Guide for a Day

The Dynamics of Accidental Leadership

See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil might be an effective strategy for avoiding conflict and bad situations in some aspects of life, just not on backcountry ski tours.

As American ski mountaineering has evolved, the idea of a designated group leader has changed from being essential to almost nonexistent. In the early years of skiing clubs and mountaineering groups, leading an outing was a sign of advanced ski mountaineering competence. The 1962 fourth edition of The Sierra Club Manual of Ski Mountaineering included a five page test devoted to the skills necessary to lead a group, such as navigation, first aid, winter camping and skiing ability.

In the last two decades, as day trips gained popularity and group sizes went down, leadership evolved from being autocratic to essentially peer-to-peer. While this was the demise of an informal mentorship process, it also encouraged skiers to become more independent in the backcountry. Today, even though it is rare to formally assign group leaders on day tours, they are still present and play a large roll in the outcome of a tour, intentionally or not. After an accident, it is almost always clear in retrospect who the group leader was, even if it had not been discussed beforehand. Whether formalized or not, leaders exist during day tours and they may be you.

Who is in Charge Here?

There are three main clues to determine the default group leader on day tour; (1) the person organizing the outing, (2) the person suggesting the objective, or (3) the most experienced skier in the party. When these roles are all filled by one person—an experienced skier organizes a group of friends and suggests a specific peak, it is clear who is leading the tour. In another scenario, one person may suggest a peak to a friend who in turn invites four other people, including one who is a very experienced skier. One person has established the objective, another has established the team members and a third has the established knowledge. This common situation can lead to confusion, poor group dynamics and possibly accidents.

Aside from an awkward discussion among friends as to who is the designated leader, what can be done in this situation? First and foremost is to acknowledge your own role in the tour. If you are perceived as the default leader, accept responsibility for it, or make it clear that you are deferring decisions to someone else. One indicator of expertise in the backcountry is the ability to identify subtle group dynamics issues and do something proactively about them. If a strong willed person is suggesting a tour that too difficult for the majority of the group, it needs to be identified and discussed before it reaches the crisis stage.

Another factor to take into consideration is that when people are left out of the decision making process, a disengaged group mindset takes over. This creates a guide and client mentality, which can work well as long as it is mutually understood. Not everyone can break trail, but by including people in the decision as to where the trail should go and where you want to ski, it keeps people involved. If group members have no opinions and are willing to go and do whatever you suggest, you have become the guide and leader by default. In that case, the basic tenet of guiding is to help people avoid danger, not to expose them to it.

One of the best ways to keep a group together is through setting a sustainable pace that is comfortable for everyone. As the day progresses, a good leader will keep a running mental account of how everyone is doing and adjust the tour accordingly if people get tired. This is essential in poor weather and towards the end of the day when getting lost or hurt has much greater consequences.
Accept Responsibility.

Accepting responsibility for yourself and others is a crucial step in the ski mountaineering learning process. One of the best ways to do this is to educate and prepare yourself so that you can make good decisions. This can be achieved through years of experience, but also through simple details like checking the weather and avalanche conditions before you head out. It is much easier to act responsibility if you feel confident in your decisions, or at least have a rationale for making them. Being informed also makes it easier to alert others of risky situations, such as jumping off of cornices or skiing loaded slopes.

Crowd Control Being a good group leader, whether by accident or design, is a function of accepting responsibility and communicating clearly. At the top of a slope, voicing your thoughts on the snow stability, what line looks the best, what order people might ski it in, where everyone should stop at the bottom and how to signal for the next skier, are all good topics for discussion. This is a guides meeting in its most basic form and should be kept short, simple and in positive terms. Even if people do not agree on the strategy, it will open the door for discussion and perhaps ideas that had not been thought of.

If the group has a mix of experience, focus on those with the least amount and cater your plans accordingly. Propose that you ski first and set a defining left or right hand track (do not cross over this), then the inexperienced person goes next, while a more experienced person watches them from behind and only shouts "left" or "right" in the case of an avalanche. Let people know you will wave or whistle to them from the bottom when you are safe and ready for the next skier. Scenarios like this engage the entire group and open up the opportunity for questions or discussions.

Challenge

On an informal tour, it is especially problematic when a skier challenges the group decisions, as there may be no acknowledged leader or authority to begin with. This issue develops when a plan has been discussed and agreed on by the group, then one skier violates it for their own reasons. Such actions are dangerous and disruptive, as most of the time nothing happens and there are no consequences to their unsafe actions. This sets a precedent, undermines the group morale and endangers others. If skiers can not follow the agreed plan and insist on dangerous practices such as skiing two at a time or stopping above others, get them to formulate their safety strategy and then go first. If their plan seems dangerous, it can be discussed beforehand and if they insist on it, at least they will be doing it knowingly and endangering less people.

A common situation is to have one or more skiers in the group who are willing to expose themselves to more risk than others. This is a personal decision that can usually be accommodated by the group. If a skier wants to ski a steep, avalanche prone slope, ask him how he plans to do it and arrange people in such a way that you can keep an eye on him and yet not be endangered by his actions. It is impossible to always control the situation when skiing. Developing cooperation rather than expecting obedience is essential for group harmony.

Being informed is another great tool to combat challenges. If someone wants to ski a line that seems dangerous that day, knowing the current avalanche conditions and explaining why you think it is a bad idea has much more credence than just saying "no" for no specific reason.

As a group, or as the default group leader, it is important to let skiers know if they are endangering you.

They may be doing it unwittingly, in which case they can improve, or, if they just do not care, then you will not want to keep skiing with them. Posing yes or no questions, such as "Do you remember we agreed to ski this one at a time?" can be a succinct way of determining their intentions. Another option is to openly acknowledge a person who has done it correctly, which leaves the obvious negative comments unspoken, but hopefully self evident.

Backcountry skiing is a team sport that masquerades as an individual activity. It attracts strong willed people, many of whom are fiercely independent and antiauthority, which makes assigning a leader difficult. Most of the time, this is not an issue, but when it is, it can cause major problems. Parties almost always have an unacknowledged leader, and the sign of a good one is when everybody has a fun, safe, challenging outing, without really even knowing why. It just seems to happen.