Intersectional Heuristics in Backcountry Decision-Making

By Aidan Goldie-Ahumada

Note: This article was originally published in Volume 39.3 of The Avalanche Review and was republished in Volume 132 of The Avalanche Journal with permission.

IAN MCCAMMON’S 2003 ARTICLE, Heuristic traps in recreational avalanche accidents, published in the 22nd Volume of The Avalanche Review, provided a heuristic framework that has informed avalanche education and professional training in the years since. The framework builds on the idea of heuristics in the field of psychology, which describes human tendencies to take shortcuts to decision-making based on a variety of different factors. These shortcuts are often positive, allowing us to expedite the minutiae of everyday life. However, when these shortcuts unconsciously trickle into more consequential decisions, like those made while recreating in the backcountry, they can lead an individual or group towards more serious outcomes. Only upon reflection do backcountry users identify the heuristic traps, or “red flags,” they encountered in the field.

This framework, paired with the acronym FACETS, has proven to be a useful tool for backcountry recreationists and avalanche course instructors alike. There is no doubt it has spared backcountry users from venturing into avalanche terrain when conditions were dangerous. This article critically reflects on the use of this framework and asserts there is a missing element of intersectional heuristics—shortcuts to decision-making driven by unbalanced power structures—within backcountry recreation and education settings that will continue having detrimental effects in the industry if not addressed. Ultimately, this article suggests an amendment should be made for a more inclusive framework for decision-making in avalanche terrain.

First, let’s summarize McCammon’s framework:

Using this framework, we can tease apart an avalanche incident and retrospectively apply these categories. A group of four skiers ventured into the Utah backcountry, each with varying degrees of experience, but all carrying the requisite transceiver, probe, and shovel. The avalanche forecast had been slowly trending towards stability after a record-breaking storm the past week. The skiers made a plan at the parking lot to ski an eastern aspect at treeline. Upon gaining the summit ridge, they observed high west winds had eroded the windward side of the ridge and deposited snow on the leeward side. The skiers stopped to assess conditions before skiing the line.

A female in the group brought up her apprehension due to the potential wind loading on the eastern aspect. The group talked. Ultimately, her idea was dismissed due to a variety of other factors: this was a slope commonly skied by members of the group, the trees could provide anchoring against large slab avalanches, and there was no other evidence of instability on this elevation and aspect.

All four skiers agreed to ski the slope; however, only three made it to the bottom. Inspecting the slope above, they saw a small, size-1.5 avalanche had ran close to the top of the slope and towards the trees below. The group quickly skinned back up to the site and performed an avalanche rescue. They found their friend deceased after being caught in a wind slab avalanche and getting dragged through the trees.

Upon reflection, the survivors identified red flags that were observed and ultimately ignored as part of their decision-making process. In their debrief, they identified the expert halo and familiarity heuristic traps that led to their poor decisions that day. The expert halo took form through a single member of the group who the others deferred to due to his higher level of backcountry experience. The familiarity trap—a confirmation bias that translated previous positive experiences to the most recent outing—played a role in terrain selection. But, would the outcome have been different if a male member of the group first raised concerns with the wind loading?

A NEW CATEGORY OF HEURISTIC TRAP

These heuristic traps are common occurrences, according to Johnson, Mannberg, Hendrikx, Hetland, Stephensen, (2020); and McCammon (2003). They can be everyday occurrences that rarely lead to an avalanche incident or fatality. An analysis of this incident, among many others, finds the dismissal of valid ideas or concerns from members of the touring group. This is a type of heuristic trap that is often attributed to the “expert halo” or a sort of “social facilitation.” However, these categories do not adequately describe the nuance of the social interactions at play in this situation and the larger societal paradigm that drives everyday interactions.

I argue there likely was some sort of identity bias. We see this very commonly with gender identities, where those who identify as female will commonly have their opinions dismissed by their male counterparts. McCammon (2003) touches on this idea with the “acceptance” category, under the guise of a male skier attempting to impress their female counterpart, potentially leading to higher risk-taking.

