, and I always like to point this out, you know, although each are sold separately, do not ever travel in the backcountry without all three.

Yes.

Probes find people. Yep. Shovels dig them out. Transceivers— pardon me, transceivers find transceivers.

Yes.

Probes find people. Shovels dig them out. Just try and dig somebody out from a a meter and a half of snow with your transceiver and you'll see what I mean. Yeah, so all three, an absolute necessity, plus a buddy anytime you're going into the backcountry. So that's vitally important.

Um, like, uh, what are your thoughts on, you know, as you said, you know, the, the industry is following suit, there's more and more gear out there, airbags being another big one. Have you got an airbag? Do you use one? What's your thoughts on an airbag?

Great question. My wife wants to buy me an airbag. Okay. She says, "Just go out and buy an airbag." Okay. I know she'll just buy enough shoes to cover the cost on her side of it, but that's all good. No, I think airbags, I think we're gonna start to see more and more industry take them on. When they first came out, you know, not unlike a lot of other, you know, first-time sort of technology that was introduced, there's a bit of skepticism, but they've been proven to work. All you have to do again is go on the internet and take a look at— there was an incident in Whistler this year. There's a number of incidents, you know, recorded on YouTube. An airbag works great in alpine terrain. So again, if you're not getting filtered through the trees or filtered through the rocks where they are susceptible to being punctured, they work on what they refer to as the Brazil nut effect. Yeah, so if you put a Brazil nut at the bottom of a bunch of peas in a jar and you shake it, that Brazil nut will slowly work its way to the top. Yeah, so it shows that people do stay on the surface with an airbag. And yeah, you know what, I think there's a time when we'll start to see a lot more industry professionals utilize them. As guides, it's, it's, it's a, it's a difficult call. It's extra weight, right? So when you're already carrying it, you know, a 20-pound pack on your back and with all of your rescue gear, your crevasse rescue gear, first aid kits, extra this, extra that, to add 6 pounds to that pack, it doesn't sound much, but I spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars to save ounces.

Yeah.

Yet add another 6 pounds to my pack, I think is perhaps technology begins, or industry begins to address that.

Your position on your skis, your fatigue, all those sorts of things over a day actually a detriment rather than— possibly, possibly, yeah, it's just something to consider, right?

And what I look at as a professional is that I want my guiding procedure to dictate or help me avoid the situation that I'm gonna need an airbag. So, you know, is it a— is it something that's giving me sort of a— I'm at a loss for the term, but anyway, a false—

yeah, false safety kind of— yeah.

But you know, if I'm guiding properly, if I'm skiing properly in the backcountry, I'm utilizing the buddy system, I'm never exposing more than one person at a time to a dangerous slope, you know, there's things that we do in guiding that ensure people's safety that an airbag shouldn't have to come into play.

Yes.

False sense of security, that's what I'm thinking of. Yeah, yeah. You know, are they giving a false sense of security? I don't want to say, but I'm cautious about that.

Yeah.

So to me, guide properly, use proper techniques in the backcountry, and you shouldn't have to use an airbag.

Yeah.

But again, that's not to say that we're not out there without a transceiver, probe, and shovel for the same reason.

Yes.

So it's, it's, it's a, it's, it's a bit of a difficult one.

Yeah.

I go back and forth even in this conversation.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Good.

Well, it is that they are fairly new. Right? It's a, it's a newer technology, newer technology compared to the transceivers and that sort of stuff. So yeah, interesting. So then what would you say is the biggest obstacle for a new backcountry skier?

