Contributors

Steve Conger began his contributions to the avalanche community with the creation of the first snow crystal card and waterproof field book for recording snowpack profile observations. Steve is an editor emeritus of The Avalanche Review and an instructor for the Canadian Avalanche Association Industry Training Program. He lives in Golden, BC.

WildSnow.com publisher emeritus and founder Lou Dawson has a 40+ year career in backcountry skiing and ski mountaineering. He was the first person in history to ski all 54 Colorado 14,000-foot peaks, has authored numerous books about backcountry skiing, and has skied from the summit of Denali.

Emerging from the legendary ski town of San Diego, Jeff Deems’ skiing habit was solidified in Colorado mountain towns. Degrees from Montana State and Colorado State added a small measure of legitimacy to that pursuit. As a researcher at the National Snow and Ice Data Center at CU Boulder, and a co-founder of the Airborne Snow Observatory, Jeff studies spatial variability in snow properties.

Manasseh Franklin often found herself choosing between writing and skiing, which took her to San Francisco, the Tetons, and Laramie, Wyoming where she received an MFA in creative nonfiction writing and environment and natural resources. She now has happily merged the ski and writing life as the editor of WildSnow.

Peter Lev has a long history as a mountaineer, beginning back in the day when rock climbing was considered ‘training’ for mountaineering, and that would be the late 1950s. He was a mountain guide, initially employed by Exum Mountain Guides in the Tetons in 1960, and became a partner in the company in 1978. He retired from Exum in 2006 and guided another 4 years, until age 70, for Sylvan Rocks in the South Dakota Needles. Though pretending to be retired (some have said he always has been) Lev currently works with a private long-range weather forecasting company.

Ron Perla survived two major avalanches on the Alta ski patrol and as a USFS snow ranger. He coauthored an avalanche handbook, and helped design the USFS National Avalanche Schools. He established snow labs at Canmore, Sunshine, and Whistler where he studied strength, metamorphism, and microstructure of dry and wet snow. He developed two avalanche dynamic models, and is currently working on a third. See: www.snowavalanchearchive.com

Dave Richards was born and raised in the Wasatch Mountains of Utah. For the past 19 years Dave has worked as a fulltime Alta ski patroller and has been the director of the Alta ski area avalanche office for five seasons. He has also worked as a helicopter ski guide for Wasatch Powderbird Guides, as an avalanche rescue dog handler, and is a member of Wasatch Backcountry Rescue.

Emma Walker is a freelance writer and editor based in Boise, Idaho. She holds a MS degree in outdoor and experiential education from Alaska Pacific University, where she interviewed many women in the avalanche industry as she wrote her thesis on gendered decision-making in Alaska’s dynamic mountain environments. Emma has written for Outside, Powder, and The Dirtbag Diaries, and is the editor of the AMGA GUIDE Bulletin and two volumes of The Snowy Torrents. She is the author of Dead Reckoning: Learning from Accidents in the Outdoors (Falcon, forthcoming 2021). When she’s not writing, you’ll find Emma on skis or a bike, usually with her trusty mutt.

Chris Wilbur is an avalanche defense engineer based in Durango, Colorado. He is fascinated with the engineering behavior of highly variable complex natural materials, as well as the dynamic response of structures to avalanche loads.

Ken Wylie is an IFMGA guide, educator and author. He has been on faculty at the University of Calgary, Mount Royal University, and Thompson Rivers University in adventure-based academic programs. His personal adventures range from the highest peaks is the Andes and numerous new rock and ice climbs to grade 6 big walls. Ken founded Mountains for Growth in 2013 to help individuals and groups gain personal insight and wisdom through their mountain adventures. Ken has developed the concept of “Adventure Literacy” based on the idea that the mountains are always presenting information to us through the process of adventure. Ken is the author of Buried (2014), which is about his path navigating through tragedy.