Where The Three Rivers Meet

Alex with a set of elk sheds. | Photo: Author 

It could have been an old truck's exhaust backfiring, we didn't know. What it really sounded like was a gunshot, but we wouldn't admit that. We only saw one other vehicle in the area on the way in. It was already dark when we decided to spend the night at the rusty, abandoned windmill and cattle tank. We were on a piece of land we shouldn't have been on and we knew it. There was something about this patch of earth that spooked us; perhaps it was its remoteness or its lawlessness. Maybe it was the ancient peoples who used to live here and their stories of angry spirits. Maybe it was the gunshot. Either way, we pretended to forget about it.

We camped where three rivers met—where barren desert kissed lush, emerald mountains in a forlorn corner of Lincoln County in Southern New Mexico. But I didn’t see any running water. It was the night before a big shed hunt. As a member of the Mescalero Apache Tribe, Alex was an avid shed hunter, having hiked all over this landscape in the same way his ancestors did in search of antlers. Native Apaches have been hunting for sheds throughout the Southwest for centuries, long before the arrival of Europeans. Antlers from elk and deer were used in their culture mainly for the purpose of making tools and weapons, like spearpoints and knife handles. They were a high-quality product that played an important role for survival in everyday Native American life. Today, shed hunting is a fun, meaningful way to get outside and connect with the outdoors—and get paid for it.

On a good shed hunt, Alex would come back with a heavy, cumbersome load strapped to his pack. A successful search could yield dozens of antlers or more. Brown elk and mule deer antlers, or "brownies," as Alex called them, suggested that the animal had only recently dropped them, as they do each spring. These were the real prize, especially from elk, as they looked the prettiest and sold for the most, with Alex and other local shed hunters selling them to traders in the nearby mountain town of Ruidoso who have connections with luxury furniture makers, artisan jewelers, bladesmiths, dog chew producers, or anyone who sees a demand for antlers. They pay per pound: brownies go at a premium rate, which fluctuates depending on the current market, but shed hunters can usually get anywhere from fifteen to twenty-five dollars a pound for them. A large brownie from a mature bull elk could weigh up to 20 pounds or more. Half-browns sell for a little less, and then the chalky ones for the least, usually a handful of dollars per pound. The older the shed, the more sun-bleached, hollow, and chalky it is, and the less it weighs. These less desirable horns are usually turned into dog treats—but you could still get something for them. All antlers are good antlers. On this painfully warm July night at the windmill on a piece of tribal land that Alex said we “should” be ok to stay on since it technically belonged to him and his people, we set up sleeping arrangements, drank some aged tequila, and fended off swarms of ardent moths—but there was no campfire.

The next morning we woke up before dawn and this side of the mountains was still shaded from the rising sun behind them. A hasty breakfast and we started walking through sandy washes and desert shrubbery towards the mountains to our east. The flat earth gradually grew into rolling hills. Looking to the southwest from a small hill, we could see White Sands National Park in the distance and its unique sand dunes that are made entirely of gypsum, a mineral that is usually clear but appears white due to the way sunlight reflects off the tiny grains. The sun was soon on us and we could already feel its intensity early in the morning.

As the hills swelled larger the closer we got to the mountains, small junipers started springing up one by one until they got bigger and bigger and we were suddenly immersed in forest. The shade was comforting and we clung to it, stopping and glassing with Alex’s worn binoculars from cool vantage points for anything that stuck out amongst the greenish-brown vegetation. We trudged forward, going higher in elevation in the direction of the mountains. At the top of one sunny plateau, with desert below in one direction and mountains above in the other, I spotted the first shed of the day.

It was sitting in the shade between the trunks of two juniper trees. The moment my eyes scanned over an out-of-place tinge of white amongst the junipers was the same moment my body came to a halt. I knew what it was.

Once we got to the top of the plateau, our luck increased dramatically. | Photo: Author

I shouted back towards Alex, who was zigzagging the hillside below the crest of the plateau. He hurried over and we were both elated—it was the first antler I had ever found. It was a small elk horn with about six tines; it was old and chalky from the desert sun with a coarse, dusty feel to it—not a brownie but a shed nonetheless. We shared smiles and high-fives—the morning of grueling hiking had suddenly all become worth it. But we soon returned to mindfully sweeping the countryside for more of them, with no time to waste. It was getting hot—really hot. But not more than five minutes had passed when I found another one.

This antler was precariously positioned in the upper portion of a stubby juniper tree, which looked more like a bush. The shed was at shoulder level as I eagerly went over and plucked it from the branches. It was also old and chalky like the last one but bigger. A bull elk had been fiddling with the tree at some point, using the tree to rid itself of this annoying piece of bone that had outlived its purpose. The bull dislodged it in the tree branches and went elsewhere while the antler remained, frozen in time. Alex said he hadn't found a shed stuck in a tree like that before and so we laughed. It was not long after that when he had found a shed as well—a big, white eight-pointer that he immediately and quietly strapped to his pack. He carried on silently.

By lunchtime, our packs were already strapped tight with sheds—ten or so between the two of us. We found a nice, shaded spot beneath some juniper trees with a view of the desert floor below. We enjoyed sandwiches and a timeout from the heat. The sun was high in the sky and the temperature was likely in the triple digits already. We decided to start the long trek back to the car because we were over the heat and were already satisfied with our finds from the morning—me especially because I had found more sheds than Alex. But that moment of quiet gloating was short-lived.

