The Avalanche Hour Podcast

In this episode of The Avalanche Hour Podcast, host Sierra Bishop interviews her mentor Gregg Oliveri, a now retired mountain guide and avalanche educator with an impressive resume, climbing & skiing alongside some of the most accomplished climbers and avalanche industry professionals of his generation in the Himalaya and around the world. 
This conversation takes a step back in time to the explosive age of alpinism during the 1980s and the early days of Yamnuska Mountain School, where Gregg spent most of his twenties teaching and guiding.
Gregg reflects on a lifetime of adventure, the people who shaped him, and the lessons passed down along the way. He shares some pivotal growth moments in his career - from a terrifying experience leading one of the early ascents and summits of the Super Couloir on Mt. Deltaform, to turning around a few hundred feet shy of the summit of K2 in 1986 due to avalanche hazard.
Sierra and Gregg tackle some difficult topics in the industry and Gregg reflects on the advice he would give his 20-year-old self with the knowledge he has now: from processing loss & grief, to risk tolerance changes with age, and grappling with loneliness from a lack of stability in this career. From a lifetime in the mountains, Gregg carries decades of experience, hard-earned wisdom and a deep understanding of risk, loss, and listening to intuition that he now shares as a mentor to many. 
 
Huge thank you to the sponsors of the show!
Legacy Sponsors:
Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund
Drone Amplified’s Montis
The Guide Network
 
Partner Sponsors:
Austin Powder
Peak Visor
onX Backcountry
 
Episode Sponsor: 
The Starting Zone eBook
 
Music: Ketsa
Artwork: Mike Tea 
Production: Caleb Merrill, Angie Lake

In this episode of The Avalanche Hour, Caleb sits down with Chilean guides Manu Oliveres and Cristóbal Cattan in Las Trancas, Chile, to talk about skiing, guiding, and the rapidly evolving avalanche culture in South America. Both are deeply involved in the local mountain community and search and rescue, and their paths reflect a growing professionalization of avalanche education in Chile. They talk about learning to guide in the Andes, traveling abroad to gain experience in different snowpacks, and the challenge of building professional avalanche education and forecasting infrastructure in a region where those systems are still developing.
The conversation also explores what it means to make good decisions in a changing backcountry culture. With more people entering the mountains through skiing, snowmobiling, heli-skiing, and social media, Manu and Cattan describe the need to move beyond simply having rescue equipment toward developing stronger avalanche knowledge, communication, forecasting, and decision-making. They share lessons from their own avalanche experiences, the importance of mentorship and learning from other snow climates, and why there are no shortcuts on the path to becoming a mountain professional. At its core, this is a conversation about a community building an avalanche culture from the ground up—and the value of sharing knowledge along the way.

Thanks to the sponsors of the show.
Legacy Sponsors:
Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund
Drone Amplified’s Montis
The Guide Network

Partner Sponsors:
Austin Powder
Peak Visor
onX Backcountry

Episode Sponsor: 
Roble Viejo Lodge and Brewery

Music: Ketsa
Artwork: Mike Tea 
Production: Caleb Merrill, Angie Lake

Nikola and Stele are Croatian Mountain Rescue Service (HGSS) members.  The HGSS has been operating for over 75 years, primarily tending to cave rescues, ocean rescue, rock rescue, and more recently, avalanche rescue. It is a nationwide rescue organization with over 2500 members. The alpine terrain in the country is minimal, but the country is an exporter of avalanche victims. Including a prolific accident that killed a member of the organization and injured several others in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Nikola and Stele have been involved with HGSS since they were young adults and serve as lead trainers, organizing international workshops for their organization's avalanche commission. HGSS has gained status as an ICAR delegate organization, and as of 2019 they regularly bring US avalanche instructors over to teach their team the emerging standards of North America. Working with these two on several custom programs, I have gotten to know their team and admire the commitment they place on advanced alpine training, often traveling to neighboring alpine countries like Slovenia, Austria, Italy, and France to practice.
 Summary of their conversation: Nikola Brebric and Stele Stefanac give an overview of the history of the Croatian Mountain Rescue Service highlighting:
- Their involvement over two decades
- How the dynamic contrast of the recreational opportunities influence training, education and prevention, and rescue operations.
- The way a significant event shaped their organizations approach to internal training
- How they have made connections across the globe to keep their team up to speed on the latest advances in Avalanche Search and Rescue.
Croatian Mountain Rescue Service Website

