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| San Vito Lo Capo, Sicilia, Lulio, 2025. | Photo: Author |
Cigarettes in Sicily
—a pretty addiction.
Best I leave this one behind here
in the night's shade
under the pink flower tree;
half moon glowing sharp
with the many loves that could never be.
Forward.
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| The wreckage from the March 27, 2021, helicopter crash near the Knik Glacier in Alaska, which killed five people, highlights a chain of safety lapses that contributed to the tragedy. | Photo: Alaska Mountain Rescue Group |
On March 27, 2021, under the bright, deceptive calm of a blue sky, an AStar helicopter carrying six people—three Czech nationals, two American guides, and a pilot—lifted off from Wasilla Lake, heading for the remote, untouched powder of Alaska's Chugach Mountains. It never returned.
By the end of the day, Petr Kellner, Czechia's richest man, was dead. So were four others. The lone survivor would later describe in a report shared by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as being pinned in the wreckage, buried in snow, listening to faint sounds around him until they stopped. No sirens. No rotors. Just silence. The day would be marked in Alaskan history as one of the state's most deadly aviation tragedies.
But it was no freak accident.
56-year-old Petr Kellner was more than just the wealthiest man in Czechia. He was a defining figure of the country’s post-communist era—an investor who capitalized early and built PPF Group into a sprawling conglomerate with holdings in finance, real estate, media, and telecommunications. At the time of his death, Kellner’s net worth was estimated at over $17 billion. He was known for being intensely private, even as his influence stretched across Europe and Asia.
After his death, control of PPF passed to his wife, Renáta Kellnerová, and their children, making her one of the wealthiest women in Europe. The Kellner family maintained silence in the months following the crash, eventually settling with the companies involved. After the incident, two federal court filings in Anchorage released in 2022 show that it is probable that Kellner and another member of the crew, likely lead guide Gregory Harms, did not die right away when the helicopter crashed. They likely "died while waiting for rescue," according to filings in a U.S. District Court case involving a settlement between the sole survivor, David Horvath, and Soloy Helicopters. The rescue came several hours too late.
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| Czech billionaire Petr Kellner, 56, was among five killed in the March 27, 2021, helicopter crash near the Knik Glacier. | Photo: moneyinc.com |
An NTSB report filed by investigator Joshua Cawthra in September 2023—over two years since the crash—shows that Soloy Helicopters had been contracted to fly guests of Tordrillo Mountain Lodge, a luxury heli-ski operation catering to a wealthy, international clientele. That Saturday, the plan was simple: several ski runs in the Chugach backcountry, then return to the lodge before sunset in time for a gourmet dinner.
The helicopter left Wasilla around 2:50 p.m. The report shows that the weather wasn’t perfect, but it wasn’t terrible, either: some gusty wind, light snow, and flat light. Over the next few hours, the group completed six successful ski runs.
At about 6:30 p.m., they headed for their last run of the day.
As the helicopter approached a ridgeline to perform a landing at roughly 6,266 feet elevation, visibility deteriorated. According to the survivor's testimony, the aircraft suddenly entered what he described as a “little white room”—a total whiteout. That’s not unusual in heli-skiing. Powder snow stirred up by the rotor wash can quickly eliminate all visual cues.
The report states that the pilot tried to adjust. The helicopter began moving backward, rapidly. Moments later, it slammed into the ridge, then rolled nearly 900 feet down the slope.
The emergency beacon activated. Yet there was no immediate response. In fact, rescue would not arrive at the crash site until almost five hours after impact.
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| The location of the departure point, previous operating areas, and the accident site. | Screenshot: Faa.gov |
The report found that Zachary Russell had logged more than 3,200 hours of helicopter flight time. He was 33 years old and considered competent by his employer. However, after the crash, a closer examination of his training revealed significant gaps.
Russell hadn’t received proper training in inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions, or IIMC—what pilots experience when they suddenly lose visibility and have to rely on instruments to stay oriented. According to the NTSB, he also hadn’t been formally trained for ridge landings in the AS350-B3, the helicopter he was flying that day—or in the previous model he had flown and trained on. Soloy’s own training materials didn’t include modules for either scenario. Yet Russell was cleared to fly. The NTSB put it plainly: “It is likely that the pilot did not meet the qualification standards to be the pilot-in-command of the accident flight.”
The FAA’s Principal Operations Inspector who was responsible for overseeing Soloy (whose name was not shared in the report) had previously worked for the company as a pilot. Between 2011 and 2013, she was Soloy's chief pilot and also worked at another helicopter company with the person who later became the president of Soloy, according to the NTSB. The investigation found that she approved the training program despite these omissions and had not observed any of the company’s heli-ski flights during her time as inspector. The NTSB officially determined it to be "inadequate oversight of the accident operator" but that there was insufficient evidence to determine whether the inspector’s prior work history was a factor.
