Teton County Search and Rescue

‘Stepping Out With A PWL’, moderated by avalanche consultant Dave Richards, will discuss how, why, and when avalanche professionals can work through periods of persistent weak layers (PWL). The audience will learn what actions these pros take to increase their margin and continue to go out when others are going home in uncertain conditions, as well as how they know that it may be time to just call it quits.  

Panelists: Snowbird, Utah’s Snow Safety Supervisor Johanna Kelly; IFMGA guide and instructor Billy Haas; WYDOT Avalanche Forecaster John Fitzgerald, Associate Professor of Alaska Pacific University Eeva Latosuo; Mountain guide, forecaster, and avalanche educator Jessica Baker.

Catch this Pro Day closer from 3:45-4:35 on Friday!

Thank you to our 12th Annual WYSAW Sponsors for bringing this 2-day event to life: Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Rendezvu Bank of Jackson Hole Sara Scott Adamson Jackson Hole, Wyoming Arc'teryx Architectural Stone & Tile American Avalanche Association RAIN TREE Foundation Mammut Backcountry Access New West Building Company Roadhouse Brewing Co. Snake River Brewing Snake River Roasting Co.

Have you registered for WYSAW yet? It all takes place this Friday and Saturday, November 13-14, at the Center for the Arts.

To register, just hit the link in the comments.

WYSAW preps skiers and riders ahead of winter With snow already settling on top of the Teton Range, the 12th annual Wyoming Snow and Avalanche Workshop this weekend arrives right on time, setting skiers and riders up for

Before Frank arrived in Jackson as the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center Director in 2021, he spent 10 years with the U.S. Forest Service at the Mount Washington Avalanche Center.

Back East, Frank worked as a SAR team leader or Incident Commander for many avalanche and mountain rescues in New Hampshire and has investigated more avalanche incidents and fatalities than he would like.

Frank is a trained Critical Incident Stress Peer Supporter and a member of the Teton Interagency Peer Support group. He has an obvious passion for learning and has taken the AMGA Alpine, Ski, and Ski Mountaineering guide courses and has worked as a mountain guide and rescue instructor since 1996. The human relationship to risk-taking is an endless source of fascination for Frank.

Presentation: 2026 La Barge Creek Avalanche Fatality

On January 11, 2026, a snowmobiler triggered a small but steep slope above LaBarge Creek at about 8,900 feet in the Salt River and Wyoming Range forecast zone. The 70-vertical-foot slide ran onto the flat creek bottom, burying him two to four feet deep alongside his machine despite a deployed airbag. His riding partner reached him within about three minutes but the rider could not be revived. 

Frank’s presentation will discuss the snowpack that failed this rider, and the lessons the BTAC team and this community can learn from his tragic passing.

Catch Frank on Rec Day from 11:40-12:05, or please sit this one out if you are too familiar with avalanche fatalities/this particular incident and need to take care of yourself (the vendor fair is open all day 😊).

With a lot of expertise comes the ability to take more intentional and calculated risks. With a lot of certainty, we might be more accepting of razor thin margins.

Margins are more complex than our risk tolerance. Big, little, wide, narrow, hard and soft margins all are used to adjust vulnerability and exposure. If we think of risk as a simple equation (risk = hazard x vulnerability x exposure) we understand that hazard exists out of our control to change (...the avalanche danger or hazard of the activity). But we can pull on the levers of vulnerability and exposure to change the risk, and build margins. 

But what are margins, really? 

Where do you feel the need to create larger margins on a regular basis? Where are you ok with less room for error? What does this look like on different days or in different terrain or with different groups?

And how, on a day-to-day basis, are you making decisions about what your margins should be?

Moderator Liz King is excited to toss these questions out to some local pros and self-proclaimed ‘normal people’ who send it big and are SMART. They are the ones who understand the math of assessing the hazard and factoring their vulnerability, exposure and risk acceptance.

Thanks to panelists BB Hall, Adam Fabrikant, Rachel Kunkle, Ben Dann, Michelle Leonard for saying yes to this juicy conversation!

Catch this Rec Day closer from 3:30-4:25 on Saturday, Nov 14!

Thank you to our 12th Annual WYSAW Sponsors for bringing this 2-day event to life: Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Rendezvu Bank of Jackson Hole Sara Scott Adamson Jackson Hole, Wyoming Arc'teryx Architectural Stone & Tile American Avalanche Association RAIN TREE Foundation Mammut Backcountry Access New West Building Company Roadhouse Brewing Co. Snake River Brewing Snake River Roasting Co.

The Wyoming Snow and Avalanche Workshop (WYSAW) returns for its 12th year at The Center for the Arts in downtown Jackson on Friday, November 13 + Saturday, November 14.

The annual 2-day conference, open to all experience levels, provides lecture-based presentations, hands-on workshops, and informal community mingling to put risk, consequence, and the joy we get from backcountry recreation into perspective.

We’ve all seen how tragedy can devastate a community. It’s up to all of us to make sure we do everything possible to prevent such tragedies from occurring, and respond confidently if incident strikes.

Thank you to the 29 speakers, panelists and workshop leads who will offer skills, knowledge, and resources to make you feel a bit more empowered to adventure, lead, and make it home at the end of the day.

Thank YOU for registering for Pro Day, Rec Day, or both and contributing to a backcountry culture that keeps us all a little safer.

And BIG thanks to the sponsors who bring this event to life, we couldn’t do it without you: Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Rendezvu Bank of Jackson Hole Sara Scott Adamson Jackson Hole, Wyoming Arc'teryx Architectural Stone & Tile American Avalanche Association RAIN TREE Foundation Mammut Backcountry Access New West Building Company Roadhouse Brewing Co. Snake River Brewing Snake River Roasting Co.