Thanks to the sponsors of the show.
Legacy Sponsors:
Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund
Drone Amplified’s Montis
The Guide Network

Partner Sponsors:
Austin Powder
Peak Visor
onX Backcountry

Episode Sponsor: 
Arva Equipment 

Music: Ketsa
Artwork: Mike Tea 
Production: Caleb Merrill, Angie Lake

Tune in for a great evening of live storytelling from ISSW 2026.  Sara and Dom brought the Slabs 'n Sluff vibe to the Whistler audience and were joined by an amazing crew 8 of professionals from the snow and avalanche community.  The theme of ISSW is “A Merging of Theory and Practice” so we let our storytellers loose with a request to “tell us a 5-7min story of a time when theory met practice in your career.”

The stories:
Erich Peitzsch - “Mistakes were made but we continued learning…Right?!”
Erin Talor - “When practice precedes their: turning an unexpected situation into a learning opportunity”
Chris Kaipio - “The memory factor and risk taking.”
Helene Steiner - “Retreat!”
Jordy Shepherd - “To heliski or not to heliski: managing a significant buried persistent weak layer while running a relatively new heli-ski operation.”
Eeva Latosua - “There must be a rule for this.”
Drew Hardesty - “Backcountry avalanche forecasting: from theory to practice.”
Penny Goddard - “When theory doesn’t explain practice.”

Thanks to the sponsors of the show.
Slabs 'n Sluffs Season Sponsor: 
⁠Raide⁠, ⁠Safeback⁠

Legacy Sponsors:
Darren Johnson Avalanche Education Memorial Fund
Drone Amplified’s Montis
The Guide Network

Partner Sponsors:
Austin Powder
Peak Visor
onX Backcountry

Music: Ketsa
Artwork: Mike Tea 
Production: Caleb Merrill, Angie Lake

Season 11 is just around the corner, kicking off October 1st.  Join us for a shout out to one of our sponsors - Austin Powder, a major manufacturer of explosive products for the avalanche industry.  Hear a bit about the history of the company, a time when the North American avalanche industry was close to starting a winter season without an explosive supplier, and stay tuned until the end to hear some observations and insights on cornice blasting and case charging.   Learn about the history of the Avalauncher, and how mining rock blasting and avalanche control blasting are more similar than it might seem.  

Host Dom is joined by Braden Schmidt, Austin Powder Avalanche Global President and Michael Blancher, Austin Powder Technical Manager.  Both Braden and Michael have decades of experience in the avalanche industry and bring their expertise to their role supporting avalanche operations with technical blasting challenges.  

Braden Schmidt has worked in Explosives Avalanche Control Operations since 2004. He is a Professional Member of both the Canadian Avalanche Association as well as the American Avalanche Association, and a member of International Society of Explosives Engineers. He sat on the Explosives Advisory Committee of the Canadian Avalanche Association for 3 years before moving into his current role with Austin Powder Avalanche in 2018. He has conducted Avalanche control mission in Canada, USA and Europe and has also consulted on jobs in Iceland, Japan and New Zealand.

Michael Blancher has spent 29 years in the avalanche patch hunting frozen forms with the Ski Patrol at Whistler Blackcomb, then MOT Hwy’s Avalanche Weather Program Supervisor, now proudly serving the community with fresh Austin Powder.  
Episode Summary:
- Learn about how a nearly 200 yr old privately held company is helping keep ski hills, highways and infrastructure open by supplying explosives for avalanche control.
- Hear about the evolution of the Avalauncher, as well as insights on better techniques and technology for case charging and cornice control.  
- Consider how surface rock blasting and avalanche control blasting have more in common than it might first seem.
- Tune in to catch up on the latest from one of the avalanche industry’s best supporters.

Thanks to Austin Powder for supporting the show!

Music: Ketsa
Artwork: Mike Tea 
Production: Dom Baker, Angie Lake