Email #1

I’d like to buy new skis and bindings for the skier who lost his in the Chutes and Ladders slide. Could you put me in touch with him?

Email #2

That is incredibly kind and generous. I really appreciate your offer to that skier. It really helps us work on building a community in which we can share stories and report accidents without shame. It’s very powerful and I can’t express how much our entire staff appreciates your offer.

I forwarded your email to him.

Best, Mark

Email #3

Well, you see, I was the one that set the skin track that took them into danger. Like them, I didn't know the area well and when I skinned it on Wednesday (to ski Catcher's Mitt, one of the best runs of my life), we started too far to the looker's left, coming up through Chutes and Ladders. We had a moment when we had to decide which way to go and we skinned over into trees, then across the face (where the avalanche broke) back to the ridge line leading into Catcher's Mitt. I knew as I was doing it that it was a terrible choice, but we had boxed ourselves in (ironically, by trying to get to a safe place). So we tried to make the best of it by going one by one across the face. I had my heart in my mouth the entire time.

Now that I've done it, and have seen the terrain by day (we started dawn patrol and were skinning up in the dark, going off the WBSkiing map to try to figure out the ridge line to follow up), I would skin it very differently, and perhaps would skip it altogether by following a better track up Argenta and dropping in through East Couloir as three other skiers did an hour or so after we had left the area on Wednesday. This experience has taught me many lessons (fed, in part, by your excellent write-up).

I know they needed to make their own choice as to where to skin up. I also think they were unwise to go out with the rapidly heated snow. BUT I also know that I did them a disservice by (unintentionally) setting a terrible skin track for them to follow, and I've done my fair share of dumb things touring, so I'd be a kettle calling the pot black if I were to try to blame them.

I can't imagine how much worse I'd feel if they'd been hurt. Replacing skis is cheap by comparison. I hope they'll reach out to me to let me get them some new gear.