By lunchtime, each of us had already found several elk and mule deer sheds. | Photo: Author

We aimed towards a dry creek bed at the base of the plateau but quickly realized that we were up higher than we thought; the descent proved to be a steep, rocky, mountainous mess that took much longer than expected. The rocks were small and loose and you had to be careful not to lose your balance and tumble down the steep decline. To make matters worse, Alex told me that this type of country is the kind that black bears and mountain lions reside in and that we should keep our eyes open. New Mexico is a wild place to say the least. 

We were miles away from the nearest road with no cell signal and backpacks full of sheds. At one point on the way down to the creek bed, Alex and I became separated. I yelled for him but heard nothing. Powerful, piercing sun rays beamed on me in the desert heat but I still couldn't help but get the chills. 

Nearing the creek bed, I heard his booming voice coming from up and to the right of where I had just come from. I was washed with a wave of relief. I went over to him, where he was sitting below a large dead juniper tree next to a bull elk skull that still had its antlers attached. "Come look at this," he said. 

The bull's skull had a copper bullet lodged in its forehead. Someone had shot this elk but left its skull and antlers behind. "Probably a poacher," Alex said, who had likely shot the animal and harvested its meat but not its horns so they wouldn't have been spotted leaving the area with something as noticeable as a fresh set of elk antlers.

It was a common-enough story in these parts. Many of the poachers in this corner of New Mexico were likely local and, in some cases, descendants of the Mescalero Apache themselves. It was an unfortunate truth—one that Alex never shied away from—that some families in the area lived under the weight of generational poverty, addiction, and a lack of opportunity. Alcoholism, petty crime, and a deep disconnect from both tribal leadership and mainstream society had taken root in places the government forgot long ago. Some hunted illegally not out of sport or malice, but out of hunger, desperation, or simple survival. Out here, there were no clean lines between right and wrong—only the realities of a hard life on unforgiving land.

Alex with the deadhead. | Photo: Author

We carried on, following the dry creek as it snaked along the feet of towering plateaus, offering us much shade. It eventually dumped us out into a flat basin where other creeks met it. Was this one of the three rivers that gave the area its name? I wondered. It was here that Alex started finding shed after shed like he was in an orchard harvesting low-hanging chiles. He'd walk along, stop, bend over, pick one up, put it on his pack, keep walking, and repeat a similar process a hundred yards later. It hadn't been that long since I first took delight in the notion that I had found more sheds than Alex, whose pack was now clearly heavier than mine. He had it in his blood, after all, which I didn’t think was fair. 

The closer we got to the vehicle, the flatter the ground got and the more sheds we started finding. We crossed sandy washes and flat bushy areas and they were everywhere, with Alex and I picking them up off the ground left and right. We recovered sheds all the way until the car and were surprised that we hadn't found them in the morning when we first set off.

"Not bad for a morning of hiking around in a pretty spot.” | Photo: Author 

It was early afternoon when we got back to my car; we were drenched in sweat, out of water, and thoroughly exhausted. But we were joyful about the day. Alex had found eleven sheds and I had found nine, including a set, which is a pair of antlers from the same elk. Finding sets isn't common because elk don't usually shed their antlers at the same time, so we were both excited when I got one. We snapped a couple of photos of our finds and enjoyed the desert scenery and far-off mountain views for a moment from the comfort of my car's AC. "Not bad for a morning of hiking around in a pretty spot," I told Alex. He agreed.

On the way out we passed by a petroglyph site. Ancient people had once lived in this seemingly uninhabitable land long ago and had left behind traces of their existence—stone inscriptions of their unique lives and culture for future onlookers like us to admire and ponder. A 2021 discovery by researchers in White Sands, less than 100 miles away to the southwest, found 20,000-year-old human footprints, challenging the assertion that no human being had been in North America before the Bering Land Bridge at the time of the last Ice Age. But they had been, right here in what is now New Mexico. Just down the road less than 100 miles in the other direction is the Trinity Site, where Oppenheimer and his team of scientists made history by detonating the first atomic bomb, propelling mankind into a new era in which it gained the power to annihilate itself. These were all things Alex and I discussed as we sailed back along the empty, dusty highway with weary grins on our faces and a trunk full of sheds.

Alex would pass away later that year in an accident at work, cutting trees in the very same forest he grew up in, just on the other side of the range where he and I went shed hunting in Lincoln County that hot summer day. He was 20. Like his ancestors, he lived and died on this land that we had scoured in search for brown gold. When I walk through the mountains or the desert today, sweeping the pine-needle-covered ground for sheds, dissecting the sage bush shrubbery for a jammed-in antler, a part of me still expects to turn and see Alex pop around the corner with a big brownie in his hand, smile stretching from ear to ear. I know one day I'll eventually have to go to where he is now, and it gives me a small sense of relief knowing that Alex is there already, still adventuring, finding the biggest sets we could ever imagine. I look forward to seeing you there one day, amigo—perhaps where the three rivers meet.

Alex strolling off into the eternal. | Photo: Author

Throw yourself into the Abyss...

