Protect Our Winters: Mario Molina, Cody Townsend & Emily Harrington

Protect Our Winters (POW), founded by professional snowboarder Jeremy Jones, strives to turn outdoor enthusiasts into climate advocates. In this episode we are joined by Executive Director of POW, Mario Molina, and pro-athletes Cody Townsend and Emily Harrington to discuss how our mountains are changing right before our eyes and what we can do about it.

To learn more about this work visit www.protectourwinters.org.

Talia: So Mario, before we get into Protect Our Winters, this episode is all about climate change, and I was wondering if you could break it down for our listeners who might not understand the difference between climate and weather?

Mario: So it's a fair thing to be confused about...the analogy that I like best is that climate is what you keep in your closet, weather is what jacket am I going to put on today? So it's the long term versus the short term. Weather variability is dependent on a lot of different factors; climate is what is the long term sustainable trajectory of the average temperature of the planet. Year after year, we have seen above average temperatures, on more days in any given year since the industrial revolution, what that means is that there might still be days where it's hot or really cold outside, but what we're looking for is what is that pattern. 2020 is likely going to be the third warmest year on record, and the last 10 years have been the warmest 10 years on record. For example, if you were born after the year 2000, you have not experienced a single year in which temperatures were average or below average for the record that we have had. For the last 250 years, every year has been above average since then. What we're looking at is a complete transformation of our entire civilization, and we have a very small window of time and a small window of opportunity to get that under control.

Talia: So now that we understand the issues, can you share with our listeners how the organization was created?

Mario: Protect Our Winters was founded by Jeremy Jones --  the first person to really pioneer human powered split-boarding into the big ranges from Alaska and into the Himalayas. In all the time that he was spending in those mountains, he realized that climate change was having a direct impact in landscapes that he treasures and loves, from decreased precipitation, to less predictable winters, to shortened winters, to really drastic changes in the snow-pack. So coming from one of those expeditions, I think it was to Alaska, he decided he wanted to work with an organization that was trying to mobilize the outdoor community whom he saw as being really primary stakeholders on the issue, to mobilize them towards climate action. And he realized that such an organization didn't exist. So in true pioneer, explorer fashion, he went ahead and founded Protect Our Winters, and his credibility with some of the luminaries across sports from Chris Davenport in free-skiing, Gretchen Bleiler in Olympic snowboarding, Conrad Anker, a very well known mountaineer -- they bought into the vision of the organization and were some of the founding members and board members. And since then it has really just snowballed over the last decade or so into the organization that we have today, which is 150 ambassadors from across multiple sports from trail running, to rock climbing, to snow-sports, 25 partner brands, and over 8,000 members. Really at the core of POWs advocacy are its athletes. These really really high performers who have millions of young people following them on social media who consider them lifestyle guides, who have adopted our message across multiple sports and are really using their reach and their influence to mobilize people. So for example, in this last election cycle, we reached as a collective between our brands and our alliance members -- we reached 35 million people with a get out to vote message across the entire country. And in Colorado, we reached about 9 million people --  so almost half of the population of Colorado. And we're incredibly proud of our athletes; they're not only at the very top of their game when it comes to their particular sports, but the majority of them 99.9% of them are really well versed on the issue. Some of them have come to it through POW and  some of them have done it on their own. And they're all incredibly passionate about making sure that they're doing their part to mobilize people towards climate action.

Talia: So Cody turning to you, you're a POW ally and a professional American skier. You've set out on a mission to tackle the 50 Classic ski descents in North America, which you document in your YouTube series, The Fifty. You're two years into this endeavor with 27 of the 50 done, can you tell our listeners a little bit about that project?

Cody: Yeah, so there's this book called The Fifty Classic Ski Descents of North America and it's about 10 years old, but it's a really historical book, it kind of chronicles some of the what the authors think are the best, most classic lines in North America, very ski mountaineering focused-- these aesthetic, beautiful lines. Some of them were first skied 80-90 years ago, some are skied 50-60 years ago... so it's kind of this collection of some of the most amazing mountains and ski lines in North America. And I set off on a project to try and ski all of them, which actually has never been done before; every line has been skied at least once, but no one person has tried to ski all of them.

Talia: And in The Fifty video series you share with your viewers that the biggest surprise of this project has been how quickly the snow is changing. What did you mean by that?