I gotta go back to the 'you don't know what you don't yet know.' So I think back to when I first moved up to Sun Peaks here and learned to ski, you know, at 35. It was 17 years ago. I hate to admit it now, but you know, I was poking my nose out into stuff. I was walking out into Gilze all alone. Yeah, I was walking out there without a transceiver, without a probe, without a shovel, without anyone knowing, without anybody knowing. And I'd go out there with my lunch because this is beautiful out here. There's nobody else out here. It's fantastic. And I can go and I can skin back up and do another round and It's because I didn't know what I didn't know. I didn't understand the risk, number one. Yeah, how the snowpack and, and the formation of avalanches and triggers and, and terrain analysis and, and, you know, the effect of, of slope angles and convex rolls and gullies and all these things. Again, if I didn't know about it, so I didn't avoid it. I looked at all as a big beautiful white playing field, and thankfully, knock on wood, You know, I'm here today to be talking about it because I know I put myself in probably some pretty precarious situations. So once I started my training, it was like, oh my God, I, I really, really have messed up here, and I'm very lucky to be here. And my goal, whenever I'm teaching any of my programs, I always say my one objective— I ask everybody, you know, what they come to the course for. What do you want to take home? You know, my goal is to not only meet your expectations but exceed it. And then also sort of always establish that my number one goal for you is that every time you walk into the mountains, you look at them a little differently now. So instead of looking at a slope and trying to come up with 10 reasons why you should ski it, yeah, just come up with one why you shouldn't. Turn around, go home. And, and the biggest thing, it's changing attitudes. Mm-hmm. When I took my first recreational avalanche course 17 years ago up in Clearwater, you know, avalanche formation hasn't changed, triggers haven't changed, snowpack hasn't changed, terrain hasn't changed. All of those elements are still, you know, at the forefront of avalanche training. But the one thing that's different now is I'm teaching avalanche skills training courses is the human factor. We're all making decisions. Why do experienced backcountry skiers with all the gear, with all the experience, die? Because somewhere along the way they've had to make a decision. And I always say, you know, a decision or a mistake repeated more than once is a decision.

Yeah.

And if we're lucky enough to be there, you know, there's a certain learning process involved with that. So we really have to— we teach a lot about human factors, you know, familiarity. Well, I've skied this slope 1,000 times, it can't possibly, you know, go on.

Yeah.

Or acceptance, you know, the peer pressure thing. I don't want to be the one that chickens out, you know, I've got to go. Commitment. Wow, we've driven all this way to get here, or we've hiked all the way out here, you know, we have to go. And people need to be prepared to say, you know what, I'm happy to just go out for a walk. That's the beauty of skiing in the backcountry. Yeah, it might be just a walk out and a walk back, but you have to be prepared to make that decision. The expert halo is another big one. Yeah, I'm riding up the lift. Yeah, I met this really cool guy in the bar, the guy in the lift. He says, I'm heading out to this place out the back, you want to come? You know, who is this guy? And really, what type of training does he have? Do we just follow? And I see it happen all the time, or I hear these stories, yeah, you know, all the time. So that could be a really big one as well. And then there's, you know, fresh tracks. We're either all racing to them, so instead of doing due diligence on a slope before you drop into it oh, we better get in because there's 5 guys behind, right behind us.

Yeah.

Or following tracks.

Yeah.

You know, seeing another set of tracks in the snow doesn't necessarily mean that that slope is a safe slope. Yeah. So all these types of things are really, really coming into play in terms of making right decisions. And that's whether you're skiing in the backcountry, sidecountry, or just off-piste within the resort area. You're going to follow your buddy into those trees, those glades, what's possibly looming. Preventative maintenance versus crisis management.

Yeah, so I mean, like, someone could be listening to this who's never really been in the backcountry and go, oh God, I'm never going to go out there, it's not worth the risk, or whatever. But yeah, what is, to you, what is the lure of the backcountry? I mean, I know for me, you know, it's it's the fact of getting away from everyone else, the peace and quiet, the beauty of the natural environment. You know, I guess today, you know, the world is so, you know, developed and that chance to get away and get back to kind of nature and very simplistic, unaltered environments is, you know, deep-rooted in our nature. So, I mean, that's one of the draws for me, but what is it for you?

I think it's the same as for you and for most of us that go into the backcountry. You know, it is, it's the solitude, it's the peace, it's feeling like you're out there all by yourself. And you know, the fact that oftentimes you're just skiing in blower dry on track powder doesn't hurt either. And I love the exercise part of it too, I have to be honest. As you know, I'm a bit of a fitness junkie and And I love a good hike.

Yeah.

I like to earn my turns, just like I like to climb on the mountain bike or whatever it may be for a good little downhill. I'm really happy to put in my time, earn my turns, and get out there. So I think that's what it's all about. And as we're seeing, not unlike I think the surf industry a number of years ago, there was just this massive uptake of new users.

Yeah.

But uneducated users. And again, you know, to bring it full circle, it's one thing to have the desire, or you want that Facebook cover shot in the deep unconsolidated pow.

Yeah.