The NTSB would later conclude that Russell’s lack of IIMC training “likely contributed” to the crash. When visibility disappeared, he didn’t transition to instrument flying. He lost situational awareness which led to impact. But it wasn't necessarily a bad call by Russel that sealed their fate; the investigation concluded that gaps in training likely contributed to the crash, even though at the time he was approved to pilot the aircraft.
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| The accident site. | Photo: Alaska State Troopers |
There’s evidence that at least two other passengers survived the crash for up to two hours. This includes Kellner and Harms. But no distress call was made.
Flight-following—the job of tracking the helicopter and initiating rescue if needed—had been informally assigned to the lodge. The task fell to a ski guide using a Garmin inReach satellite tracker. The last signal from the helicopter came at 6:36 p.m.
By 7:15 p.m., the guide back at the lodge reported that there had been no contact for over an hour. But instead of calling for help, the report states that the lodge staff checked in with another heli-ski company, which mistakenly said the helicopter was on its way back.
It wasn’t until 8:25 p.m. that Soloy was notified that something was wrong. Only then did the company begin activating its emergency plan. The wreckage was finally located around 11:30 p.m. The sole survivor, David Horvath, was evacuated more than five hours after the crash.
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A military helicopter arrives at the Knik Glacier crash site to deploy rescuers following the deadly March 27, 2021, accident. | Photo: Alaska Mountain Rescue Group |
David Horvath, a 48-year-old Czech national and longtime associate of Kellner, was seated in the back of the helicopter. When the aircraft came to rest, he was trapped, partially buried in snow, his body wedged between the other passengers.
His testimony states that he could hear someone else outside of the helicopter—likely Kellner or Harms—making faint noises. They communicated briefly, but then, after a while, the other passenger stopped responding. After that there was only silence.
By the time rescuers reached the site, Horvath was hypothermic and suffering from advanced frostbite. He saw the light of the approaching helicopter and then reportedly passed out, not remembering anything else until he woke up in the hospital later. Horvath managed to survive, but he lost most of his fingers and now lives with lasting injuries.
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| Volunteers with the Alaska Mountain Rescue Group arrived on the scene of the helicopter crash in the Chugach Mountains near the Knik Glacier on Sunday, March 29, 2021. | Photo: Alaska Mountain Rescue Group photo via Alaska State Troopers |
Toxicology results released by the NTSB revealed that Gregory Harms, the 52-year-old lead guide on board, had significant concentrations of amphetamine, cocaine, and 1,000 ng/mL of benzoylecgonine—a primary cocaine metabolite—in his blood at the time of the crash. According to a 2022 review of drug-impaired driving thresholds, legal cut-offs for amphetamine in blood typically start at 20 ng/mL, with upper enforcement thresholds reaching 600 ng/mL, depending on jurisdiction. For cocaine, cutoff levels range from 10 to 80 ng/mL. Benzoylecgonine, which lingers longer in the bloodstream, is considered elevated at levels as low as 50–100 ng/mL.
A concentration of 1,000 ng/mL in blood—not urine—is regarded as exceptionally high, often indicative of recent heavy or binge use. This level of exposure suggests that Harms had used cocaine within the prior 24 hours, and not casually. While the NTSB does not make medical diagnoses, toxicology data at this scale points to substantial, acute drug use, well beyond what would be considered recreational.
Harms played a central safety role during the flight—helping to identify landing zones, assess snowpack conditions, and communicate with the pilot. Impairment in those areas can have serious operational consequences, especially in rapidly changing mountain environments where judgment and coordination are critical.
"Although ski guides are not considered crewmembers according to the Federal Aviation Regulations, they have safety-related responsibilities during heli-ski flights such as coordinating with pilots about landing and pickup zones and assisting pilots with hazard and pickup zone identification. However, investigation was unable to determine whether the guide’s illicit drug use played a role in the accident," the NTSB report reads.
Tordrillo Mountain Lodge's handbook specifically states that guides cannot be under the influence while working. The NTSB also noted that 38-year-old Sean McManamy, the second guide aboard and a resident of Girdwood, Alaska, tested positive for THC. However, the levels found were considered non-impairing, and his role in the flight’s outcome was not linked to the crash.
While McManamy is believed to have died on impact, Harms may have initially survived. A civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in 2022 claims that Harms survived the initial crash but suffered severe injuries that ultimately proved fatal, raising questions about whether a faster rescue could have made a difference.
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| Greg Harms, pictured during a January 2015 interview with Aspen 82. | Photo: Aspen 82 |
The investigation reveals that Soloy Helicopters’ operations manual didn’t include adequate procedures for flight locating or overdue aircraft. Soloy's director of operations admitted in the official investigation that he didn’t know when the helicopter was due back that evening.
The FAA inspector who approved the company’s training program did not confirm that it met federal standards. She didn’t ensure pilots were being trained on key safety procedures like whiteout recovery or ridge landings.