Cody: So in my past life as a professional skier I was generally hunting for powder lines and just powder skiing, and it's it's easy to find; there are storms all over North America and you just chase them and go ski deep powder. But for this project, you're looking at lines that have some historical element to them. A lot of these lines utilize glaciers to access them, and as I'm looking at the pictures of the book, pictures from 50 years ago, 20 years ago, even 10 years ago, and then setting out myself on these lines, all of a sudden realizing -- wait, this line is incredibly different than it was pictured 10 years ago, and I'm finding out along the way that a lot of these these mountains and lines are changing so rapidly that this project isn't necessarily just a race to see if I can get this done, it's kind of a race against climate change as well. I'm seeing in the forecast for these lines to never be skiable again in five, maybe 10 years. I'm seeing them change really really quickly. And it's just because we have pictures of them -- they're classic lines or lines that define North American mountains and then to see them be nearly unskiable already is pretty scary.

Talia: And you've actually experienced that, right? Because Joffre Peak in British Columbia nearly completely collapsed only a few weeks after you skied there.

Cody: Yeah, that was a spooky one because we got to Canada where Joffre peak is located in the north of Whistler area, some of the locals were talking about how the mountain might not be skiable anymore from the north side, because of the glacier that has receded so much you can actually access the steep couloirs above them, the bergschrunds were widening so much, and the crevasses so much, that it makes it impossible. And then after we skied it in February, a few months later in May the entire north face of the entire mountain collapsed. And it's hard to pinpoint any single event on climate change, but the likelihood of the event is increased by climate change. And some of the geologists and climate researchers that look at these events like high Alpine landslides are seeing that the frequency of high Alpine landslides increasing drastically over the last 10 years because of the the quickening of the melt freeze cycle that essentially expands mountains, because there's water just strewn throughout a mountain; and every time that freezes that water expands and kind of separates cracks on the mountain --  but that usually happens on a kind of biannual schedule, you have one melt and one freeze, one in the spring one in the fall. But nowadays with fluctuating temperatures being so drastic and happening in the middle of winter, we're starting to see these cracks widen throughout a single season and high Alpine landslides are starting to happen at a drastically increased rate all across the world. There's a lot of data that this is something that's unprecedented and to see what happened on Joffre of going and skiing that peak and then a few months later, the entire mountain collapsing was jaw dropping. It was  kind of  spooky in a certain way.

Talia: So you really are kind of racing the clock to tackle these descents. Is there a fear that some of them might disappear entirely before you get to them?

Cody: Yeah, there's a couple lines in this project that are on my list that I have yet to ski that I'm quite worried about --  lines that have only been skied once or twice in 25-30 years, that to not get them in the next five years might mean that I will never be able to ski them. And we're gonna see this drastic change in skiing, mountain climbing and alpinism happen before our very eyes. You know, I think all of us as people that love and go into the mountains, we all thought of climate change as something that is going to happen, and now we're seeing climate change is happening...it's happening right before our very eyes.

Talia: So Emily, turning to you, you are one of those very people that does love to go into those mountains. You're primarily a sport climber, but you also ice and mixed climb as well as mountaineer. And one such mountaineering feat that you accomplished was summiting Mount Everest in 2012. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the mountains are changing and rapidly, they're becoming less packed with snow and ice, and they're experiencing more volatile conditions. What did you see when you were there?

Emily: Yeah, so I was there in 2012, which was kind of a long time ago at this point. And it was actually only my second trip to the Himalayas, so I didn't really have anything to reference it from. But that said, My fiance, Adrian Ballinger, is a high altitude climber mountain guide. He's spent 12 seasons on Everest, and he's sumitted eight times, and I think throughout his career and time on the mountain, he's seen it change a lot in terms of climate change, in terms of how dangerous it is, in terms of the amount of rock that's exposed...A lot of times that enables for a lot of rock fall, it's become a much more dangerous mountain as a result of climate change, and the glaciers melting. And it's not only evident in places like the Himalayas, you know, we travel down to South America a lot and climb on the volcanoes down there, and you talk to the locals, and they'll tell you that five or 10 years ago, you would step on to snow or ice onto the glacier right outside of the hut. Now you have to walk for an hour and a half or two hours on completely dry glacier before you can put on your crampons. And so it's becoming really, really evident down there especially, and I've spent a lot of time down there, as has Adrian.

