New Avy and Ski Instructor Joins MM Team!

Join­ing Moun­tain Madness’s win­ter pro­grams is AIARE instruc­tor and ski guide Dal­las Glass. Dal­las comes to us from a back­ground as an avalanche fore­cast­er and edu­ca­tor for the past 5 years. 

“I began my love for climb­ing moun­tains dur­ing high school by explor­ing the steep south­ern sand­stone found near my home in Alaba­ma. Now, you may ask, what does a guy from Alaba­ma know about snow and ski­ing? Well, I found that my for­mal edu­ca­tion back­ground in Hydrol­o­gy and Soil Physics trans­lates amaz­ing­ly well into the world of snow sci­ence. It led me to a posi­tion as the lead avalanche fore­cast­er at Mt. Rose Ski Tahoe for the last five years. While at Mt Rose, I also trained my trusty ski part­ner and avalanche dog Belle and worked repeat­ed­ly with orga­nized win­ter search and res­cue to safe­ly find and recov­er many lost and injured recreationists. 

Dal­las Glass

“Besides the moun­tains, one of my great­est loves is teach­ing. I’ve been teach­ing in some area or anoth­er for the past nine years. I spent three years instruct­ing aca­d­e­m­ic cours­es in Soil Physics and Intro to Soils at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Neva­da and the last four years teach­ing AIARE avalanche edu­ca­tion cours­es. I love get­ting peo­ple excit­ed about safe­ly explor­ing the moun­tains dur­ing the win­ter through good obser­va­tions and deci­sion mak­ing. My favorite class I’ve ever taught was to a group of 3^rd graders where Belle and I talked about avalanch­es as a part of a Sci­ence in Careers/​Stay in School program. 

“I’ve made ascents and descents in Alas­ka, The Yukon, north­ern BC, and all over the west­ern US. While climb­ing, moun­taineer­ing, and ski­ing are my favorite pas­times, you’re also like­ly to find me on a bicy­cle, run­ning, or fly fish­ing on my days off. I’ve raced road bikes for the past four sum­mers and love push­ing my body to its break­ing point with long dis­tance rides and races. How­ev­er, if it’s a rest day, look for me in a Seat­tle cof­fee shop hold­ing up with a good book and cup of coffee. 

“My long time girl­friend and I moved to Seat­tle last spring. I now work year round as a moun­tain guide. I find that it com­bines the things I love most in life: the out­doors, teach­ing, and peo­ple into one amaz­ing career. I believe Seat­tle and the near­by Cas­cades to be the per­fect com­bi­na­tion of great food, cul­ture, and big remote mountains.”

~ MM Guide Dal­las Glass