Link in bio to register. And please give us a shout if you need a full or partial scholarship to attend. ☃️

Poster art by Yonderism

The Wyoming Snow and Avalanche Workshop (WYSAW) returns for its 12th year at The Center for the Arts in downtown Jackson on Friday, November 13 + Saturday, November 14.

The annual 2-day conference, open to all experience levels, provides lecture-based presentations, hands-on workshops, and informal community mingling to put risk, consequence, and the joy we get from backcountry recreation into perspective.

We’ve all seen how tragedy can devastate a community. It’s up to all of us to make sure we do everything possible to prevent such tragedies from occurring, and respond confidently if incident strikes.

Thank you to the 29 speakers, panelists and workshop leads who will offer skills, knowledge, and resources to make you feel a bit more empowered to adventure, lead, and make it home at the end of the day.

Thank YOU for registering for Pro Day, Rec Day, or both and contributing to a backcountry culture that keeps us all a little safer.

And BIG thanks to the sponsors who bring this event to life, we couldn’t do it without you: Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Rendezvu Bank of Jackson Hole Sara Scott Adamson Jackson Hole, Wyoming Arc'teryx Architectural Stone & Tile American Avalanche Association RAIN TREE Foundation Mammut Backcountry Access New West Building Company Roadhouse Brewing Co. Snake River Brewing Snake River Roasting Co.

Link in bio to register. And please give us a shout if you need a full or partial scholarship to attend. ☃️

❄️ WYSAW SPEAKER HIGHLIGHT ❄️

Zahan Billimoria is a Jackson-based IFMGA guide and the founder of the Big Mountain Snow Safety Course, a 15-year avalanche program dedicated to helping advanced skiers and riders traveling in big mountains build a skill set that enables them to make decisions in snow-covered terrain. Zahan is renowned for his skiing, having completed descents across the globe, and for his work as a guide, coach, and snow-safety instructor. 

Presentation: The Terrain Between My Ears

This Rec Day presentation details Zahan’s personal journey of building a decision-making process that enables him to better connect with the natural world, become a keener observer of it, and evaluate his own state of mind—to make decisions that reflect his own tolerance of risk.

Catch Zahan from 2:55-3:25 on Rec Day (Saturday, Nov 14)!

Thank you to our 12th Annual WYSAW Sponsors for bringing this 2-day event to life: Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Rendezvu Bank of Jackson Hole Sara Scott Adamson Jackson Hole, Wyoming Arc'teryx Architectural Stone & Tile American Avalanche Association RAIN TREE Foundation Mammut Backcountry Access New West Building Company Roadhouse Brewing Co. Snake River Brewing Snake River Roasting Co.

❄️ WYSAW SPEAKER HIGHLIGHT ❄️

Anthony Stevens is the Chief Advisor for Teton County Search & Rescue, where he has been a volunteer since 2015. A lifelong Wyoming resident, Anthony is the owner/operator of Wounded Bear Medicine, a lead medical instructor for Wilderness Medical Associates International, a field instructor for NOLS, a Wilderness Emergency Medical Technician (WEMT), and Tactical Emergency Medical Technician (EMT-T), and holds many other instructor training certifications.

When he is not educating and keeping the adventurous safe, his passions include drinking vast amounts of coffee, trail running, mountain biking, backcountry skiing or anything else that keeps him in motion. Anthony and his wife, Erika, enjoy passing on their enthusiasm for all things outdoors to their three kids.

Presentation: Inside Incident Command — 2025 Togwotee Pass Fatality Response

In this Rec Day presentation, Anthony will give an overview of the steps TCSAR takes when a call comes in for a known avalanche burial. In this case study, Anthony will discuss the many complex factors at play during a fatal avalanche event on Togwotee Pass in 2025.

For anyone with personal connections to avalanche fatalities or someone involved in this particular incident, this presentation will focus more on the SAR response than the decision making of the group, but please take care of yourself and sit this one out if you need to :)

Thank you to our 12th Annual WYSAW Sponsors for bringing this 2-day event to life: Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Rendezvu Bank of Jackson Hole Sara Scott Adamson Jackson Hole, Wyoming Arc'teryx Architectural Stone & Tile American Avalanche Association RAIN TREE Foundation Mammut Backcountry Access New West Building Company Roadhouse Brewing Co. Snake River Brewing Snake River Roasting Co.

❄️ WYSAW SPEAKER HIGHLIGHT ❄️

Originally from Finland, Eeva Latosuo is now a PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University studying the role of uncertainty in avalanche risk communication. Based in Anchorage, she teaches at Alaska Pacific University (Associate Professor of Outdoor Studies) and leads advanced avalanche courses for Alaska Avalanche School. She feels lucky to live, learn, and play in the mountains year round. 

Presentation: What Should We Do With Uncertainty? 

On Pro Day (Friday, Nov 13) from 2:40-3:10, Eeva will present four practical questions to run through before deciding whether, where, and how to communicate uncertainty in a public forecast, illustrated with real forecasting situations and concrete guidance.

On Rec Day, Eeva will team up with Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center forecaster Alex Drinkard to talk about how we can use weather station information to make our own forecast, or create a hypothesis before taking forecasters’ words as gospel. Catch Interpreting the Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center ‘Big Sheet’ (otherwise known as ‘Weather Telemetry for the Early Birds and Snow Nerds’) on Saturday, Nov 14 from 12:40-1:30!

Thank you to our 12th Annual WYSAW Sponsors for bringing this 2-day event to life: Jackson Hole Mountain Resort Rendezvu Bank of Jackson Hole Sara Scott Adamson Jackson Hole, Wyoming Arc'teryx Architectural Stone & Tile American Avalanche Association RAIN TREE Foundation Mammut Backcountry Access New West Building Company Roadhouse Brewing Co. Snake River Brewing Snake River Roasting Co.