Avalanche Airbags and Wilderness Medicine with Dr. Patrick Fink

Dr. Patrick Fink joins us on Episode 11 of The High Route Podcast. Fink is an ER physician in Bend, Oregon, involved with the local and broader Wilderness Medicine community. He hosts Wilderness Medicine Updates—"a podcast for those interested in wilderness medicine, search and rescue, disaster and austere medicine, and ski patrol medicine." Fink also has a site titled Mountain Lessons, where he shares valuable information about his travels and best practices.

All this is to say that Fink comes to the podcasts with some expertise. One aspect of backcountry travel he has thought a lot about is avalanche airbags. Fink presented some research at the 2023 ISSW, which got us talking about airbags, airbag adoption, and efficacy.

A solid podcast on Avalanche Airbags comes from the Utah Avalanche Center. You can find the podcast here.

As noted in the podcast intro, I first engaged with Fink when I moderated a comment at my last place of employment. Cutting to the chase, Fink and I spoke on the phone (it's always better to have a conversation to get the complete picture), and now we are friends. BTW—his moderated comment had nothing to do with airbags.

On to the show.

Thanks for listening.

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The theme music for The High Route Podcast comes from Storms in the Hill Country and the album The Self Transforming (Thank you, Jens Langsjoen). You can find a link to the album here—there are so many good songs on this album. And if you think you've spotted a UFO in the past or visited the 7th dimension, "Beautiful Alien" is a good tune to start with.