When Deciding Is Difficult

The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.  David Russell

Last night I read this piece by Will Gadd on decision making in the mountains. The idea is simple, evocative and, I suspect, sound. It brought back to me many days when we've stood about the top of an avalanche slope having long discussions about whether or not to continue, how to minimize risk, what the odds of an avalanche are, where the escape zone is, and, a host of other variables, that as Gadd succinctly summarizes are "likely to (sic) complicated to make a good decision on".

The last time this happened was during our week at Kokanee. We had 120 cm of snow over the last days of the week accompanied by rising, then falling freezing levels, strong to extreme winds, and a buried surface hoar layer of unknown distribution. We saw a reasonable number of natural avalanches, but, overall, the extent of natural avalanching was far less than we expected. Snow pit tests were highly variable, and some small slopes were running while larger slopes were not. The data was confusing and did not fit into any of our previous schema.

In the face of this uncertainty, we played it safe. Skied short, low angle, safe lines in the trees and avoided overhead exposure. We recognized that conditions were such that good decision making was difficult, so the best thing to do was avoid avalanche terrain altogether. The week ended with no involvements.

But, I left wondering if things were as uncertain as we perceived them. Could we have skied the bigger lines without involvement? Or, did we avoid involvement due to astute decision making? Is good decision making recognizing when the data is too overwhelming, too complex, too contradictory to allow good decision making? If you believe Gadd's thesis, the latter is true.

If you'd asked me these questions in the week following Kokanee, I would have said we were just timid wimps. A month or more later, wiser for reading this article, I now think we were astute enough to realize when a good decision was beyond our knowledge and experience, and that the best decision involved zero exposure.

Not the place to stand about wondering what to do