Talia: You've also spent a lot of time in Yosemite, and you recently joined an elite group of climbers that have free-climbed the Golden Gate route of El Capitan in Yosemite. Can you tell us a little bit about that climb?

Emily: So I free climbed El Capitan via the Golden Gate in under 24 hours, which was this goal I'd had for a really, really long time.It was something I did in 2015, over the course of six days, and that was sort of at my limit at the time. And after that, I started to think a little bit bigger --  started to think about how I could improve and how I could show my progression as a climber. And to me, that was just a really cool achievement: a lot of it had to do with the fact that Lynn Hill who's a total hero of mine was the first person to free climb El Cap in a day. So it's kind of just like this benchmark achievement in rock climbing, and it is owned by and pioneered by a woman.

Talia: Yeah, I always thought that was just so cool.

Emily: It's so cool...! So I trained for many, many years, I spent a lot of time on El Cap, trying to gain the necessary experience in order to do it in 24 hours. And it was a huge roller coaster of an objective for me, and I did complete it this past November. It's been pretty surreal. Honestly, it's sort of like this big chapter of my life has  come to a close.

Talia: Well, first of all, congratulations. That's an amazing accomplishment. I'm wondering in all that time that you spent training in Yosemite, have you seen the impacts of climate change there?

Emily: Massively. Pretty much every Fall that I've gone to Yosemite, there has been really, really bad smoke due to forest fires. The Valley actually closed down this year, in September, because the smoke was so bad, it was becoming detrimental to everyone's health. And it was actually pretty hard for me because Yosemite was closed in the Spring for COVID, and then it closed down in the Fall because the fires are just so brutal. And pretty much every season I've gone there, I've had to climb through smoke. It's definitely something that's now become the new normal. I think in California, you kind of plan for it now. You kind of just assume that that's what it's going to be like, and you're going to have to deal with it.

Talia: I actually heard that even the climbing season itself has shifted by a month because historically October was the month to climb because it was a bit cooler outside but now it's even too hot to climb for most people in October and so it's shifting to November, December and even January.

Emily: Yeah, we always used to call September in climbing Sendtember, cause that's when everyone would send their projects because it would get cool enough. And now honestly, especially for Yosemite, people don't really start trying harder things until November, and sometimes even into December because it can be just so brutally hot in October and September, I don't even I don't even go there anymore.

Talia: All right...so what can we do? How would you suggest that our listeners take action on climate?

Emily: I mean, I think the biggest thing we can do is try to stay informed, try to stay educated, and vote. It doesn't just come down to the presidential election, a lot of times, it's more important to think about what's going on in your local politics. For example, our representative for our district, and the district that covers Yosemite is Tom McClintock, and he's one of the biggest climate deniers in Congress. And so I've actually been working pretty closely with several athletes who live in Tahoe and around Tahoe over the years trying to raise awareness about that and trying to get people to vote him out. We've been unsuccessful in the last two elections, but it's actually been gaining a lot of momentum, and I feel hopeful for the future.

Talia: Cody, you're also from the Tahoe area. Given the trends that we're seeing, do you think it's possible that there could be a winter out there without snow? And if so, what does that actually mean?

Cody: Yes, I've long believed that in my home in Lake Tahoe, in my lifetime, I will see a Winter without snow. Maybe it'll snow a little bit, but a Winter that's almost unskiable. It's kind of a scary thing to think about. We're seeing the impacts on our local communities of what COVID has done to tourist towns and resort communities, and it's been absolutely devastating to our local businesses and our local community. And if we see one Winter without snow, that's gonna have even longer lasting effects. With COVID, we have a future of coming out  of. Climate change -- if we don't have snow anymore in the mountains, we're gonna see devastation on a much, much larger scale. For me, we talked about skiing, and I come from a platform of caring for the mountains because I'm a skier, but these impacts are much larger than just skiing and small communities. The Sierra mountains are the largest reservoir for all of California -- that snowpack is essentially what creates the water for farming, and if that snowpack and that reservoir of water goes away, our food economy is going to be devastated, our local farmers are going to be devastated...the impacts of this are going to be much much larger than what COVID brought to the world.