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The impact of climate change

We are finding, coaching and training public media’s next generation. This #NPRNextGenRadio project is created with the University of Nevada, Reno, where five talented reporters are participating in a week-long state-of-the-art training program.

In this project we are highlighting the experiences of people whose lives are being affected by climate change.

Kingkini Sengupta speaks with Brennan Lagasse, a professional skier and guide who has skied in all seven continents around the world. Over the years, he has noticed significant changes in the mountains that he has skied and finds it challenging to adapt to these changes.

Illustration by Lauren Ibañez

Climate change affects skier and guide on a very personal level

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Skiing evokes joy for Brennan Lagasse since childhood. He points to a rack of skis at the front patio of his V-shaped house on the western shores of Lake Tahoe. If you look a little bit left under that red sign, there’s one red ski. That’s one of my first skis, the other one unfortunately, my dad threw away,” he said.

One Skier's Uphill Battle with Climate Change

by Kingkini Sengupta | Next Generation Radio | UNR Newsroom | May 2022

Skier shows a photo of himself as a child, and holds his childhood red ski.

Lagasse’s mother introduced him to skiing as a toddler. Photo by Kingkini Sengupta

“It was fast. It was exhilarating. It was exciting,” said Lagasse, who has since skied in seven continents around the world including Himalayas, Altai and Caucasus mountains. When Lagasse travels internationally, skiing becomes his mode of communicating with others. “I connected with people that I could barely speak language with because of our shared connection to skiing.”

Over the years treading the mountains has become challenging. “I remember this one year, this was a couple of years ago, where this big hole in the glacier opened up. And we realized over time that what we saw in pictures earlier, in our time in this one region was this little depression, this little dimple even in lower snow years, this thing has grown quite a bit.”

On his skiing and guiding expeditions, Lagasse has seen not just decreasing amounts of snow at the mountain slopes, but also changing snow consistency which requires a more careful approach to ensure the safety of himself and his team. In addition, he faced frequent occurrences of unusual storms and higher temperatures.  

“My fear is in making a poor decision that doesn’t allow me to come home that day. That’s the biggest fear because unfortunately that has happened to friends of mine,” Lagasse said, referring to the loss of life that is very real for the skiing community and melting snow only exacerbates an already daring sport. 

Man stands in front of his A-frame home in the Tahoe forest.

Brennan Lagasse, as a professional skier and guide, has to find new routes because of changing conditions in the mountains. Photo by Kingkini Sengupta

“I could go back and look at a picture I took in Antarctica in 2009,” Lagasse said. Yet upon returning to the same place he can’t help but notice the drastic differences in a snowpack and a dramatic loss of ice. “And that’s just me in barely 10 years.”

Lagasse said the best practice for a skier in the wake of unprecedented circumstances is to ‘adapt’ to the differential snow conditions. I’m like, ‘Wow, I can’t even ski the same run that I used to ski five years ago, because it’s changed so much. And I think it’s too dangerous to go that way.

When skiing and guiding, Lagasse prioritizes safety while making sure that people have fun. He believes that as a person who has spent a lot of time in nature, his instincts can lead him in the best possible way.

It’s a double ‘S’ program – it’s safety and stoke. Safety is paramount, you can’t have the stoke without being safe. But the stoke is like someone’s enjoyment, perhaps one of the greatest days they’ve ever had in the mountains, or simply a satisfying day. It’s all the things that you’d like to give to someone in a shared experience. None of that happens without the safety aspect.”

ÒThe American dream is not my Indigenous dream. It's so different than that,Ó Jolie Varela said. ÒAs an Indigenous woman, I would like to see our ceremonies restored, our traditions restored, our homelands restored, and our land back. When people come from other places and they come in the name of this American dream or in pursuit of this American dream, I don't think they realize how that American dream erases Indigenous people, and further infringes upon our rights as Native people.Ó (Photo by Jarrette Werk)

Lagasse ensures that his 4-year-old daughter Mika who had skied every month of her life, enjoys it. Photo by Kingkini Sengupta

As a professional, Lagasse uses the backcountry skiing technique to reach pristine mountain areas. “When I go out into the environment, and I go skiing into a place that maybe no one’s ever skied before, the only thing that should be left there is the imprints of my skis in the snow or of my feet. And that’s it. Because when we leave, natural processes take care of that, just as snow changes every single day… That is all that we ever leave there.”

Laggase believes that we, humans, are an integral part of nature. So it is our responsibility to live in perfect harmony with nature as much as we can. “I think with skiing, there are things that come with it: byproducts that will create some sort of an impact. But in terms of going to these places, if you’re doing it in these kinds of manners, where you’re going to a place and leaving and not leaving a trace, I think that that’s a good ethic, if you will, for being in the environment.”