Terence McKenna. | Photo: Goodreads

Nature loves courage. You make the commitment and nature will respond to that commitment by removing impossible obstacles. Dream the impossible dream and the world will not grind you under, it will lift you up. 

This is the trick. 

This is what all these teachers and philosophers who really counted, who really touched the alchemical gold, this is what they understood. This is the shamanic dance in the waterfall. This is how magic is done. 

By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it's a feather bed.”

― Terence McKenna

Cigarettes in Sicily

 

San Vito Lo Capo, Sicilia, Lulio, 2025. | Photo: Author

Cigarettes in Sicily

—a pretty addiction. 

Best I leave this one behind here

in the night's shade

under the pink flower tree;

half moon glowing sharp

with the many loves that could never be.

Forward.

Aviation Report: Pilot Lacked Key Training and Lead Ski Guide Had Elevated Cocaine Levels in Fatal Alaska Helicopter Crash That Killed 5, Including Czech Billionaire

The wreckage from the March 27, 2021, helicopter crash near the Knik Glacier in Alaska, which killed five people, highlights a chain of safety lapses that contributed to the tragedy. | Photo: Alaska Mountain Rescue Group

On March 27, 2021, under the bright, deceptive calm of a blue sky, an AStar helicopter carrying six people—three Czech nationals, two American guides, and a pilot—lifted off from Wasilla Lake, heading for the remote, untouched powder of Alaska's Chugach Mountains. It never returned.

By the end of the day, Petr Kellner, Czechia's richest man, was dead. So were four others. The lone survivor would later describe in a report shared by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as being pinned in the wreckage, buried in snow, listening to faint sounds around him until they stopped. No sirens. No rotors. Just silence. The day would be marked in Alaskan history as one of the state's most deadly aviation tragedies.

But it was no freak accident.

A Billionaire

56-year-old Petr Kellner was more than just the wealthiest man in Czechia. He was a defining figure of the country’s post-communist era—an investor who capitalized early and built PPF Group into a sprawling conglomerate with holdings in finance, real estate, media, and telecommunications. At the time of his death, Kellner’s net worth was estimated at over $17 billion. He was known for being intensely private, even as his influence stretched across Europe and Asia.

After his death, control of PPF passed to his wife, Renáta Kellnerová, and their children, making her one of the wealthiest women in Europe. The Kellner family maintained silence in the months following the crash, eventually settling with the companies involved. After the incident, two federal court filings in Anchorage released in 2022 show that it is probable that Kellner and another member of the crew, likely lead guide Gregory Harms, did not die right away when the helicopter crashed. They likely "died while waiting for rescue," according to filings in a U.S. District Court case involving a settlement between the sole survivor, David Horvath, and Soloy Helicopters. The rescue came several hours too late.

Czech billionaire Petr Kellner, 56, was among five killed in the March 27, 2021, helicopter crash near the Knik Glacier. | Photo: moneyinc.com

The Day’s Plan

An NTSB report filed by investigator Joshua Cawthra in September 2023—over two years since the crash—shows that Soloy Helicopters had been contracted to fly guests of Tordrillo Mountain Lodge, a luxury heli-ski operation catering to a wealthy, international clientele. That Saturday, the plan was simple: several ski runs in the Chugach backcountry, then return to the lodge before sunset in time for a gourmet dinner.

The helicopter left Wasilla around 2:50 p.m. The report shows that the weather wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t terrible, either: some gusty wind, light snow, and flat light. Over the next few hours, the group completed six successful ski runs.

At about 6:30 p.m., they headed for their last run of the day.

"Little White Room"

As the helicopter approached a ridgeline to perform a landing at roughly 6,266 feet elevation, visibility deteriorated. According to the survivor's testimony, the aircraft suddenly entered what he described as a “little white room”—a total whiteout. That’s not unusual in heli-skiing. Powder snow stirred up by the rotor wash can quickly eliminate all visual cues.

The report states that the pilot tried to adjust. The helicopter began moving backward, rapidly. Moments later, it slammed into the ridge, then rolled nearly 900 feet down the slope.

The emergency beacon activated. Yet there was no immediate response. In fact, rescue would not arrive at the crash site until almost five hours after impact.

The location of the departure point, previous operating areas, and the accident site. | Screenshot: Faa.gov

The Pilot’s Training—Or Lack Thereof

The report found that Zachary Russell had logged more than 3,200 hours of helicopter flight time. He was 33 years old and considered competent by his employer. However, after the crash, a closer examination of his training revealed significant gaps.

Russell hadn’t received proper training in inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions, or IIMC—what pilots experience when they suddenly lose visibility and have to rely on instruments to stay oriented. According to the NTSB, he also hadn’t been formally trained for ridge landings in the AS350-B3, the helicopter he was flying that day—or in the previous model he had flown and trained on. Soloy’s own training materials didn’t include modules for either scenario. Yet Russell was cleared to fly. The NTSB put it plainly: “It is likely that the pilot did not meet the qualification standards to be the pilot-in-command of the accident flight.”

The FAA’s Principal Operations Inspector who was responsible for overseeing Soloy (whose name was not shared in the report) had previously worked for the company as a pilot. Between 2011 and 2013, she was Soloy's chief pilot and also worked at another helicopter company with the person who later became the president of Soloy, according to the NTSB. The investigation found that she approved the training program despite these omissions and had not observed any of the company’s heli-ski flights during her time as inspector. The NTSB officially determined it to be "inadequate oversight of the accident operator" but that there was insufficient evidence to determine whether the inspector’s prior work history was a factor.

