Skiing’s Most Dangerous Terrain Isn’t Always on the Mountain

In September 2020, professional snowboard heli guide and Teton Gravity Research director of safety operations Jamie Weeks was prepared for a weekend of festivities and friends at TGR’s Make Believe movie premiere in Jackson Hole. He was not as prepared to take on a backlog of the stress, pressure, grief and anxiety that the skiers and crew he was charged with keeping safe had built up. Despite often looking like all fun and games from the outside, each season of production work is filled with months of high-intensity and high-risk work, loss, and close calls. 

But Jon “JK” Klaczkiewicz, then TGR’s VP of Production, had recently asked Weeks to add a mental health aspect to the upcoming International Pro Riders Workshop (IPRW)—a multi-day snow science and safety workshop for the TGR team hosted each December in the Tetons. So, in the days before the movie showing, Weeks polled the crew and athletes about issues they’d want him to cover. The response sent him hightailing home to Stanley, Idaho before the movie even hit the big screen.

“I was completely overwhelmed by the amount of information. With a green light to talk, it poured out. There were tears, I wasn’t prepared—it was rough to take on,” says Weeks. “But it proved the need to address the stress of pro skiers, guides, and crews, working under pressure and in high-risk mountain environments all season long.”

Before taking on the task, Weeks reminded Klaczkiewicz that he was a snowboarder, not a therapist. But the fact Weeks was already involved with the Redside Foundation, a mental health and financial resource for outdoor industry guides, possessed great public speaking and teaching skills, and had a genuinely caring demeanor was part of the reason Klaczkiewicz zeroed in on him for the job.

“The idea evolved organically over a few years for me,” says Klaczkiewicz. “Jamie and I would check in over the season on how athletes and crews were doing. There is a lot of decision fatigue: pressure to perform, to get the shot, make the right calls in heavy situations. In the past, people just swept the intensity of the stress and pressure under the rug. That’s not a great approach, and there’s been a real cultural shift away from that.” 

Luckily, Weeks had plenty of resources to build on. In 2017, Dave “Grom” Richards, the avalanche director for Alta Ski Area, a ski patroller, and member of Wasatch Backcountry Rescue, began speaking out about the mental toll of his work through the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Richard’s talks highlighted the stress of being a rescuer, feeling suicidal, and through them, he was flatly asking the industry to do something about mental health support. His story laid bare something ski patrollers, guides, avalanche forecasters, and other industry pros from all across the world understood—that the pressure of their work could have serious impacts on their mental health. What was new was that Richards wanted to make it ok to talk about it, in a community where it had not been acceptable to talk about in the past.

“Things changed for a lot of people after that talk. This industry is high-stress, especially for guides and rescuers. I’ve lost friends, been in accidents, avalanches, and there was grief and trauma and anger that wasn’t acknowledged,” says Weeks. “Everyone in mountain towns experiences this in some way. There’s an edge to life, pressure to get the right line, the right day, balance the risks; guides need to keep clients happy and safe on trip after trip for months on end; and rescuers are who everyone else turns to for help—it wasn’t okay for a long time to show emotional impacts, and drinking it away with alcohol was the usual course of action.” 

Shortly after Richards began his talks, Laura McGladry, a NOLS medical instructor and nurse practitioner, stepped up with the Responder’s Alliance, a non-profit which teaches stress resilience and post-incident support tools across the industry. It uses, among other tools, a stress continuum scale to identify signs of early burnout, adopted (with permission) from the U.S. military. 

Since then, the ripples have spread deeper in the industry every year, and these days, mental health and understanding tools for guides, athletes, recreationists and rescuers are now integrated into avalanche and medical course curriculum, media, and general industry culture.  

Weeks is well-positioned to understand the pressure. When we chatted for this story in late July, he was on his weeklong summer break, relaxing in Stanley at the home he shares with his wife, Nancy. He had guided the previous winter in Japan, then headed straight to Alaska, where he spent months working as Director of Mountain Operations for Travis Rice’s new multi-year film project, then headed to Tordrillo Mountain Lodge to guide for the annual Kings and Corn session. After his summer vacation, next on the docket was Chile to guide for Stellar Heli, then Travis Rice again, then, back into early winter avalanche course work, working with TGR, and another long season guiding and making safety calls for client, filmer, and athlete safety. 

It may seem like a dream life from the outside, but it was hard won: Weeks has been guiding for 25 years, fighting his way up to lead guide and operations manager as a snowboarder in a challenging industry dominated by skiers. That wild ride to success and Weeks’ personal reckoning about mental health and mental fitness has made him an ideal candidate to help provide tools for others in a hard-partying, high-risk industry.

Weeks acknowledges dealing with mental health is a personal issue, and some people drink as a salve, but there’s increasing access to and publicity for healthier tools and mechanisms that people can turn to. Weeks himself no longer drinks. He’s not here to preach that to others, he says, but that’s what worked for him. 

That 2020 task for TGR created a whole new lane for Weeks, where he is now regularly asked to give mental health talks with tools for handling stress, trauma, and mental fatigue for professional athletes, film crews, and guide operations. Based on research and personal understanding that pressures in professional snow industry careers have been long under-addressed, Week’s easy demeanor and no-nonsense charisma has made his take on what he calls “mental fitness” increasingly in demand. But he has to keep a hard line: he’s not the staff counselor, and he’s not a therapist. 

“My course is the mental equivalent of having a one-time meeting with a personal trainer—it’s up to you to keep using the tools,” says Weeks. “I’ve seen it work. People keep tabs on their mindset and stress, and are willing to admit when they are not at their best mentally, and shouldn’t be out filming or skiing in dangerous places.” 

The skills Weeks teaches include making sure mental health and not being on one’s A-Game is a topic people know is okay to bring up. “Mental health is hard to talk about. There’s a lot of pressure to perform and make decisions with career and sponsorships at the front,” says skier Tim Durtschi, who has spent countless hours in the field with Weeks on TGR shoots. “Jamie’s always waving his hands and reminding us it’s not the end of the world if we aren’t feeling a certain line. And overall, he just does such a great job of making mental health and emotions something we all feel comfortable talking about, because it is still sensitive.” 

Weeks still finds it most useful to compare taking care of stress, emotions, and the impact on one’s mental state to the more familiar physical world. Mountain professionals wouldn’t consider starting the season with an injury they’ve ignored, because it’s going to cause problems. It’s similar when an individual is carrying around and hiding stress and emotional baggage. It’s not going to put anyone at their best, or in a position to be safe and excel.  

For Weeks, the Redside Foundation, founded in the aftermath of legendary river guide Telly Evans’ suicide, was instrumental in removing the taboo of seeking help and talking about mental health. The foundation operates in WY, ID, MT, and CO, offering mental health, financial and professional resources. Weeks helps fundraise and speaks at Redside events whenever possible. “Any opportunity to get in front of people who can help the Redside, or who the Redside can help, I love to do it,” said Weeks.   

“The most important part is the first step: starting the conversation about mental health and fitness, acknowledging we work in a very stressful environment, and knowing we’re not alone,” says Weeks. “And the most rewarding part for me is seeing others feel it’s ok to ask for help when they need it, too.”