But you have to recognize that there's risks. And is it worth it? Absolutely it is. I mean, the key to skiing in backcountry terrain, again, it's awareness. It's not— we all drive, right? Um, and, and how many of us take a driver training course? So I like to think of these programs as sort of defensive skiing course. We're not going to quit driving. Statistically, there's far more accidents on our roads today than there are occurring in ski resorts around the world. And we don't quit driving because we hear about these accidents. We hear about them every single day, I can assure you. So we're not going to quit skiing, but it's a good idea, just like you take a defensive driving course, take a defensive skiing course.

Yeah.

You know, learn a little bit. Bit about what are the potential hazards out there, and you'll find that you'll feel far more comfortable in these off-piste environments. And then you share that knowledge with your friends as well, and it just sort of percolates.

Cool. So I'm thinking, so say someone's listening to this and they're thinking this is, you know, they've thought about it for a while, they want to experience the backcountry, they want to start going there, maybe they've booked an awesome heli trip, you know, next year with their friends or, you know, with their girlfriends or whatever. There are different programs that you've set up. Can you just talk us through each of the programs? Because they're kind of aimed at, I guess, different, you know, like dipping the toes in the water, putting the whole leg in, getting in and swimming, that sort things. So yeah, can you talk us through each of the programs?

Certainly. So, and again, hats off to Sun Peaks Resort for being just so receptive to these ideas. Every year our off-piste camps have grown. I've added a number of new programs to it. You know, Vincent Lafontaine, our sports school director, has been amazing. He just says run with it. I guess I've established a little bit of credibility with him, but it's, it's worked well and we have added. So You know, we started out with our All Mountain Skills Camp. Next year we're going to call it an Introduction to Backcountry, but it is really that. It's about terrain assessment. And I emphasize, these are all fundamental courses. This is for beginners.

Yeah.

We don't, or I don't, teach beyond the scope of my professional training.

Yes.

It's the basics and the fundamentals. And by no means are any of these programs substitutes for going out for an avalanche skills training course. You know, these are good certification courses. Yeah, they're introduction to— yes, hopefully that then become a catalyst for people to take that next step that might be a certification course. So that being said, you know, it's, it's terrain assessment, hazard analysis. We talk about tree wells, overnight survival, companion rescue with transceiver probe shovel, and that's sort of our introduction to backcountry, sort of just giving people a field, having them, you know, aware of what that— again, what the hazards are, how to avoid them, and what to do in the event of incident. We also do some guided tours out in this gills terrain right now, which is great. And it's interesting, you know, gills has been around at Sun Peaks. Gil Marini was one of the original founders back in the late '50s, early '60s of Todd Mountain in that day, and he was a guy that hiked out into gills all the time.

Okay.

Subsequently being called Gills. Hopefully he had a buddy with him.

Yeah, yeah.

But, um, so that name has stuck all along. Um, but there's been, you know, old-timers that have been here since way back in the '60s, they've just never felt comfortable poking their nose back there. And it's great. So all people coming to the resort, everybody from, you know, you know, a professional skier like yourself that's never been out there, and go, hey Bodie, you know, I want to learn the safe routes in, the safe routes out, get a bit of a feel for the terrain. And then I can come back here on my own. To those people that have never been out there, that have been living here for years and years, but sort of want to, finally want to do it. So that's been a fantastic, and I always bring in a lot of added value into that tour as well with a lot of the things we're talking about with tree wells and gullies and all this type of thing. And then one that I added last year that really, the impetus for it as a Mackinac ski guide was, You know, every operation out there does a fantastic job of orienting first-timers.

So you're talking about heliskiing, cat skiing.

Exactly.

That's mechanized.

That's mechanized skiing. Yeah, backcountry skiing. So all operators, you know, do an orientation. They talk about the hazards just like we're talking about here. They talk about companion rescue. Everybody gets an opportunity to, you know, use a transceiver probe and a shovel long before we put them out in the field.

Yeah, I remember that. From the couple of times.

That being said, you probably remember that it's about an hour.

Yeah, yeah.

So it's, it's kind of like itching to actually get through it and go. Yeah, it's, it's a distracting environment, or can be, you know.

There's helicopters, there's snowcats, or there's this or there's that expectations of I want to ski this deep powder.

And I, I kind of question the retention level.

Yeah.

Of most guests.

Yeah.