The NTSB would later conclude that Russell’s lack of IIMC training “likely contributed” to the crash. When visibility disappeared, he didn’t transition to instrument flying. He lost situational awareness which led to impact. But it wasn't necessarily a bad call by Russel that sealed their fate; the investigation concluded that gaps in training likely contributed to the crash, even though at the time he was approved to pilot the aircraft.

The accident site. | Photo: Alaska State Troopers

Rescue Delayed

There’s evidence that at least two other passengers survived the crash for up to two hours. This includes Kellner and Harms. But no distress call was made.

Flight-following—the job of tracking the helicopter and initiating rescue if needed—had been informally assigned to the lodge. The task fell to a ski guide using a Garmin inReach satellite tracker. The last signal from the helicopter came at 6:36 p.m.

By 7:15 p.m., the guide back at the lodge reported that there had been no contact for over an hour. But instead of calling for help, the report states that the lodge staff checked in with another heli-ski company, which mistakenly said the helicopter was on its way back.

It wasn’t until 8:25 p.m. that Soloy was notified that something was wrong. Only then did the company begin activating its emergency plan. The wreckage was finally located around 11:30 p.m. The sole survivor, David Horvath, was evacuated more than five hours after the crash.

A military helicopter arrives at the Knik Glacier crash site to deploy rescuers following the deadly March 27, 2021, accident. | Photo: Alaska Mountain Rescue Group

The Sole Survivor

David Horvath, a 48-year-old Czech national and longtime associate of Kellner, was seated in the back of the helicopter. When the aircraft came to rest, he was trapped, partially buried in snow, his body wedged between the other passengers.

His testimony states that he could hear someone else outside of the helicopter—likely Kellner or Harms—making faint noises. They communicated briefly, but then, after a while, the other passenger stopped responding. After that there was only silence.

By the time rescuers reached the site, Horvath was hypothermic and suffering from advanced frostbite. He saw the light of the approaching helicopter and then reportedly passed out, not remembering anything else until he woke up in the hospital later. Horvath managed to survive, but he lost most of his fingers and now lives with lasting injuries.

Volunteers with the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group arrived on the scene of the helicopter crash in the Chugach Mountains near the Knik Glacier on Sunday, March 29, 2021. | Photo: Alaska Mountain Rescue Group photo via Alaska State Troopers

The Guide and the Toxicology Report

Toxicology results released by the NTSB revealed that Gregory Harms, the 52-year-old lead guide on board, had significant concentrations of amphetamine, cocaine, and 1,000 ng/mL of benzoylecgonine—a primary cocaine metabolite—in his blood at the time of the crash. According to a 2022 review of drug-impaired driving thresholds, legal cut-offs for amphetamine in blood typically start at 20 ng/mL, with upper enforcement thresholds reaching 600 ng/mL, depending on jurisdiction. For cocaine, cutoff levels range from 10 to 80 ng/mL. Benzoylecgonine, which lingers longer in the bloodstream, is considered elevated at levels as low as 50–100 ng/mL.

A concentration of 1,000 ng/mL in blood—not urine—is regarded as exceptionally high, often indicative of recent heavy or binge use. This level of exposure suggests that Harms had used cocaine within the prior 24 hours, and not casually. While the NTSB does not make medical diagnoses, toxicology data at this scale points to substantial, acute drug use, well beyond what would be considered recreational.

Harms played a central safety role during the flight—helping to identify landing zones, assess snowpack conditions, and communicate with the pilot. Impairment in those areas can have serious operational consequences, especially in rapidly changing mountain environments where judgment and coordination are critical.

"Although ski guides are not considered crewmembers according to the Federal Aviation Regulations, they have safety-related responsibilities during heli-ski flights such as coordinating with pilots about landing and pickup zones and assisting pilots with hazard and pickup zone identification. However, investigation was unable to determine whether the guide’s illicit drug use played a role in the accident," the NTSB report reads.

Tordrillo Mountain Lodge's handbook specifically states that guides cannot be under the influence while working. The NTSB also noted that 38-year-old Sean McManamy, the second guide aboard and a resident of Girdwood, Alaska, tested positive for THC. However, the levels found were considered non-impairing, and his role in the flight’s outcome was not linked to the crash.

While McManamy is believed to have died on impact, Harms may have initially survived. A civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in 2022 claims that Harms survived the initial crash but suffered severe injuries that ultimately proved fatal, raising questions about whether a faster rescue could have made a difference.

Greg Harms, pictured during a January 2015 interview with Aspen 82. | Photo: Aspen 82

Institutional Failures

The investigation reveals that Soloy Helicopters’ operations manual didn’t include adequate procedures for flight locating or overdue aircraft.  Soloy's director of operations admitted in the official investigation that he didn’t know when the helicopter was due back that evening.

The FAA inspector who approved the company’s training program did not confirm that it met federal standards. She didn’t ensure pilots were being trained on key safety procedures like whiteout recovery or ridge landings.