Soloy's emergency response plan was expected to follow FAA Order 8900.1, which requires that search and rescue be notified if an aircraft has not been heard from within 30 minutes of its last expected check-in. That didn't happen. Instead, there was a prolonged period of uncertainty, with staff at Tordrillo Mountain Lodge checking in with another heli-ski operator and mistakenly concluding the aircraft was en route. The delay in alerting authorities cost precious time—time that may have made a difference for those who initially survived the crash. Soloy was later found by the NTSB to not have incorporated these requirements into its flight locating procedures.
Every point in the system—operator, regulator, contractor—missed something. And taken together, those misses added up.
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| Soloy Helicopters is headquartered at Wasilla Airport. | Photo: Marc Lester /Anchorage Daily News |
After the crash, Kellner’s family filed wrongful death lawsuits. Soloy and Tordrillo Mountain Lodge settled out of court. The FAA did not issue public sanctions. No criminal charges were filed.
PPF Group, the multinational firm founded by Kellner, passed into the control of his wife and children. Business continued. But for the families of those lost, and for the lone survivor, the impact of that day remains.
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| Testimony from the sole survivor of the crash reveals that Petr Kellner was alive for some time after the initial crash before succumbing to his injuries. | Photo: Roman Vondrous/CTK via AP, File |
The crash near Knik Glacier wasn’t caused by one erroneous decision. The report shows that it was the result of many small shortcomings in training, oversight, communication, and accountability. Each gap made the next one more dangerous. The NTSB determined the probable cause(s) of the accident to be:
"The pilot’s failure to adequately respond to an encounter with whiteout conditions, which resulted in the helicopter’s collision with terrain. Contributing to the accident was the (1) operator’s inadequate pilot training program and pilot competency checks, which failed to evaluate pilot skill during an encounter with inadvertent instrument meteorological conditions, and (2) the Federal Aviation Administration principal operations inspector’s insufficient oversight of the operator, including their approval of the operator’s pilot training program without ensuring that it met requirements. Contributing to the severity of the surviving passenger’s injuries was the delayed notification of search and rescue organizations."
The investigation shows that these weren’t just flaws, but failures of responsibility. Safety was not ensured by those who were entrusted to do so. The FAA signed off on incomplete training programs. Soloy certified a pilot without confirming he could handle whiteout conditions. The lodge relied on informal tracking for flights operating in remote, avalanche-prone mountains and ultimately received inaccurate information that the downed helicopter was inbound. Though protocols were established, the lack of timely follow-up meant the helicopter’s location remained unknown for hours—delaying rescue and worsening survivability.
There is a broader lesson here from this tragic incident that reaches beyond aviation and heli-ski operators. One that teaches that when safety is decentralized and assumed rather than verified, things can fall through the cracks. When oversight becomes familiar instead of rigorous, mistakes can go unchecked. And when emergency protocols exist only on paper, they don’t help anyone when it matters—and the price to be paid is high.
Evidence shows that everyone on that helicopter trusted the system around them—the pilots, the guides, the lodge, the regulator. But it's possible that trust was misplaced. Heli-skiing will never be without risk. That's part of its appeal. But through the application of various control systems, the risks can be managed. The required skills can be met through extensive training. Communication can be structured to be effective in any situation. Rescue can be fast. Unfortunately, though, as in the case of the Knik Glacier helicopter crash, the NTSB investigation identified multiple lapses in these systems that were supposed to reduce danger; in this case, they were handled more like suggestions instead of standards. According to investigators, the wind or the snow didn't cause the crash, but a series of key, overlooked factors—meaning that this likely could have been prevented.
In aviation, clarity is everything. It's what keeps people alive. When it comes to tragedies, understanding the mistakes made, learning from them, and operating with responsibility moving forward are the only paths that can provide real growth. In the case of the Knik Glacier helicopter crash, they won’t bring anyone back. But perhaps they can stop something like this from ever happening again.
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| Tordrillo Mountain Lodge, a luxury heli-ski resort in Alaska, served as the departure point for the ill-fated flight on March 27, 2021. | Photo: Tordrillo Mountain Lodge |
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| Ghiacciacio Marmolada, Dolomiti, Italia. | Photo: Author |
It's been almost 5 years since you hit the Big Send, buddy—half a decade of life lived hard—and you wouldn't believe how far we've all come. Your brothers have become journalists and ski patrollers and smoke jumpers, entrepreneurs and business owners and adventurers, fathers and lovers and husbands and family men who work hard and ski harder with their people; who give the best of their hearts in cherishing this life in all that they do. We've all grown to become the best version of ourselves, and while some of us may have already been on this path when we knew you, you certainly gave us the necessary push to really make it happen and live it better than we ever could otherwise. That is the gift that your passing has given us. I think I can speak for all of us who had the honor of calling you a close friend in that we would trade all of this growth in a heartbeat for just one more day with you, one more day out in the mountains, one more lift ride or dirty joke around a campfire. But at the same time I can't help but feel an immense gratitude for what you've given us that goes so far beyond words. I love and miss you every day bro and I'll see you again one day. I'm looking forward to it.
