Susan Ershler to speak at 2012 Backcountry Incident Review Conference

The CMC has snagged a dy-na-mo speaker to be the keynoter at its annual backcountry incident review conference next year.

Susan Ershler of Seattle is the 4^th American woman to climb the seven continental summits and the 12^th to climb Everest. She was an executive in the corporate world for years. She routinely charges corporations around the world tens of thousands to inspire their sales teams with tales of how she sets ridiculously difficult goals – and meets every one of them.

Now she’s agreed to share her experience and insights with backcountry trip leaders in Colorado to help them push themselves – and their trip participants - to new heights in the backcountry while managing the risks they face.

Ershler’s presentation is set for Saturday, March 10 during the 2^nd annual conference during which we dissect what went wrong on backcountry trips that went awry, and what the leaders did to bail themselves and the participants on their trips. There’s nothing theoretical here. The trips to be discussed feature accounts of real trips on which people’s lives were in danger. The goal is to hear directly from the trip leaders themselves, to look into their eyes and understand what they went through and what they learned, so that everyone can learn the lessons they learned.

It’s spine-tingling stuff. At the first conference earlier this year, we heard from the leaders of trips on which all sorts of things went haywire, including one on which a trip participant died.

Listen to the voices of some of those who attended the first conference in early 2011. “A wonderful event…inspiring and educational,” one wrote.  Wrote others, “I thought this would be a loooong day, but time went fast and al the speakers were so interesting.” “The content was uniformly great.” “I’ve been in the backcountry for 25 years and I still learned a lot.” “Making this an annual event would be much appreciated.

The conference is open to anyone who leads trips into the backcountry – or wants to learn more about doing so. It runs 9 am – 5 pm in the CMC headquarters auditorium at 710 10^th Street in Golden. Lunch will be served. Admission is $10 for active CMC trip leaders (will lead at least three trips during 2012), $20 for all other club members and for search and rescue volunteers, and $30 for non-members.

To register, visit www.cmc.org/birc.  Seating is limited; early registration is encouraged.