Truckee locals Richard Bothwell and Daniel Feldman chuckled while venturing into the backcountry towards Azalea Lake, recounting how they met. Feldman took the lead as the navigator while Bothwell skinned behind him, gliding off-trail into the light, crusty powder to chat. The zippery-slick sound of mohair ski skins on firm snow whispered through the trees, a smooth buzzing undercurrent to their conversation.
On a sunny day with low avalanche danger, variable and firm snow conditions, and sugary, faceted snow on either side of the well-traveled skin track like an ice luge, Bothwell and Feldman’s backcountry preparation remained the same. They chose their destination and route the day before, briefed each other on expectations for the tour, making sure their intentions were aligned and equipment was ready before clicking into their skis at the trailhead. After each tour, they debriefed each other and provided feedback on what worked well and what they could improve.
The pair demonstrated what they called a “coffee date” procedure for new potential touring partners, taking a mellow route up from Donner Summit, to figure out where someone fits into their assortment of backcountry partners.
“We could think about our partners as being a quiver and rather than just finding one type of partner, we can find lots of different types of partners. Like I have a partner for afternoon short ski tours, and I have a partner for high cardio tours, and I have a partner for steep skiing,” Bothwell said. “If we think about partners as quivers and start tuning the trips that we’re taking to the quiver of partners that we have, I think we have more trips, we have safer trips, and we have funner trips.”
The two men met in 2015 at an introduction to backcountry course taught by Bothwell in Lassen Volcanic National Park, though Feldman said he didn’t take up the sport until a few years later. They struck up a friendship when Feldman got into backcountry skiing, and decided to conduct a research project guided by Bothwell’s proclivity for backcountry skiing and Feldman’s background in human-centered design, which approaches problem-solving from a people-centered lens. Their research revealed that most backcountry skiers struggle to find partners for touring, inspiring them to design and prototype solutions — ultimately conceptualizing SlabLab. Initially created as a research site in 2021, SlabLab morphed into a backcountry partner network app that launched in Tahoe and other mountain communities in November of 2024.
Bothwell and Feldman hope SlabLab will provide a platform for members to build their array of partners so that they can tailor their trips to their partners and vice versa. As such, they have also connected with and skied alongside fellow SlabLab members.
“Typically, a backcountry skier will have a mapping app and a weather app, but they don’t have a team app. And I think that’s what we want to be because we see the team as just as important as those other two things,” Feldman said. “We want you to read the advisory — we also want you to bring as much attention to your team in the field.”
Feldman said you might trust a friend normally, but that doesn’t always mean they’re a good decision-maker in the backcountry. On SlabLab, the founders encourage communication and detailed profiles to foster meaningful discussions about touring. For Bothwell, a good backcountry tour is defined by the people he’s with — the smiles, the camaraderie. He said that on a trip to Alaska, it wasn’t the fact they were skiing Denali that made the experience most memorable; it was his backcountry partner. Bothwell and Feldman emphasized that good planning, teammates, communication, and risk management are crucial for safe touring.
“We hope that [SlabLab] changes the way that people look at their team,” Bothwell said. “In addition to looking at the weather forecast and the avalanche conditions, we want people to start with: who is on my team? And, how am I on a good team? And, how can I speak up on this team? And, can I share my feelings with this team about how we’re doing our things?”
SlabLab highlights the importance of teamwork in backcountry skiing, with the founders advocating for everyone on a tour to have an equal voice in decision-making. The goal of SlabLab is to encourage backcountry skiers to make implicit expectations or observations explicit and set a clear tone of communication from the start. Bothwell said the reality of backcountry skiing is that it’s not controlled, and he wants skiers to speak up, whether something seems major or minor, because the human element plays a critical role in risk management.
SlabLab’s research delves into how the backcountry is what the founders call “a wicked learning environment” because the only direct feedback comes from triggering an avalanche. Otherwise, there’s no telling if someone was just lucky. SlabLab provides a forum to introduce partners that are comfortable communicating risk and uncertainty to each other.
“We have known that it is these human factors that are the major contributing factor to avalanche incidents,” Bothwell said. “Yet no one has really stepped up to, in an extremely meaningful way, address it.”
Bothwell and Feldman encourage dialogue and authenticity between backcountry partners in order to focus on human factors. They talk about how the most common vetting question for a new partner is whether or not someone has taken an AIARE (American Institute for Avalanche Research and Education) course, though courses are not all created the same. They encourage alternative questions such as what someone’s openness or aversion to risk is. Their first question for each other before their morning tour was whether they thought this was a good, smart plan or not.
“We think that we have something to offer the community. It’s for the betterment of the community,” Bothwell said. “We would love to be known as the partner app. Like, if you’re going to be a backcountry skier, you should get into SlabLab so you can find more partners, build better teams, go on more trips, have safer, funner days. Whatever we can do in service of that is the direction we’re going to try to go in.”