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| Stairway to Heaven. | Photo: Author |
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| Chamonix is home to a fearless bunch of women who take to the sky weekly on their speed wings, living life on the edge. | Photo: Cyrilde Pic |
Speed riding is essentially skiing but with wings. You clip into your skis, strap on a small glider, and take off. The glider or 'wing,' as it is referred, lifts, the skis carve, and gravity does the rest. It’s fast. It’s light. And when done right, it looks like flight sculpted in real time; the ability to glide only inches or also hundreds of feet above snow, cutting tight turns, touching down and lifting again—all at breakneck speed.
Born in France in the early 2000s, speed riding stemmed from speed flying, which exploded as a fringe experiment, turning into one of the most exhilarating mountain sports on the planet. The main difference? Speed riding is on snow with skis while speed flying is only flying. Both demand precision, speed, and a lot of nerve. They both took root deeply in the Chamonix valley—where the terrain is some of the most serious the world has to offer. The line between life and death runs thin here, and those who call these mountains their home constantly dance along that line.
Yet beneath the sport’s rugged image lies a quieter legacy—one carved by the women who’ve been flying these peaks for decades
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| Speed riding is an adrenaline-fueled mix of speed flying and extreme skiing. | Photo: Cyrilde Pic |
Cyrilde Pic is a Chamonix local and a speed riding guide. She’s been flying since before social media existed, before most people knew what speed riding even was. “There was a lot of speed riding with women here before the social media,” she says with a French accent. “It’s just an old story—older than Instagram.”
Pic grew up between Chamonix and Brittany, skiing and sailing. Her introduction to wind sports like speed flying actually started first with windsurfing. Later, a paragliding tandem flight for her 20th birthday changed everything. She dropped out of university to become a paragliding instructor. “When speed riding showed up in the mid-2000s…I was a skier and a sailor and a paraglider. It was love at first sight. For me, it was windsurfing on snow.”
She started teaching speed riding in 2009, and by 2010, she won the French championship at 40 years old. “It’s not the Olympics,” she says. "We were 12 girls. But for me, it was an achievement. I couldn’t make what I wanted to do in my windsurfing career because of the money. So I was really happy to win this title.”
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| Speed riders take flight at the Women of Speed Flying event at Val d’Isère in the French Alps in February 2025. | Photo: Tobi Mazoyer |
From the start, women weren’t just on the sidelines in Chamonix—they were actively shaping the speed riding scene. Pic, one of the sport’s early figures, remembers it clearly. “It’s always been a girl story, riding in the valley,” she says. Some of her friends moved on over the years, but Pic stayed with it—teaching, riding, competing—driven purely by love for the sport. Women weren’t just participating; they were building the foundation.
Pic's journey hasn’t been smooth. In 2012, an avalanche near the Monte Bianco Skyway in Italy nearly ended her career. She was out in the mountains shooting photos of skiing and speed riding with a friend when she got caught. “By chance, I didn’t take the canopy out yet,” she says. “I tumbled for 400 meters and broke all my right side. It’s been a long way back.” But the injury gave her perspective. “It’s probably one of the most interesting journeys in my life. You discover that you can do it. I find joy now in simpler things.”
Today, she still rides—guiding clients, exploring lines, and sharing knowledge with younger pilots. “I’ve been teaching speed riding for a long time and paragliding more than 30 years. If I can share that with other women and the kids who need a bit of experience, I’m super happy.”
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| Cyrilde Pic is a legend of the Chamonix speed flying and speed riding community. | Photo: Cyrilde Pic |
One of those younger pilots is Ioana Hanganu, a Romanian rider who moved to Chamonix in December 2020 and became actively involved in the speed riding community. She flies constantly; before work, after work, or pretty much whenever the weather allows. She flies with other women. With men. Or with whoever shares the same obsession for speed, flow, and freedom. For Hanganu, it’s not just about logging flights—it’s about building a community in the sky. One where skill matters more than ego, and where every shared lap becomes part of something bigger.
“There are people that are super good at flying but not very good on skis,” she says. “You need both. It’s not like you can do this once every two weeks. You have to keep up. It’s a year-round thing. You need hours.”
Hanganu started with paragliding, logging in hours of flight time before progressing to speed flying and then ultimately speed riding. But that all came to a halt when, on a paragliding trip in India with some friends in 2024, she crashed and broke her spine trying to top-land at the end of a long day of flying. Hanganu couldn't land where she initially planned and made an error on the descent, crashing and suffering a compression fracture in her L2 vertebrae and spinal chord compression, which left her needing an intense rescue that took hours, followed by spinal surgery and months of rehabilitation just to return to her normal physical ability.
She learned a lot from the accident, she says. Now, she increases the amount of studying she does for landings and better listens to her body when she's tired, often backing off from flights when she's not feeling great about them."I'm more careful now with being mental there, taking less risk, and trusting myself more than listening to other people—and just feeling it 100% when I go for it," Hanganu says.
