Wicked Learning

By Brad Roach

This article originally appeared in The Avalanche Journal, Volume 131, Winter 2022-23

ON MARCH 22, 2014, I triggered a size three avalanche while ascending a slope I deemed safe. The energy I felt under my feet was something I will never forget. I recall looking around for fracture lines, seeing an unbroken slope, then looking up to my ski partner Dev and seeing him already 50 m above me. In an instant, I was hit with the hard blocks of a large slab and I went down into the chaotic nightmare that I would revisit in my dreams for years to come. As I was ripped violently down the slope, the tenuous hold on my mortality became clear. In that moment, it appeared I had lost my grip. I hit a tree and wrapped myself around it, clinging to this piece of hope as the debris smashed into my body.

Then, silence.

Adrenaline coursing through my body, I let out a primal scream of both terror and joy. Dev returned the call, remaining safe near the flank of slide. It was only after this moment that I realized that my dog was not there. Getting my probe out, I began searching the debris, but it had piled up deep into the wetland below. The debris was over five metres deep and my probe was 280 cm long. As night fell, Dev headed back to the cabin. I searched for hours before accepting my decision-making had killed my companion.

In the darkness, I wept.

THE AFTERMATH

I would find Achilles in the summer with my lost gear, the visage of advanced decomposition with its carrion smell burned into my mind. Imprinted there was both a sense of loss and a savage reminder of how close I had come to a similar end.

When I left the accident and sent out my avalanche report, it hit social media with a flurry of activity. As an aggressive skier logging over 100 days of touring a year, with many days of poor decisions, there was a backlash from a small percentage of the community. Most messages were supportive, but I gravitated toward the minority expressing the sentiment: “You had this coming.”

The pain was real because they were right, but it had an alienating effect. I headed for another round of post-secondary education in an attempt to give up the ski life. This failed miserably. Instead, I joined ski patrol and the professional side of the snow fence.

As I gained education and experience, I also met many mentors, friends, and acquaintances who had similar experiences that resulted in deep mental wounds. Many of these people had wounds so deep, they would never heal. There are so many in this industry who have mental injuries from near-death experiences, coupled with loss and survivor’s guilt. For some, the healing process is nearly impossible.

An avalanche educator who was familiar with my personal accident introduced me to the concept of the wicked learning environment (Hogarth et al., 2015). This concept is that in avalanche terrain, we often lack the correct feedback to make effective decisions. Furthermore, our poor decision-making is often rewarded with fantastic skiing. Due to the elements of spatial variability and heuristic traps, we may come so very close to a fatal decision and receive positive feedback for our transgression (Johnson et al., 2020).

Part of the anger I felt towards my critics was that many of the most hurtful comments came from those with the least amount of experience with backcountry travel. Many of these individuals may have made similar decisions without triggering an avalanche, strengthening their confirmation bias. Some had simply not been out in avalanche terrain long enough to realize their vulnerability. It does take time to get sucked into the Bayesian vortex of avalanche accident probability, which gets increasingly complex and unpredictable with increased exposure, even with considerable safety margins (Ebert, 2019).

EIGHT YEARS LATER

The memory of my avalanche remains fresh, but the mental injury has largely been healed. Occasionally, there is a trigger that reopens the experience for a short while, but it is no longer a consuming and negative energy as it was for the first several years. My empathy for anyone in an avalanche with lasting impacts is far more real than it was before the event. I also feel like mountain communities are starting to abandon a blame culture and become more supportive of avalanche victims. Empathy and support are needed after critical incidents. We, as backcountry travellers, have all had moments where the wicked learning environment rewarded us for a transgression that caused unimaginable pain and trauma to another.

The nature of this environment still gives me pause. Touring recreationally with my wife, the concept of losing her through my own poor decisions is deeply troubling. With all the education and experience from the past eight years, I am still unconvinced I will not get caught again in a very similar low-probability, high-consequence situation. While I would like to think I am safer now than I was in my twenties, I also realize it is this exact thinking that may cause a similar situation.

As a skier, I seek out new experiences, big journeys, and deep snow. This pursuit means I am inherently vulnerable to the undeniable risks in the mountains. I will continue to be rewarded for poor decisions. While I respect the power of large avalanches and the value of terrain selection more now than before, the biggest realization I’ve had is how vulnerable we are to the power of the mountains and the holes of our cognitive bias.

The wicked learning environment is not often a place of gentle lessons. It can have harsh repercussions for the most minor of infractions, yet it is also a place where we can gain great meaning, wisdom, and resilience.

REFERENCES
Ebert, P. A. (2019). Bayesian reasoning in avalanche terrain: a theoretical investigation. Journal of Adventure Education and Outdoor Learning, 19(1), 84-95.

Hogarth, R. M., Lejarraga, T., & Soyer, E. (2015). The two settings of kind and wicked learning environments. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24(5), 379–385. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721415591878

Johnson, J., Mannberg, A., Hendrikx, J., Hetland, A., & Stephensen, M. (2020). Rethinking the heuristic traps paradigm in avalanche education: Past, present and future. Cogent social sciences, 6(1), 1807111.

Kay, Bruce.. (2015). Autonomy, mastery and purpose in the avalanche patch.

Mannberg, A., Hendrikx, J., Landrø, M., & Stefan, M. A. (2018). Who’s at risk in the backcountry? Effects of individual characteristics on hypothetical terrain choices. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 59, 46-53.

Stewart-Patterson, I. (2014). The development of ski guide decision expertise. In Abstract submitted for presentation at International Snow Science Workshop in Banff, AB.