So I, I thought, why not come up with a camp? And it's a 2-day camp, it's called a Helicat Warm-up camp that incorporates all of this sort of introduction to backcountry elements, um, as well as I have, uh, Mike Whitley's safety video, the helicopter safety video, and I presented Big Red Cats, another fabulous operator here in British Columbia for cat skiing, their cat safety video. Yeah, so, but it's a maximum group of 4 in a very controlled 2-day environment so that instead of, you know, just drinking from a fire hose the day of. Yeah, there's a much greater retention level, and the result in my mind is it's then a much safer environment for everybody involved once they reach their final destination. Yeah. So if you're my buddy and I meet you up wherever we're backcountry skiing, heliskiing, or cat skiing, you should feel a lot more confident that, yeah, I just came back from this 2-day camp at Sun Peaks and man, am I dialed on this transceiver, or that you know proper shoveling techniques, or you know about tree wells and you understand and respect the buddy system. Yeah, so to me it's something that I'm really trying to promote, um, in British Columbia. I'm actually going to be attending the, uh, Helicat Canada meeting coming up here in May in Penticton and trying to promote these camps where, you know, we can get either Snowcat or heli operators promoting our camps. And then at the same time, when I have people coming in from these, perhaps I can, you know, sort of help point them in the right direction to suggest some operations that they might be inclined to go to. Nice.

Yeah, I see that as a really good one because I can remember, you know, I've been backcountry skiing, like flown in from a helicopter to Sol Mountain Lodge.

Beautiful.

So flown in there, and then from there we did some touring, and I can remember being super excited to just just get into this amazing snow and terrain. And then with white grizzly cats in the Selkirk— no, near Nelson. Kootenays. Yeah, yeah. And just bow time, very excited. You know, it was good because my friends back in Silver Star and I, we would go out and we would bury our transceivers and we would practice that sort of stuff. But I can remember getting there and going, cool, I've kind of done a lot of that, I can just focus on having a good time. But I can imagine some of the other people there for their first time wouldn't have been. And if I end up, you know, in an avalanche, in a tree well, whatever it is, I want to know that it doesn't matter how I could be the best trained person in the world, it's the other people that actually at the end of the day need to be trained to find me.

Exactly. It's like a good climbing partner.

Yeah.

When you're way up on a 5.10 or a 5.11 and can't see your buddy down at the bottom, you gotta, you know, hope that he's paying attention.

That's right.

Up there. So it's— and with any type of backcountry travel, it's— that's a really, really important thing too, because everybody has a different risk tolerance. I know the older I get, the lower my risk tolerance Tolerance. Yes, you know, I like to keep things on the ground, or I'm not just going to go whipping blindly, you know, off this, this cliff or whatever it might be. And it's important to make sure that, that you, you're out with like-minded people, because at the end of the day, it is decisions that we're making whether to ski a slope or not ski a slope. And it's important to point out that it's not a democracy in the backcountry. And if you've got the right group dynamic, that if one person feels comfortable. They shouldn't feel uncomfortable to speak up, that no, I don't feel good about this, and the whole group should then be prepared to come back. And you don't want to find out about these inconsistencies when you're out there.

No.

Or in the parking lot as you're packing your gear. Yeah, yeah. You know, good trip planning, or even, you know, a day out in the sidecountry, the slackcountry, it's important. Yeah. You know, choose your partners wisely so you don't get lured into something that you regret. Yeah.

So you've Because this is, you know, a fairly unique program and it's filling a really, you know, needed kind of slot in the whole ski industry, you've had schools approach you, race clubs, you know, that's really cool. It's obviously people are recognizing, you know, this is— there is a need, or this is a really good step to take. So you've got custom sessions, like people people, you know, like—

yeah, the custom sessions sort of came, evolved this year just as a result of, you know, having demand. Exactly. So last season I put the Sun Peaks secondary kids, all the school kids from Sun Peaks here through the 2-day all-mountain skills camp, and we had rave reviews. And you know how that percolates through families and then down to Kamloops and everywhere. And all of a sudden I have different, you know, freestyle clubs and race clubs. I'm doing one for the Sun Peaks Race Club tomorrow on tree wells and all-mountain safety. But yeah, word's getting out, and it's great because these— again, that's, you know, you asked about demographic early on. Yeah, the earlier we learn anything, whether it's learn how to ski, learn how to swim, sooner in our driving career we take a defensive driving course. It's the same thing. If we can teach kids when they're kids, you know, even if the retention level is, is a little more limited than, say, for an adolescent or an adult, you know, we have a positive impact on it.

