Our brains don’t always warn us when they’re tired, and in avalanche terrain, that can be dangerous. In a wide-ranging conversation on the SnowBrains Podcast, Westminster neuroscience and Honors College professor Dr. Russ Costa explains how fatigue, rushing, and mental shortcuts shape decisions in the backcountry.
“Studying rushed brains, distracted brains, fatigued brains is what I do... But the last few years, I’ve been working in the mountains because these qualities, I think, underlie a lot of mountain accidents we see,” Costa says.
He also digs into why slopes look steeper than they are, what his new high-altitude research is revealing about the brain at elevation, and simple habits any skier can use, including one debrief question that could change how you end your day.
