CAIC Staff
To email individuals: first.last AT state.co.us
Ethan Greene, Director
Ethan has approached snow and avalanches from both a practical and
theoretical perspective. He grew up in Boulder skiing Colorado’s Front
Range. After a few winters in the San Juan Mountains, he worked at Big
Sky Ski Resort in Montana as a ski patroller and at the Forest Service
Utah Avalanche Center in Salt Lake City as an avalanche forecaster.
Ethan also studied meteorology at the University of Utah (BS) and snow
drift formation at Colorado State University (MS). He has spent a lot
of time looking at the microstructure of snow and its metamorphism in
very large freezers in Colorado and Switzerland (PhD). Ethan has
published a variety of articles on snow, weather and avalanches and
been a member of national and international working groups on snow and
avalanche projects. Ethan lives in Fort Collins and in the summer you
can find him somewhere in the Cache la Poudre drainage.
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Mark Gober
Mark grew up in the front range taking an early interest in skiing. Once
able to drive, he began to explore the backcountry and with that, realized
the importance of getting educated about avalanches. This led eventually to
a job at Copper Mountain where he worked for ten years as a ski patroller
taking a greater role in snow work. The last two seasons were spent at
Silverton Mountain learning what is possible is terrain management. This
will be Mark’s second year as an intern at the CAIC office in Silverton.
When not on snow, Mark can usually be found on the oars on a desert river.
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Susan Hale
Susan is currently working as a forecaster for the Silverton office of
the CAIC, which oversees
avalanche reduction for the Highway 550 and County Road 110 corridors
in the San Juan Mountains. She has spent 21 years working and
recreating in the Colorado Rockies, where her interest in avalanche
work peaked during many years with Snowmass Ski Patrol’s Snow Safety
and Avalanche Rescue Dog programs. She also spent two years as an
intern for the CAIC Silverton office, where she learned the ins and
outs of highway forecasting.
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Rob Hunker
Rob has been forecasting for Colorado highways on the Western Slope
since 1994. He started
working with avalanches as a professional ski patrolman at Crested
Butte during
the winter of 1970-71. Rob created the Snow Safety Program in 1977 for
the development and opening of the Extreme Limits, studied at the Swiss
Institute of Snow and Avalanche Research in Davos under the guidance of
Walter Good, pioneered the use of telemark skis for avalanche route
control along with Rick Borkovec, and was a member of the Crested Butte
Ski Patrol for 18 years. He earned a BA degree in Psychology and
Geography from Western State College of Colorado. Flying and aerial
photography are passions equal to that of living in the snow.
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Spencer Logan
Spencer learned to ski at the now-defunct Hidden Valley Ski Area, near Estes Park.
He still enjoys touring there. Spencer joined the CAIC in the winter of 2004-05.
He spent the two years prior in Montana, skiing, biking, fishing, and obtaining
a MS in Earth Sciences from Montana State University. Spencer
investigated how shear strength of weak layers changed over space and through
time. He and his colleagues dug many snowpits, moving over 25,000 kg (55,000
lbs) of snow one winter. He learned to backcountry ski in northern
Utah, where he managed to graduated from college,
spent three winters forecasting for the Utah Avalanche Center-Logan, and married a wonderful gal.
If there is no snow, the best place to look for Spencer
is on a river or good singletrack.
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Brian McCall
Brian joined the CAIC in 2007. His background includes more than 12 years of experience in the avalanche industry as a forecaster, ski and climbing guide, avalanche educator, and ski patroller at Aspen Highlands. Brian holds American
Mountain Guides Association certification as a ski guide and rock
instructor. Brian was also a founding member and director of the
Roaring Fork Avalanche Center. In his free time, Brian enjoys all forms
of climbing, ski touring, mountain biking, and just goofing off in his
back yard of the Elk Mountains and well beyond.
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Ann Mellick
Ann’s
curiosity about snow and
avalanches began while learning to backcountry ski in the Tetons and
has taken her to mountain ranges throughout the West to work and play.
Ann has spent much of her avalanche career in the San Juan Mountains in
southern Colorado. She has a B.A. in Environmental Education from
Prescott College. She has been a climbing and mountaineering guide for
the last ten years and most recently worked for Sierra Mountaineering
International. Ann taught Avalanche Forecasting at Prescott Collage for
eight years and has also taught snow and avalanche courses at Sterling
College and the Silverton Avalanche School. She also worked as an
intern avalanche forecaster for the CAIC’s Silverton office and as
a forecaster in the Boulder office before taking over the North San Juan
office.