Another friend of Pic and Hanganu is Johanna Stalnacke, a Chamonix mountain guide whose first solo flight paragliding ended in a crash. “There was a bit of a side wind,” she says. “I made a mistake, raised the wrong brake in the stress, and I did a 180 right back into the landing field. But the only thing I could think about was getting back up. Otherwise, I’d be scared.”
It was Pic who helped Stalnacke get her confidence back. “She told me, I’ll guide you on the radio. We’ll do it gradually, and it’ll be a good experience again,” Stalnacke said. “That was the reason I started [paragliding] again.”
Pic's mentorship role with pupils like Hanganu and Stalnacke is an important ingredient to the sense of community that is shared amongst flyers in Chamonix. That community blossoms with events that promote and create space specifically for women to gather and fly together. “There’s this event, it's called the Women of Speed Flying,” Hanganu says. “It’s not a competition, more like a meet-up. Girls from all over the world come. It’s way more accessible in Val d’Isère, and you can do a lot of laps."
The Women of Speed Flying event has become a yearly tradition in nearby Val d'Isere, two and a half hours from Chamonix. Women come to fly and participate in a speed riding-oriented game where entrants stack points by completing a 'list' of various tasks and activities. It's a playful, friendly competition centered around speed riding that gets women from everywhere to meet up, fly, and then après at one of the on-mountain bars with live music afterwards. "It's really fun," Hanganu says.
Pic didn’t get to attend this year, but she believes in the mission. “I think it’s a good idea to push and motivate the girls,” she says. “It’s a way to show that we have our place in the community. I personally love mixed events too, but I think this is a great initiative.”
Still, the roots of this story go beyond new gatherings and hashtags. For Pic, supporting women in the sport was never separate from supporting the sport itself. “I tried to push the activity here in Chamonix—not especially with the girls, but with the youngsters, with everybody,” she says. “To give a chance to this activity and make people understand it could be practiced in many ways.”
That philosophy runs through how she teaches. “You have to be a good skier. Absolutely. No discussion,” Pic says. “You have to be able to ski everything you want to speed ride. And you have to accept not to go too fast. A lot of accidents happen because people push too fast into strong places, or downsize their wing too early. Because it looks good on social media.”
She pauses. “Extreme is not the goal. It’s just one of the ways to practice.”
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| More and more women like Hanganu and Stalnacke are getting into speed riding. | Photo: Tobi Mazoyer |
Chamonix is both a home base and a testing ground. The community is tight-knit but diverse, with riders bringing a wide range of styles—from freestyle-heavy lines to high-mountain technical descents. Nor is it just locals; people come from all over the planet, creating a mix of cultures, perspectives, and approaches. That blend is part of what keeps the scene dynamic—and what makes it such a compelling place to ride, according to Pic.
Hanganu agrees—but notes that it’s not always easy to break in. “It’s kind of a clicky community here,” she says. “You have to trust your partners and for them to trust you. But with speed, even if you don’t fly the same line, you’re still in the gondola together. You’re still on the same lap. It creates a big sense of community. It’s why I keep doing this.”
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| Speed riding offers more excitement than paragliding but also more risk. | Photo: sport-actus.fr |
That openness is something Pic has always felt, even as one of the few women instructors. “I’ve never felt anything bad about being a woman in this sport,” she says. “It has always been an advantage. If you take it the right way, men are super nice and ready to help. You just have to behave like a human, not like a woman. There are speed riders—that’s it. Whatever the gender.”
Still, the presence of women in speed riding—both in the air and behind the scenes—has always been strong, at least in Chamonix. “It’s the same with mountain guides,” Pic says. “There are few women guides overall, but most of them are in Chamonix. Maybe it’s the role models. The climbers, the skiers, the people we grew up seeing. It makes you believe you can do it too.”
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| In order to start speed riding you first have to be a good skier. | Photo: valfrejus.com |
For both Pic and Hanganu, longevity in the sport comes from knowing your limits and respecting the mountain. “You have to be realistic about your level,” Pic says. “You have to be able to change places often. If you always ride the same spot, you don’t progress. And you can’t go too fast, especially with conditions or wing size. I’ve seen people die because they didn’t have the level. You need to know the air mass, the techniques, have full control.”
Pic remembers the accident in 2012. She remembers tumbling for 400 meters and the time in the hospital—all the surgeries and all the painful time spent convalescing and reflecting on her life. But she doesn’t have any remorse. “I wouldn’t change a single thing," she says. "I’ve made my life in the air, and I’ll keep doing that. I have absolutely no regrets.”
Speed riding is not a sport for those chasing likes on Instagram, according to Pic. It’s for people who chase feeling. Who are okay with going slow to go far. Who know the mountain and their wing as well as themselves. “I think the most important thing is that pleasure must always be the engine,” Pic says. “You go for the old friend—the joy, the ride, the moment."