Soloy's emergency response plan was expected to follow FAA Order 8900.1, which requires that search and rescue be notified if an aircraft has not been heard from within 30 minutes of its last expected check-in. That didn't happen. Instead, there was a prolonged period of uncertainty, with staff at Tordrillo Mountain Lodge checking in with another heli-ski operator and mistakenly concluding the aircraft was en route. The delay in alerting authorities cost precious time—time that may have made a difference for those who initially survived the crash. Soloy was later found by the NTSB to not have incorporated these requirements into its flight locating procedures.

Every point in the system—operator, regulator, contractor—missed something. And taken together, those misses added up.

Soloy Helicopters is headquartered at Wasilla Airport. | Photo: Marc Lester /Anchorage Daily News

Legal and Corporate Consequences

After the crash, Kellner’s family filed wrongful death lawsuits. Soloy and Tordrillo Mountain Lodge settled out of court. The FAA did not issue public sanctions. No criminal charges were filed.

PPF Group, the multinational firm founded by Kellner, passed into the control of his wife and children. Business continued. But for the families of those lost, and for the lone survivor, the impact of that day remains.

Testimony from the sole survivor of the crash reveals that Petr Kellner was alive for some time after the initial crash before succumbing to his injuries. | Photo: Roman Vondrous/CTK via AP, File

Lessons From the Glacier

The crash near Knik Glacier wasn’t caused by one erroneous decision. The report shows that it was the result of many small shortcomings in training, oversight, communication, and accountability. Each gap made the next one more dangerous. The NTSB determined the probable cause(s) of the accident to be:

"The pilot’s failure to adequately respond to an encounter with whiteout conditions, which resulted in the helicopter’s collision with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the (1) operator’s inadequate pilot training program and pilot competency checks, which failed to evaluate pilot skill during an encounter with inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions, and (2) the Federal Aviation Administration principal operations inspector’s insufficient oversight of the operator, including their approval of the operator’s pilot training program without ensuring that it met requirements. Contributing to the severity of the surviving passenger’s injuries was the delayed notification of search and rescue organizations."

The investigation shows that these weren’t just flaws, but failures of responsibility. Safety was not ensured by those who were entrusted to do so. The FAA signed off on incomplete training programs. Soloy certified a pilot without confirming he could handle whiteout conditions. The lodge relied on informal tracking for flights operating in remote, avalanche-prone mountains and ultimately received inaccurate information that the downed helicopter was inbound. Though protocols were established, the lack of timely follow-up meant the helicopter’s location remained unknown for hours—delaying rescue and worsening survivability.

There is a broader lesson here from this tragic incident that reaches beyond aviation and heli-ski operators. One that teaches that when safety is decentralized and assumed rather than verified, things can fall through the cracks. When oversight becomes familiar instead of rigorous, mistakes can go unchecked. And when emergency protocols exist only on paper, they don’t help anyone when it matters—and the price to be paid is high.

Evidence shows that everyone on that helicopter trusted the system around them—the pilots, the guides, the lodge, the regulator. But it's possible that trust was misplaced. Heli-skiing will never be without risk. That's part of its appeal. But through the application of various control systems, the risks can be managed. The required skills can be met through extensive training. Communication can be structured to be effective in any situation. Rescue can be fast. Unfortunately, though, as in the case of the Knik Glacier helicopter crash, the NTSB investigation identified multiple lapses in these systems that were supposed to reduce danger; in this case, they were handled more like suggestions instead of standards. According to investigators, the wind or the snow didn't cause the crash, but a series of key, overlooked factors—meaning that this likely could have been prevented.

In aviation, clarity is everything. It's what keeps people alive. When it comes to tragedies, understanding the mistakes made, learning from them, and operating with responsibility moving forward are the only paths that can provide real growth. In the case of the Knik Glacier helicopter crash, they won’t bring anyone back. But perhaps they can stop something like this from ever happening again.

Tordrillo Mountain Lodge, a luxury heli-ski resort in Alaska, served as the departure point for the ill-fated flight on March 27, 2021. | Photo: Tordrillo Mountain Lodge

Alex wouldn't believe...

Ghiacciacio Marmolada, Dolomiti, Italia. | Photo: Author

It's been almost 5 years since you hit the Big Send, buddy—half a decade of life lived hard—and you wouldn't believe how far we've all come. Your brothers have become journalists and ski patrollers and smoke jumpers, entrepreneurs and business owners and adventurers, fathers and lovers and husbands and family men who work hard and ski harder with their people; who give the best of their hearts in cherishing this life in all that they do. We've all grown to become the best version of ourselves, and while some of us may have already been on this path when we knew you, you certainly gave us the necessary push to really make it happen and live it better than we ever could otherwise. That is the gift that your passing has given us. I think I can speak for all of us who had the honor of calling you a close friend in that we would trade all of this growth in a heartbeat for just one more day with you, one more day out in the mountains, one more lift ride or dirty joke around a campfire. But at the same time I can't help but feel an immense gratitude for what you've given us that goes so far beyond words. I love and miss you every day bro and I'll see you again one day. I'm looking forward to it.

• Scribbled from the top of a mountain pass in the Dolomites, a place that you would have so dearly loved just as much as I—probably more, honestly. 