What is not addressed are the power dynamics at play in these decision-making routines. In a patriarchal society, male backcountry users carry a societally constructed dominance over female backcountry users and will consciously or unconsciously use that power to diminish the voice and opinion of the female team member, despite the findings by Sola, Reese, and Kulbacka (2002) that, “Women may be less likely to die in avalanches when participating in recreational alpine activities because they tend to take less risk.” I extend that idea further by making the link between unconscious heuristics to unconscious bias. The male-female power dynamic is only one of many negative power structures that impact decision-making, even though it is the one that tends to be talked about most in the industry. I encourage our field to better examine all power structures in our society and how they can influence the everyday decisions made in avalanche terrain.

This is not a new idea, but instead builds on a body of work done by many leading scholars on social theory. Kimberlé Crenshaw first coined the term “intersectional” in her 1989 paper, Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex in the Journal of Feminist Legal Theory. Crenshaw described how intersecting identities of race, gender, and many others, impact the way individuals are treated within certain community structures. The backcountry recreation community and the avalanche industry have a community structure dominated by white, middle-aged, cis-gendered males (Warren, Latosuo, Stimberis, & Morris, 2020, and Reimer, 2019). Despite the good-faith intentions of individuals within this community, the current structure of the community leads to a vulnerability to intersectional heuristics.

INTERSECTIONAL HEURISTICS
Intersectional heuristics is the missing heuristic trap that makes backcountry groups vulnerable to unconscious bias towards various identities. Any individual that possesses a marginalized identity (Figure 1) runs the risk of having their input in backcountry decision-making dismissed by the group at large if an imbalanced power structure exists. Like our adoption of heuristics from the field of psychology, I am encouraging the avalanche field to adopt the idea of intersectionality in our everyday practice, including avalanche education.

Intersectionality comes into the conversation when we reflect on the way the idea of diversity and inclusion has been approached in the industry already. This phenomenon of female-male power imbalances was seen as the obstacle that had to be overcome for the industry to be equitable. As a result, we have seen numerous female affinity group avalanche courses, female-specific scholarships, and female-specific
mentorship programs. What is largely ignored are other intersections of race, gender identity, class, and ability that impact backcountry recreation and decision-making.

Two female ski tourers on paper will be perceived as having overcome the previously mentioned “acceptance” heuristic trap. Under McCammon’s framework, they will need to better concern themselves with the other five possible traps. Under the lens of intersectionality, gender is not the only identity that creates power imbalances. One of these female team members could be of colour. In a community structure that values the experiences of white backcountry skiers, as seen in print and visual media, this creates a power imbalance that can impact decision-making.

Here is another case study to explore. At an annual winter sports festival in Colorado, a group of three black backcountry recreationists attended as an affinity group. They moved through the events together with hopes they could overcome the discomforts they each had experienced at similar events. When they rode at the resort, the operators pre-emptively slowed down the lifts for them despite their competence. When they hit the skin track, they were met by other backcountry skiers with probing questions that groups that are part of the community majority did not receive, such as: “Are you part of a group or class?” “What brings you here?” and “Have you read the avalanche bulletin?” When walking through the festival, a police officer reflexively placed their hand on their gun. These microaggressions were commonplace and expected by this marginalized group, who was often “othered” in these spaces.

When I sat down and chatted with these backcountry users, the importance of intersectional heuristics became apparent. Even though on paper these three athletes shared a marginalized identity, they also identified and were cognizant of multiple intersecting identities, including sexuality, gender, class, and ability. They were athletes who knew all too well what it felt like to have their opinions in the backcountry dismissed. With the idea of identity heuristics on their mind, they recognized a variety of unbalanced power structures and actively fought against those biases in their decision-making, with frequent check-ins to make sure everyone’s ideas and opinions about avalanche hazard were being heard, and upfront conversations if those imbalances were influencing their decisions.

Here is what is sometimes lost in the discussion around intersectionality and creating inclusive environments: lost diversity in groups is a loss of lived experience. Having diversity in risk tolerance is a good thing. Discussing competing ideas is best practice. The uniformity an exclusive avalanche industry promotes is not ideal and can potentially be dangerous. The literature has shown having a diversity of ideas and lived experiences will improve student education and group decision making (Bogan, Just, Dev, 2013). This applies to backcountry recreation in a fundamental way. Diversity of experiences leads to a diversity of thought, which introduces legitimately competing perspectives towards more conservative risk-taking.

POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS

With the identification of the seventh heuristic trap, intersectional heuristics, one begins to question how to best address it in the avalanche industry. Here are three tangible solutions that can either be implemented on small scales or readily implemented in greater professional contexts.

1. Increased opportunities for meaningful mentorship. Mentorship opportunities in recreational spaces are hard to come by. Mentorship opportunities for those with intersecting marginalized identities are even harder to come by. For the latter to happen, one needs to find a mentor who not only has a wealth of experience in backcountry travel they are willing to share, but also shares a similar lived experiences to the mentee. The Scarpa Athlete-Mentor Initiative provides a good model for what meaningful mentorship could look like. In this initiative, mentees who self-identify as members of marginalized communities are paired with mentors from Scarpa’s athlete team. Scarpa mentors are all given anti-bias training and these relationships are given support by other Scarpa team members and third-party consultants. Initiatives like this can not only lower the barrier to entry into backcountry recreation, but they can also create a more linear path towards gaining experience and allow marginalized athletes to become mentors for others.
2. Intersectional heuristics curriculum in avalanche education. The field of avalanche education has made great changes in recent decades. From informal education in the form of mentorship to formal courses, introductory avalanche education now focuses more on decision-making and terrain selection than snow science. With that in mind, students should be introduced to the idea of intersectional heuristics in introductory avalanche education. If students are asked to confront their unconscious biases and be cognizant of power structures in their decision-making, then there could be an inclusive shift in the way decisions are made in the backcountry.
3. Affinity group avalanche education. The paradigm will not shift if students are learning in spaces that uphold traditional power structures. Guiding organizations and education providers can provide affinity group programming—intentional courses filled by members who share marginalized identities. Programs like these can remove the anxiety that comes with being a marginalized identity in an educational context. When learning with others that share similar lived experiences, students can better build individual and team confidence in backcountry decision-making that can be applied in the future. Avalanche Canada’s MEC Avalanche Safety Grant, which provides free AST courses to BIPOC-led organizations, is an example of this. A bottleneck with this is a shortage of certified guides that can adequately lead affinity courses. One solution to this problem is to train more guides that possess marginalized identities to become course leaders. AIARE’s Kizaki-Wolf Scholarship is one example already working towards this goal. Additionally, existing instructors can be trained in intersectional heuristics and building inclusive classrooms

CONCLUSION

The avalanche industry is continually learning and evolving. With that evolution comes a continued examination of the parts of humanity that influence decision-making. This is relevant in professional and recreational contexts as both backcountry operations and individuals are vulnerable to be influenced by community-level power structures. The avalanche industry is noted to have a lack of diversity within its workforce (Warren, Latosuo, Stimberis, & Morris, 2020; and Reimer, 2019). This makes our industry critically vulnerable to intersectional heuristics, a shortcut to decision-making driven by an unbalanced power structure.

This article serves as a jumping-off point for the industry to examine how to best address this issue in operational and educational settings. How can I ensure everyone feels comfortable enough to share their opinions and apprehensions about interacting with avalanche terrain? This should be a question that is at the forefront of the minds of all industry leadership, course leaders, and recreational touring groups going forward.

REFERENCES

Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex. Feminist Legal Theory: Readings in Law and Gender.

Bogan, V. L., Just, D. R., & Dev, C. S. (2013). Team gender diversity and investment decision-making behavior. Review of Behavioral Finance. https://doi.org/10.1108/RBF-04-2012-0003

Bauer, G. (2021). Meet the Methods Series: Quantitative intersectional study design and primary data collection, (3). Retrieved from https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/52352.html

McCammon, I. (2003). Heuristic traps in recreational avalanche accidents. The Avalanche Review (Vol. 22, nos. 2 & 3). Retrieved from www.avalanche.org/~aaa

Reimer, R., (2019). Diversity, Inclusion, and Mental Health in the Avalanche and Guiding Industry in Canada. Retrieved from www.avalancheassociation.ca/page/Inclusivity

Sola, M., Reese, T., Kulbacka, K., (2002). Human Interactions and Decision-Making in Recreational Avalanche Environments. Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Warren, K., Latosuo, E., Stimberis, J., & Morris, H. (2020, November 11). Survey: 2020 avalanche professional census. The Avalanche Review. Retrieved December 12, 2021, from https://theavalanchereview.org/avalanche-professionaldemographics/.