In Chamonix, more and more speed riders are women. They are not waiting to be invited in. Like valkyries, they are flying fast, high, and with grace on a sort of battlefield, except one where everyone is on the same side. All speed riders possess a deep desire to enjoy life to the fullest. This is what brought them to the sky in the first place; not to conquer it but to dance with it.
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| Cyrilde Pic takes flight on her wing, speed riding in the French Alps. | Photo: Cyrilde Pic |
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| The "Fear of Missing Out" affects brain chemistry. | Photo: SnowBrains |
I'm now two weeks into recovering from an ankle injury and I've caught myself doing something counterproductive: scrolling through Instagram incessantly. While I'm currently mastering the delicate art of navigating stairs on crutches, my feed is full of friends skiing powder lines, standing on sunlit summits, and linking perfect turns. Not only am I missing out—I'm hyper-aware of what I'm currently missing.
This reaction is known as FOMO: the Fear of Missing Out. It’s more than just a passing feeling of envy. FOMO is a psychological and neurological response that kicks in when we perceive others having rewarding experiences without us. And it has some very real effects on how our brains process social and emotional information.
Fear of Missing Out isn’t just emotional—it’s structural. Neuroimaging research shows that people who score high on FOMO tend to have reduced cortical thickness in a brain region called the precuneus. This part of the brain, nestled within the Default Mode Network (DMN), is heavily involved in memory, self-reflection, and social cognition. It’s what helps us imagine scenes, reflect on our relationships, and picture what others might be doing.
When you’re watching your friends get face shots in deep pow while you’re laid up with an injury or stuck at work, your brain’s DMN starts firing. You don’t just see the scene—you mentally simulate being there. You imagine what it feels like, sounds like, even smells like. And then you compare that imagined experience to your current reality: being stuck inside.
FOMO also overlaps with the brain’s reward system. Normally, dopamine—a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and motivation—helps reinforce rewarding behavior. But it also works through something called reward prediction. If you expect something good to happen and it doesn’t, dopamine levels crash. That’s called a negative prediction error.
In the context of FOMO, when you see others having an experience you want, your brain calculates that you’re missing out on a reward. The result? A mix of frustration, craving, and emotional discomfort. This cycle can make you keep checking your phone or social media feed, even when you know it won’t make you feel better.
Social media platforms are designed to hook attention and deliver quick dopamine hits. Fast-scrolling apps like TikTok and Instagram amplify this by showing bite-sized content that’s emotionally engaging. This pattern conditions the brain to seek out constant updates—and to feel anxiety when those updates seem better than our current situation. The term “TikTok brain” has been coined to describe this hyper-stimulation of neural reward pathways. For injured skiers, this can be especially brutal—we’re not just missing out, we’re being shown exactly what we’re missing in real time.
So if you’re injured or sidelined, and you keep watching ski content, your brain isn’t just reacting—it’s being trained to keep reacting. It’s easy to fall into a loop of checking, comparing, and feeling left out. Not everyone experiences FOMO the same way, either. Research shows that people with stronger emotional regulation and better connectivity between the brain’s control centers and the DMN are better equipped to manage it. Those with less emotional regulation tend to be more vulnerable.
There are gender differences, too. A Spanish study found that women tend to score higher on social media addiction and “phone obsession,” often tied to emotional connection, while men scored higher on internet gaming-related behaviors. These findings suggest gendered differences in how social stimuli are processed and what kinds of digital FOMO we’re more prone to.
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| Social media has a way of turning every powder day you miss into a full-blown mental highlight reel. | Photo: SnowBrains |
For skiers, missing a season or even just a few ripping storm cycles can feel like missing a part of your identity.Skiing isn’t just an activity—it’s often a form of community, self-expression, and mental health maintenance. Being cut off from that doesn’t just hurt physically. It changes your sense of connection and belonging. That isolation makes the social comparison loop of FOMO even more potent. The brain, looking for connection and stimulation, turns to digital sources. But those sources can backfire, triggering even more comparison and dissatisfaction.
Understanding the brain science behind FOMO can help reduce its power. Here are a few strategies supported by research:
- Mindfulness meditation: Helps calm the Default Mode Network and reduce obsessive thoughts.
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) techniques: Challenge distorted thinking patterns that fuel social comparison.
- Digital boundaries: Take structured breaks from social media to break the dopamine-checking cycle.
- Real-world interaction: Talking to friends in person or journaling your thoughts can ground your perspective.
FOMO isn’t a personal failing—it’s a byproduct of how our brains evolved interacting with modern technology, which is currently ongoing. Our neural wiring, designed for in-person social groups, is being constantly triggered by digital platforms that weren’t built with mental health in mind. The neuroscience of FOMO also raises ethical concerns for tech design. If digital platforms are designed to tap into the brain’s reward system and capitalize on our fear of missing out, there's a real argument for making those systems more responsible. Researchers suggest that dopamine-triggering features, such as endless scrolls or social comparison cues, should be implemented by social media companies with caution—especially for users more prone to compulsive behavior.