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Lee Metzger
Lee moved to Summit County in the 1970’s. He worked on the ski patrol at Breckenridge for 15 years and joined the CAIC in 1992. Lee has been working on Vail, Berthoud and Loveland Passes ever since. He is an avid hunter and outdoorsman. In the summer he works with Metzger Brothers Concrete.
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Mark Mueller
While living in North Lake Tahoe and working at Alpine Meadows, an interest in ski mountaineering led to an early encounter with an avalanche that had a fortunate outcome and left me with a keen desire to learn more about avalanches (and a permanent dent in my skull). A ski bum since graduating from high
school, I patrolled at Squaw Valley, CA, becoming Patrol Director for 12
seasons. I moved to Pagosa to be in a position to become a CAIC/CDOT
highway avalanche forecaster here. In addition I am the Executive
Director of the American Avalanche Association. My wife Sandy, a
seasoned avalanche professional herself, and I have played the
avalanche game for many years and own and operate Wolf Creek
Backcountry, offering yurt-based backcountry skiing and avalanche
education near Wolf Creek Pass. I love skiing, road biking in the
off-season, reading, drinking beer, learning foreign languages,
traveling, and hope one day to live in the Alps for a winter (or
longer). Life is good...
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BenPritchett
Ben lives in Crested Butte where
he spends his summers guiding and chasing his wife Janae around on a
mountain bike. He joined the CAIC team in 2006 as the education
coordinator. His background includes several seasons forecasting for
the Crested Butte Avalanche Center, numerous years ski guiding and
teaching level 1,2 and 3 avalanche courses, curriculum development and
training avalanche instructors with AIARE, and 6 years working on the
snow safety crew for the Elk Mountain Grand Traverse race. Ben holds an
AMGA Ski Guide certification, a bachelors degree in Biology, current
WFR status and owns his own guide service.
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Brad Sawtell
Brad is a life long winter enthusiast, who became increasingly fascinated
with snow and avalanches in the late 80’s. Since then he pursued a
career in outdoor education and guiding, working and at times living in
the snow as a senior staff member for the National Outdoor Leadership
School (NOLS). He is a Professional Member and Certified Instructor of the American Avalanche
Association (AAA) where he serves on their Education Committee. He has
been working for the CAIC as a forecaster and educator since 2002.
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Stu Schaefer
Stu is a third generation Leadville resident. He worked as a ski patroller at Ski Cooper in the late 80’s and helped develop Chicago Ridge Snowcat Tours. He later became the director at Chicago Ridge as well as ski patrolling at Breckenridge Ski Resort. Stu joined the CAIC in fall of 1999 and has
been working along the highways in Summit, Grand and Eagle Counties
ever since. He has a B.S. and M.S. in Geology from Fort Lewis College
and Colorado School of Mines respectively. In the summer, Stu enjoys
wandering through the desert and running rivers.
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John Snook
John has a long history in
forecasting and technology transfer. He received his Ph.D. in
Atmospheric Science from Colorado State University and spent fourteen
years working at NOAA’s Forecast Systems Laboratory. He has also worked
as a consultant, developing weather forecast systems and mesoscale
atmospheric models for several private and government groups. John is
an avid backcountry skier and has been on the volunteer ski patrol at
Arapahoe Basin Ski Area since 1985.
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Scott Toepfer
Scott's
first encounter within an
avalanche came while full moon skiing on Loveland Pass. A friend was
caught and buried up to his neck in the debris. At the time he did not
know an avalanche from a VW micro bus. Eventually Scott began ski
patrolling at Arapahoe Basin (1977) and played that game at various
resorts around the world, including Courchevel 1850 in the Savoie of
France, Mt Hutt in New Zealand, and Vail here in the US. This will be
Scott's 15th season at the CAIC. Since he has lots of free time,
especially after deciding with his wife Andrea to have a baby (A boy
named Beau) he dabbles at Mtn bike racing, road bike riding & would
also like to find time to get back into climbing. When the opportunity
arises he goes to Europe to do one of the classic ski tours there.
Scott lives in Breckenridge in a house he built a few years
ago.
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Simon Trautman
Simon grew up running around in the mountains outside of Lander, Wyoming. He has
worked as a medic in the United States Navy, gone to college, been a commercial
fisherman, and gone back to college. He likes to ski, climb, build things out of
wood, and read books, but doesn’t understand why people hike just for the sake
of hiking. Professionally, he has worked snow safety for Moonlight Basin, and
earned a Masters degree in Earth Sciences from Montana State University. His
research focused on wet snow avalanche phenomena. With any luck at all, his wife
Laurie will buy him a boat to sail around the world.