Yeah.

And then they take those and they can develop those skills, and hopefully, you know, I've had some of our 7, 8-year-old students say, you know, "Bode, I want to be a ski guide when I grow up." Yeah, that's the greatest compliment that you could possibly get. Yeah. You know, so hopefully I'm being a catalyst in a number of areas, hopefully fulfilling some of the demand for some ski guides in British Columbia, but also, and more importantly, it's It's all about the safety, just making sure people are skiing more safely and subsequently having more fun.

That's right. You know, it makes me feel better about skiing off-piste in Sun Peaks now that possibly there's someone from the Sun Peaks Race Club skiing just behind me who might know about that stuff. If something happens, he's got some education on how to help me out.

And that's a great point. You know, if everybody on the street had first aid and CPR, Yeah. Can you make— yeah, what a difference. How many times we arrive at an incident, yeah, and you know, there's one person that's diving in because they've had some training. Everybody else is sort of standing back, oh my God, I don't know what to do. Yeah, but you're right, you know, exactly. If everybody on the, on the mountain had a good awareness of tree well, the hazards, the, the strategies for rescue, so on— not again, you don't want that false sense of security, no, but it would be great. Yeah, so we're really hoping that You know, the camp, there's no question, we're seeing our numbers grow exponentially every season and getting calls from all over for participation. So yeah, we're super excited about it.

So where can people go to find out perhaps a little bit more about firstly this program at Sun Peaks, the off-piste camps and backcountry camps at Sun Peaks, and then secondly, you know, say they're in Europe, Japan, somewhere else, where are some good resources? You mentioned one before, but do you want to just go over the resources they can go to look at for backcountry safety?

Sure. So starting out at Sun Peaks locally here, sunpeaksresort.com has all of our programs listed under lessons and camps. So you'll find the all-mountain skills, introductory to backcountry, heli-cat warm-up, plus our guided gills camps there. If anybody ever has any questions, you can call, ring up Sun Peaks, 250-578-5505. And actually, they direct a lot of calls to me because people want to learn a little bit more about the specifics, 250-318-0722, 24/7. So that's where you'll find out about our local camps. And then, you know, avalanche.ca, huge, fantastic. Avalanche Canada is recognized worldwide as a leader.

And that's an education session?

There is, there are sessions They're free for the public. They just released a fantastic little documentary, educational documentary, recently on Cherry Bowl. And just Google the Cherry Bowl incident. It's literally an AST course in itself, standalone. Amazing about a true incident that occurred 4 years ago. And then, you know, companies like Backcountry Access, BCA, A tremendous amount of resources there. Nice little short videos on, you know, how to use a transceiver, how to use a probe, how to use a shovel. Companion Rescue, it's much more focused on avalanche versus sort of tree walls and so on. But, you know, there's a lot of great organizations and a ton of resources out there on the internet right now. Just look towards those organizations though, because there's also a few guys out there, you know, plugging stuff up. But yeah, you know, education, you know, live as though you'll die tomorrow, learn as though you'll live forever.

Yep, excellent. Well, thanks so much for, uh, chatting with me today. It was really cool. Just, I think it's great for people out there, you know, no matter what level you're at with your skiing, to just realize this other element. You know, we've talked about backcountry, but as you've said, you know, as soon as you step off a prepared slope, you know, there are these risks that you just want to take into account and yeah, be aware of. The more educated you are, generally, you know, the safer and the better decisions you can make. So thanks so much for sharing your time and your knowledge and yeah, I look forward to getting out there and learning some more things off you and staying a little safer. Thanks very much, Bodhi.

Yeah, thank you, Tom. Always great to hang out with you on Thanks for spreading the word.

Pleasure. Okay, so, uh, that's it for another episode of the Global Skiing Podcast. Um, please check on iTunes for previous episodes, and there's plenty of gold back there of, you know, different skiers, worldwide skiers, you know, with great insight into what they're doing. And, um, it's going to help you become a more rounded skier, get more out of your favorite Sport. And, um, yeah, I, uh, thank you again for tuning in. Look forward to the next episode. And, uh, yeah, see you out on the mountain someday.