Understanding the neurological roots of FOMO won’t make it disappear, but it can help us navigate it. When you find yourself feeling left out or anxious about what you’re missing, it helps to pause. Recognize the neural systems at play. You’re not weak. You’re human. And sometimes, the best move for your mental health isn’t catching up on everyone else’s adventures—it’s stepping away for a bit and focusing on your own. Even if sometimes, like in my case, that means just healing, resting, and waiting for next season.
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| Scroll. Binge. Repeat. The FOMO loop always starts with one innocent tap. POV: Miles Clark at Palisades Tahoe, CA, on an epic powder day in March 2025. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| Patrick Joly, better known as "Monoman" by the Chamonix community, was known for his eccentric character and hard-charging ski style, often seen at the Monte Bianco Skyway in nearby Italy with antennas on his head and a cape on his back. | Photo: Papy Millet |
The Monte Bianco Skyway is an engineering marvel. The rotating cable car, offering 360-degree panoramic views as it soars from the quaint Italian ski village of Courmayeur, accesses the high glaciers of the Mont Blanc Massif at over 3,400 meters (11,300 feet), just on the other side of the tunnel running from Chamonix. It gives direct access to some of the most dangerous ski terrain in the world. It's a classy, awe-inspiring ride into the alpine wilderness surrounding Western Europe's highest peak. For Patrick Joly—better known as "Monoman" by the Chamonix and Courmayeur communities—it was a gateway to the place where he felt most alive.
On February 14, Monoman was skiing alone beneath the Colle del Gigante when an avalanche roared down the Serac Line, catching him from behind. Buried under more than a meter of snow, he remained trapped for 45 minutes before rescue teams arrived. He was pulled from the debris, barely clinging to life, and airlifted to Parini Hospital in Aosta. Two days later, he succumbed to his injuries.
He was 65.
Monoman was no ordinary skier. A retired traveling salesman from Paris, he had moved to Chamonix 12 years ago and thrown himself into a life of full-throttle skiing. His love for monoskiing—a style that once flourished in the 1980s but had since faded—became his calling card, but it was his unmistakable appearance that truly set him apart. With a cape billowing behind him as he carved down the slopes, he looked like a skiing superhero, the fabric whipping in the wind as if fueling his speed and flair. Affixed to his helmet was a pair of antennas—quirky, inexplicable, yet entirely fitting for a man who seemed to exist on his own wavelength, tuned into a frequency of pure joy and adrenaline. Whether they were for style, superstition, or a silent joke, no one knew for sure, but together, the cape and antennas became as much a part of his legend as his relentless pursuit of the next run.
“He was out there, skiing all the time, making the most of it,” Ross Hewitt said, a longtime Chamonix guide. It wasn’t just that he skied every day—it was how he skied. In 2019, Monoman set the record for most runs completed in a single day on the Monte Bianco Skyway: 18 laps, with each run at least 1,200 meters (4,000 feet) long. A staggering feat, considering the punishing terrain and the time it takes to cycle back up.
“He did it in a year when the exit was rocky, slow,” Hewitt recalled. “But Monoman just stayed there all day long, when everyone else said, ‘It’s getting hot. Time to go home.’”
Monoman was a character, eccentric but deeply respected in Chamonix. If the lift was delayed or the weather turned bad, he’d find a piano and start playing. He was a professional musician, often performing in bars and hotels for après-ski. Sometimes he would even play in the Monte Bianco Skyway station between runs, fingers dancing across the keys while his monoski leaned against the wall beside him, snow trickling onto the mid-station's tile floors.
“He loved music, loved life,” Papy Millet said, another long-time Skyway local and friend of the late Chamonix freeride hero Tof Henry, as well as one of Monoman’s closest ski partners. “He was always enjoying himself.”
The Avalanche
February 14 had started like any other day. Monoman and Millet were skiing together in the morning, lapping Skyway as they had for years. But by midday, the sun was baking the slopes. Millet called it—he knew better than to keep skiing once the snow softened. But Monoman, as always, stayed out.
“He loved skiing alone,” Millet said.
The avalanche struck around 2:30 p.m. from above the Serac Line, a notorious but beloved freeride route beneath Colle del Gigante. It was big—likely a D3 on the American avalanche scale—powerful enough to bury a car, to snap trees. It was likely triggered naturally as a result of wind-transported snow from heavy winds that were blowing at over 100 kilometers that day, loading the avalanche-prone slope until it reached its breaking point. People on the tramcar overhead saw it unfold. Someone filmed it. The footage is gut-wrenching: a tidal wave of white surging down the face, swallowing Monoman before he could react.
He was buried for 45 minutes.
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| Millet and Monoman on the Monte Bianco Skyway cable car. | Photo: Papy Millet |
Most avalanche victims don’t survive past 15.
Rescue teams arrived by helicopter. His avalanche transceiver was working. They dug him out, unconscious but with a pulse. He was flown to the hospital in Aosta, where doctors fought to save him. But the damage was too severe.