Transcript

 

BRENNAN LAGASSE:  My fear is in making a poor decision that doesn’t allow me to come home that day. Because unfortunately, that has happened to friends of mine.

Hi, my name is Brennan Lagasse and we’re at my house today on the ancestral lands of the Washoe Tribe, where I live on the west shore of Lake Tahoe

You know, I’m always thinking about safety.

So for example, we’re in a glaciated environment that I used to not feel as fearful about because of the predictable snowfall that I’ve had in this particular area. And I’m thinking specifically of Alaska right now, where I’ve spent quite a bit of time, over the years, taking people skiing.

And I remember this one year, this was a couple of years ago when this big hole in the glacier opened up. We realized over time that what we saw in pictures earlier, in our time in this one region, was this little depression… this little dimple even in lower snow years, this thing has grown quite a bit.

LAGASSE: So my way of taking people out there was to avoid it, avoid the whole thing. So where I used to take people to drop into this particular run to start skiing, I wouldn’t even go there anymore, I’d go somewhere else and to me, that’s not that bad for the context of what I’m talking to you about because the people skiing with me don’t know that.

And that’s fine.

For me to make those decisions, they’re just skiing the run, I have it in my head that I’m like, Wow, I can’t even ski the same run that I used to ski five years ago, because it’s changed so much. I think it’s too dangerous to go that way.

I think about this much more for my community of friends and guides around the world that guide me every single day in their life.

For example, in Mount Blanc in France, I know that people are really

changing the way that they’ve done things for decades because of climate change…  because of the recession of glaciers in that particular region.

You could be in the mountains in the spring and have more warmth in the snowpack than you’re used to, which could accelerate potential avalanche concerns that you’re always aware of when you’re a ski guide.

But it’s more, and it could be more, and it could be more challenging to the point…that you’re in the wrong place at the wrong time, and something catastrophic could happen. The ultimate is the loss of life.

My friend and I were hiking up on the spot on our favorite mountain and it was where he went off a 150-foot cliff a couple of years ago by mistake. He got swept by a small avalanche in a place that he skied many times. This one time, he didn’t escape it and it got him and he went off a cliff that most people would likely have not survived this. He’s a pretty extraordinary human. And he did survive.

LAGASSE: Luckily, myself and our two other friends that were there, two of us had quite a bit of wilderness medical training, and were able to keep him stable and conscious before he got a ride out in a helicopter to Reno, and is now you know, healed and doing quite well.

I was skiing with him the other day and so when I get asked about certain things like that, certain memories certainly come into my mind.

And I also think about the friends like more than 10 years ago now that didn’t, that I wasn’t with, but didn’t make it out.

Fear goes away.  You don’t have any time for fear. It literally goes away, and you’re just completely focused on the moment.

And what’s going on, in either survival for yourself or helping other survivors is essentially the position you get yourself into.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS:

The Next Generation Radio Project is a week-long digital journalism training project designed to give competitively selected participants, who are interested in radio and journalism, the skills and opportunity to report and produce their own multimedia story. Those chosen for the project are paired with a professional journalist who serves as their mentor.

This #NPRNextGenRadio project was funded by The Reynolds School of Journalism at the University of Nevada, Reno.

Our staff:

  • Managing Editor – Traci Tong, Freelance Editor, Boston, MA
  • Digital Editors – Amara Aguilar, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA, Laura Gonzalez, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA; and Crystal Willis, KUNR Public Radio, Reno, NV
  • Audio Tech/Engineers – Selena Seay-Reynolds, Next Gen Radio Lead Audio Engineer, Los Angeles, CA; and Yuki Liang, Los Angeles, CA
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  • Visuals – Michelle Baker, Freelance Visual Journalist, Reno, NV
  • Web Developer – Robert Boos, Web Developer/Editor, Minneapolis, MN

 

Our journalist/mentors for this project were:

  • Anh Gray, Audio Coach, The GroundTruth Project, home to Report for America, Reno, NV
  • Tim Lenard, Visual Journalist, The Nevada Independent, Reno, NV
  • Jazmin Orozco-Rodriguez, Reporter, Kaiser Health News, Elko, NV
  • Regina Revazova, Founder, Open Conversation, Phoenix, AZ
  • Natalie Van Hoozer, Bilingual Reporter, KUNR Public Radio, Reno, NV

 

The Next Generation Radio program is directed by its founder, Doug Mitchell, NPR, Washington DC.

 

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