Stairway to Heaven. | Photo: Author

The Women Speed Riders of Chamonix

Chamonix is home to a fearless bunch of women who take to the sky weekly on their speed wings, living life on the edge. | Photo: Cyrilde Pic

Speed riding is essentially skiing but with wings. You clip into your skis, strap on a small glider, and take off. The glider or 'wing,' as it is referred, lifts, the skis carve, and gravity does the rest. It’s fast. It’s light. And when done right, it looks like flight sculpted in real time; the ability to glide only inches or also hundreds of feet above snow, cutting tight turns, touching down and lifting again—all at breakneck speed.

• Related: Monoman: The Tragic Last Run of a Chamonix Icon

Born in France in the early 2000s, speed riding stemmed from speed flying, which exploded as a fringe experiment, turning into one of the most exhilarating mountain sports on the planet. The main difference? Speed riding is on snow with skis while speed flying is only flying. Both demand precision, speed, and a lot of nerve. They both took root deeply in the Chamonix valley—where the terrain is some of the most serious the world has to offer. The line between life and death runs thin here, and those who call these mountains their home constantly dance along that line.

Yet beneath the sport’s rugged image lies a quieter legacy—one carved by the women who’ve been flying these peaks for decades

Speed riding is an adrenaline-fueled mix of speed flying and extreme skiing. | Photo: Cyrilde Pic

Cyrilde Pic is a Chamonix local and a speed riding guide. She’s been flying since before social media existed, before most people knew what speed riding even was. “There was a lot of speed riding with women here before the social media,” she says with a French accent. “It’s just an old story—older than Instagram.”

Pic grew up between Chamonix and Brittany, skiing and sailing. Her introduction to wind sports like speed flying actually started first with windsurfing. Later, a paragliding tandem flight for her 20th birthday changed everything. She dropped out of university to become a paragliding instructor. “When speed riding showed up in the mid-2000s…I was a skier and a sailor and a paraglider. It was love at first sight. For me, it was windsurfing on snow.”

She started teaching speed riding in 2009, and by 2010, she won the French championship at 40 years old. “It’s not the Olympics,” she says. "We were 12 girls. But for me, it was an achievement. I couldn’t make what I wanted to do in my windsurfing career because of the money. So I was really happy to win this title.”

Speed riders take flight at the Women of Speed Flying event at Val d’Isère in the French Alps in February 2025. | Photo: Tobi Mazoyer

From the start, women weren’t just on the sidelines in Chamonix—they were actively shaping the speed riding scene. Pic, one of the sport’s early figures, remembers it clearly. “It’s always been a girl story, riding in the valley,” she says. Some of her friends moved on over the years, but Pic stayed with it—teaching, riding, competing—driven purely by love for the sport. Women weren’t just participating; they were building the foundation.

Pic's journey hasn’t been smooth. In 2012, an avalanche near the Monte Bianco Skyway in Italy nearly ended her career. She was out in the mountains shooting photos of skiing and speed riding with a friend when she got caught. “By chance, I didn’t take the canopy out yet,” she says. “I tumbled for 400 meters and broke all my right side. It’s been a long way back.” But the injury gave her perspective. “It’s probably one of the most interesting journeys in my life. You discover that you can do it. I find joy now in simpler things.”

Today, she still rides—guiding clients, exploring lines, and sharing knowledge with younger pilots. “I’ve been teaching speed riding for a long time and paragliding more than 30 years. If I can share that with other women and the kids who need a bit of experience, I’m super happy.”

Cyrilde Pic is a legend of the Chamonix speed flying and speed riding community. | Photo: Cyrilde Pic

One of those younger pilots is Ioana Hanganu, a Romanian rider who moved to Chamonix in December 2020 and became actively involved in the speed riding community. She flies constantly; before work, after work, or pretty much whenever the weather allows. She flies with other women. With men. Or with whoever shares the same obsession for speed, flow, and freedom. For Hanganu, it’s not just about logging flights—it’s about building a community in the sky. One where skill matters more than ego, and where every shared lap becomes part of something bigger.

“There are people that are super good at flying but not very good on skis,” she says. “You need both. It’s not like you can do this once every two weeks. You have to keep up. It’s a year-round thing. You need hours.”

Hanganu started with paragliding, logging in hours of flight time before progressing to speed flying and then ultimately speed riding. But that all came to a halt when, on a paragliding trip in India with some friends in 2024, she crashed and broke her spine trying to top-land at the end of a long day of flying. Hanganu couldn't land where she initially planned and made an error on the descent, crashing and suffering a compression fracture in her L2 vertebrae and spinal chord compression, which left her needing an intense rescue that took hours, followed by spinal surgery and months of rehabilitation just to return to her normal physical ability.

She learned a lot from the accident, she says. Now, she increases the amount of studying she does for landings and better listens to her body when she's tired, often backing off from flights when she's not feeling great about them."I'm more careful now with being mental there, taking less risk, and trusting myself more than listening to other people—and just feeling it 100% when I go for it," Hanganu says.

Another friend of Pic and Hanganu is Johanna Stalnacke, a Chamonix mountain guide whose first solo flight paragliding ended in a crash. “There was a bit of a side wind,” she says. “I made a mistake, raised the wrong brake in the stress, and I did a 180 right back into the landing field. But the only thing I could think about was getting back up. Otherwise, I’d be scared.”

