March 3, 2019  
Brandon Schwartz is the Lead Forecaster at the Sierra Avalanche Center, which he helped found in 2004. SAC President Mark Bunge interviewed him in the skin track and while stuck on I-80 during a recent storm.

Vital Statistics
Age: 42
Years forecasting: 15
Height: 6’0”
Boot sole length: 323-330mm

Where did you grow up?
I grew up in Colorado although I wasn’t born there. I went to college in Washington and also lived in Idaho before moving to Tahoe.

When did you start skiing in the backcountry?
In high school in Colorado. We didn’t have avalanche safety gear or anything. I was a high school kid who didn’t know any better.

What was your first avalanche training?
A class in college. It was a basic field-based awareness program. We had to do some reading from Snow Sense and went out in the field and did some winter camping and some snow pit tests. That was my first formal training. Then I read The Avalanche Handbook. When I moved to the Tetons in 2002 that’s when I started getting more significant avalanche training.

What other “on-snow” jobs did you have prior to becoming an avalanche forecaster?
My first was as a hiking guide. It was summer hiking, but at high elevations in early season it would involve over-snow travel. I did some ski guiding and taught avalanche courses. And then started submitting observations before doing any forecasting work.

What’s the worst job you’ve ever had?
I’ve never had a really bad job for any length of time. I’ve taken jobs doing manual labor for a day here and there, enough to make me glad I don’t have to do that for a living. At one point I worked as a sandblaster doing prep work at a bike frame shop. That was definitely a job where you just put your headphones in, zone out, and sandblast all day. But I got to see some of the very nascent full-suspension mountain bikes, so that was interesting.

You helped create SAC, initially as an unpaid volunteer. How did that come about?
When I moved here I was going to school at UNR, living in Truckee, and ski touring in my free time. I went looking for the avalanche center resources that I was used to having in Colorado and the Tetons and found it was pretty minimal here. It was a limited advisory, only during storm cycles, and only based on ski patrol observations, mostly from Alpine Meadows. I asked why there weren’t more backcountry avalanche resources, and [the Forest Service] said it was because there wasn’t enough data. So I started sending backcountry observations from the touring I was doing. At one point Bob Moore [USFS Winter Sports Specialist who issued avalanche advisories on high danger days] was going to be out of town during a big storm, and he asked me to write a little paragraph to put on the website. So that was my first experience with forecasting, and I really liked it. After that I kept hounding Bob to let me take on some of the forecasting work, and eventually he gave in. So I was a volunteer with the Forest Service. At the same time I was teaching avalanche classes and ski guiding in Bear Valley. Eventually SAC had some fundraising success and I finally got my first paycheck at the end of the season in 2005.

What are the biggest changes you’ve seen in your 15 years with SAC?
The backcountry population has definitely expanded dramatically. I’d say by an order of magnitude. It wasn’t that crowded in the backcountry when I first moved here. Now it certainly is.
From the Center’s standpoint I’d say the changes are pretty significant, both in terms of the available resources, and our ability to interpret the snowpack. The snow science has improved dramatically in that time, and we’ve been able to capitalize on that. We can interpret the snowpack way better than we could 15 years ago. Growing from a staff of one to a staff of three forecasters and two professional observers has been very helpful at getting a handle on what is going on in the snow. Getting more professional-level observations from local guide services in recent years has also been a big positive change.

In your experience, what are some of the biggest misperceptions or mistakes you see among Tahoe backcountry users when it comes to avalanche safety?
I think folks are overly focused on the overall danger rating, and don’t focus enough on the avalanche problems and how to move around in the mountains to mitigate those problems, or how to pick and choose terrain based on the avalanche problem as opposed to the danger rating. That’s where I see the most misguided decisions happening. The focus should be more about terrain and travel decisions based on the entire advisory. Also folks underestimating the consequences of avalanches, underestimating the terrain.

What do you do in the off-season?
I like to mountain bike, kayak, and flyfish. We have a sailboat that we sail around Tahoe. And I teach NOLS courses, primarily Wilderness First Responder, but other courses as well, some of which give me the chance to travel internationally.