It was Pic who helped Stalnacke get her confidence back. “She told me, I’ll guide you on the radio. We’ll do it gradually, and it’ll be a good experience again,” Stalnacke said. “That was the reason I started [paragliding] again.”

Pic's mentorship role with pupils like Hanganu and Stalnacke is an important ingredient to the sense of community that is shared amongst flyers in Chamonix. That community blossoms with events that promote and create space specifically for women to gather and fly together. “There’s this event, it's called the Women of Speed Flying,” Hanganu says. “It’s not a competition, more like a meet-up. Girls from all over the world come. It’s way more accessible in Val d’Isère, and you can do a lot of laps."

The Women of Speed Flying event has become a yearly tradition in nearby Val d'Isere, two and a half hours from Chamonix. Women come to fly and participate in a speed riding-oriented game where entrants stack points by completing a 'list' of various tasks and activities. It's a playful, friendly competition centered around speed riding that gets women from everywhere to meet up, fly, and then après at one of the on-mountain bars with live music afterwards. "It's really fun," Hanganu says.

Pic didn’t get to attend this year, but she believes in the mission. “I think it’s a good idea to push and motivate the girls,” she says. “It’s a way to show that we have our place in the community. I personally love mixed events too, but I think this is a great initiative.”

Still, the roots of this story go beyond new gatherings and hashtags. For Pic, supporting women in the sport was never separate from supporting the sport itself. “I tried to push the activity here in Chamonix—not especially with the girls, but with the youngsters, with everybody,” she says. “To give a chance to this activity and make people understand it could be practiced in many ways.”

That philosophy runs through how she teaches. “You have to be a good skier. Absolutely. No discussion,” Pic says. “You have to be able to ski everything you want to speed ride. And you have to accept not to go too fast. A lot of accidents happen because people push too fast into strong places, or downsize their wing too early. Because it looks good on social media.”

She pauses. “Extreme is not the goal. It’s just one of the ways to practice.”

More and more women like Hanganu and Stalnacke are getting into speed riding. | Photo: Tobi Mazoyer

Chamonix is both a home base and a testing ground. The community is tight-knit but diverse, with riders bringing a wide range of styles—from freestyle-heavy lines to high-mountain technical descents. Nor is it just locals; people come from all over the planet, creating a mix of cultures, perspectives, and approaches. That blend is part of what keeps the scene dynamic—and what makes it such a compelling place to ride, according to Pic.

Hanganu agrees—but notes that it’s not always easy to break in. “It’s kind of a clicky community here,” she says. “You have to trust your partners and for them to trust you. But with speed, even if you don’t fly the same line, you’re still in the gondola together. You’re still on the same lap. It creates a big sense of community. It’s why I keep doing this.”

Speed riding offers more excitement than paragliding but also more risk. | Photo: sport-actus.fr

That openness is something Pic has always felt, even as one of the few women instructors. “I’ve never felt anything bad about being a woman in this sport,” she says. “It has always been an advantage. If you take it the right way, men are super nice and ready to help. You just have to behave like a human, not like a woman. There are speed riders—that’s it. Whatever the gender.”

The path to becoming an instructor in France is not easy. You need both your paragliding license and your ski instructor license—both hard to get. That’s part of why so few are qualified. “It’s super hard to get in France,” Hanganu says. “There’s only a few that are doing it professionally, and even fewer women.”

Still, the presence of women in speed riding—both in the air and behind the scenes—has always been strong, at least in Chamonix. “It’s the same with mountain guides,” Pic says. “There are few women guides overall, but most of them are in Chamonix. Maybe it’s the role models. The climbers, the skiers, the people we grew up seeing. It makes you believe you can do it too.”

In order to start speed riding you first have to be a good skier. | Photo: valfrejus.com

For both Pic and Hanganu, longevity in the sport comes from knowing your limits and respecting the mountain. “You have to be realistic about your level,” Pic says. “You have to be able to change places often. If you always ride the same spot, you don’t progress. And you can’t go too fast, especially with conditions or wing size. I’ve seen people die because they didn’t have the level. You need to know the air mass, the techniques, have full control.”

Pic remembers the accident in 2012. She remembers tumbling for 400 meters and the time in the hospital—all the surgeries and all the painful time spent convalescing and reflecting on her life. But she doesn’t have any remorse. “I wouldn’t change a single thing," she says. "I’ve made my life in the air, and I’ll keep doing that. I have absolutely no regrets.”

Speed riding is not a sport for those chasing likes on Instagram, according to Pic. It’s for people who chase feeling. Who are okay with going slow to go far. Who know the mountain and their wing as well as themselves. “I think the most important thing is that pleasure must always be the engine,” Pic says. “You go for the old friend—the joy, the ride, the moment."

In Chamonix, more and more speed riders are women. They are not waiting to be invited in. Like valkyries, they are flying fast, high, and with grace on a sort of battlefield, except one where everyone is on the same side. All speed riders possess a deep desire to enjoy life to the fullest. This is what brought them to the sky in the first place; not to conquer it but to dance with it.

Cyrilde Pic takes flight on her wing, speed riding in the French Alps. | Photo: Cyrilde Pic

What FOMO Actually Does to Your Brain

The "Fear of Missing Out" affects brain chemistry. | Photo: SnowBrains

I'm now two weeks into recovering from an ankle injury and I've caught myself doing something counterproductive: scrolling through Instagram incessantly. While I'm currently mastering the delicate art of navigating stairs on crutches, my feed is full of friends skiing powder lines, standing on sunlit summits, and linking perfect turns. Not only am I  missing out—I'm hyper-aware of what I'm currently missing.

• Related: The Brain Science Behind Flow States

This reaction is known as FOMO: the Fear of Missing Out. It’s more than just a passing feeling of envy. FOMO is a psychological and neurological response that kicks in when we perceive others having rewarding experiences without us. And it has some very real effects on how our brains process social and emotional information.

How the Brain Creates FOMO

Fear of Missing Out isn’t just emotional—it’s structural. Neuroimaging research shows that people who score high on FOMO tend to have reduced cortical thickness in a brain region called the precuneus. This part of the brain, nestled within the Default Mode Network (DMN), is heavily involved in memory, self-reflection, and social cognition. It’s what helps us imagine scenes, reflect on our relationships, and picture what others might be doing.

When you’re watching your friends get face shots in deep pow while you’re laid up with an injury or stuck at work, your brain’s DMN starts firing. You don’t just see the scene—you mentally simulate being there. You imagine what it feels like, sounds like, even smells like. And then you compare that imagined experience to your current reality: being stuck inside.

FOMO also overlaps with the brain’s reward system. Normally, dopamine—a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and motivation—helps reinforce rewarding behavior. But it also works through something called reward prediction. If you expect something good to happen and it doesn’t, dopamine levels crash. That’s called a negative prediction error.

In the context of FOMO, when you see others having an experience you want, your brain calculates that you’re missing out on a reward. The result? A mix of frustration, craving, and emotional discomfort. This cycle can make you keep checking your phone or social media feed, even when you know it won’t make you feel better.

Why Social Media Makes It Worse

Social media platforms are designed to hook attention and deliver quick dopamine hits. Fast-scrolling apps like TikTok and Instagram amplify this by showing bite-sized content that’s emotionally engaging. This pattern conditions the brain to seek out constant updates—and to feel anxiety when those updates seem better than our current situation. The term “TikTok brain” has been coined to describe this hyper-stimulation of neural reward pathways. For injured skiers, this can be especially brutal—we’re not just missing out, we’re being shown exactly what we’re missing in real time.

So if you’re injured or sidelined, and you keep watching ski content, your brain isn’t just reacting—it’s being trained to keep reacting. It’s easy to fall into a loop of checking, comparing, and feeling left out. Not everyone experiences FOMO the same way, either. Research shows that people with stronger emotional regulation and better connectivity between the brain’s control centers and the DMN are better equipped to manage it. Those with less emotional regulation tend to be more vulnerable.

There are gender differences, too. A Spanish study found that women tend to score higher on social media addiction and “phone obsession,” often tied to emotional connection, while men scored higher on internet gaming-related behaviors. These findings suggest gendered differences in how social stimuli are processed and what kinds of digital FOMO we’re more prone to.

Social media has a way of turning every powder day you miss into a full-blown mental highlight reel. | Photo: SnowBrains

Injury and Isolation Can Intensify It

For skiers, missing a season or even just a few ripping storm cycles can feel like missing a part of your identity.Skiing isn’t just an activity—it’s often a form of community, self-expression, and mental health maintenance. Being cut off from that doesn’t just hurt physically. It changes your sense of connection and belonging. That isolation makes the social comparison loop of FOMO even more potent. The brain, looking for connection and stimulation, turns to digital sources. But those sources can backfire, triggering even more comparison and dissatisfaction.

How to Manage the Spiral

Understanding the brain science behind FOMO can help reduce its power. Here are a few strategies supported by research:

- Mindfulness meditation: Helps calm the Default Mode Network and reduce obsessive thoughts.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques: Challenge distorted thinking patterns that fuel social comparison.
- Digital boundaries: Take structured breaks from social media to break the dopamine-checking cycle.
- Real-world interaction: Talking to friends in person or journaling your thoughts can ground your perspective.

The Bigger Picture

FOMO isn’t a personal failing—it’s a byproduct of how our brains evolved interacting with modern technology, which is currently ongoing. Our neural wiring, designed for in-person social groups, is being constantly triggered by digital platforms that weren’t built with mental health in mind. The neuroscience of FOMO also raises ethical concerns for tech design. If digital platforms are designed to tap into the brain’s reward system and capitalize on our fear of missing out, there's a real argument for making those systems more responsible. Researchers suggest that dopamine-triggering features, such as endless scrolls or social comparison cues, should be implemented by social media companies with caution—especially for users more prone to compulsive behavior.

Understanding the neurological roots of FOMO won’t make it disappear, but it can help us navigate it. When you find yourself feeling left out or anxious about what you’re missing, it helps to pause. Recognize the neural systems at play. You’re not weak. You’re human. And sometimes, the best move for your mental health isn’t catching up on everyone else’s adventures—it’s stepping away for a bit and focusing on your own. Even if sometimes, like in my case, that means just healing, resting, and waiting for next season.

Scroll. Binge. Repeat. The FOMO loop always starts with one innocent tap. POV: Miles Clark at Palisades Tahoe, CA, on an epic powder day in March 2025. |  Photo: SnowBrains