On the morning of February 16, Monoman was gone.
Monoman had always embraced risk. Chamonix is a place where skiers speak of avalanches not as rare disasters, but as an ever-present reality. Here, the mountains don’t forgive mistakes. Monoman knew this.
“He played the game,” Millet said.
The “game” was an unspoken challenge among the hard-charging locals: how far could you push, how close could you dance to the edge before the mountains decided otherwise?
“I rescued Monoman many times over the years,” Millet admitted. “From crevasses, from glaciers, from bad situations.” But Monoman never slowed down. He was 65, still skiing faster than most men half his age. He didn’t back off when conditions deteriorated. He didn’t call it a day when the heat made the slopes unstable. And on that February afternoon, when even his longtime partner had decided it was too dangerous, he dropped in one more time.
Skiing in Chamonix is a lifelong test of balance—not just on the snow, but between ambition and restraint, passion and pragmatism. The mountains here demand skill, but more than that, they require humility. Yes, many have lost their lives pushing too hard, ignoring warning signs, or simply falling victim to the mountain’s unpredictable nature. But survival isn’t just luck; it’s about knowing when to go and when to walk away. Hewitt, who has been skiing here for nearly 30 years, has seen both sides of that equation. He’s watched friends disappear, but he’s also managed to keep himself in the game, season after season. Experience teaches patience, and patience keeps you alive. “Every five years, something like this happens,” Hewitt said. “It’s the reality of the place. It’s really good skiing. But also, when it goes wrong—it goes wrong.”
Monoman lived for skiing and he pushed its limits—sometimes past where others would. He was a talented man who knew the risks and understood the mountains. He, like many other locals, was well aware that Chamonix is a place where the line between adventure and consequence is razor-thin. Yet for those who make it their home, that’s part of the pull.
I met Patrick Joly—Monoman—for the first time this season at the Skyway. He immediately stuck out to me—a cool-headed Frenchman with long flowing gray hair skiing in sunglasses with antennas on his helmet—monoski and all. I immediately knew he was somebody. The last time I saw Monoman, however, he wasn’t skiing—he was playing the piano, singing and smiling big, completely lost in the music. I didn't even know that he played the piano. It really brightened my day. I wouldn't see him again. The next day was the avalanche.
I still see him there—fingers sliding across the keys, carefree as ever. Just like when I witnessed him on the mountain, cape trailing behind him, carving through the snow. He was impossible to miss and even harder to forget. Monoman skied harder and longer than most, driven by something beyond reason, beyond caution. Sure, I didn’t know him that well—but I saw him. And those who did know him will remember not just how he skied, but how he lived—fully, and without hesitation. The Chamonix community grieves the loss of an iconic character, yet I'm also quite sure that those who loved and cared for him will also always remember him with a little bit of a smile.
The mountain may have taken Monoman but it does not keep him. He is in the stories, in the wind at the summit, and in the tracks that vanish with the next snowfall under the Skyway's cables.
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| Monoman in his element, charging down the slopes of the Skyway. | Photo: Papy Millet |
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| La Sapinière's hotel rooms each have an immaculate video of Mont Blanc—Europe's tallest peak. | Photo: La Sapinière |
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| The breakfast hall at La Sapinière offers panoramic views of Chamonix. | Photo: La Sapinière |
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| I'd argue that La Sapinière has the best view of any hotel in downtown Chamonix. | Photo: Fabian Bodet |
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| Convalescing, French style. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| Spring in Chamonix ushers in perfect weather to sit outside and enjoy the Good Life. | Photo: Fabian Bodet |
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| My room at La Sapinière had a stellar view of the Mont Blanc Massif. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| The Cachat family's involvement in Chamonix dates back to the 18th century. | Photo: SnowBrains |
The staff of this place is a family—literally. And they treat guests more like neighbors than bookings. You feel it in the way Patrick lingers to chat about his proud Chamonix heritage, in the way Jeannie tells you stories about watching icons like Glenn Plake and Gary Bigham ski in the ‘80s, and in the way Ellika explains where the croissants came from. These folks know the mountains. They’ve lived them. Raised their kids in their shadow. They've known passionate love and tragic loss under these lofty peaks that are equally as beautiful as they are damned. All the while, the hotel's walls stand firmly in place—planted in the ground as deeply as the Cachat family's roots, going back to some of Chamonix's very first mountaineers who bravely danced with giants like Mont Blanc and the Aiguille du Midi.
Yet, in a town that’s fast becoming polished and pricey, La Sapinière holds true; there’s no fake rustic charm here—no designer flannel cushions for sale in the lobby. Just timeworn floorboards, a few creaks in the stairs, and a kind of lived-in ease that feels earned. It’s a place where a slideshow from an eccentric Chamonix freeskiing legend can follow a morning of croissants and glacier views, where the old and the new drink from the same bottle of wine and no one’s in a hurry to finish their glass.
It’s easy to be seduced by Chamonix—the sharp peaks, the high-speed lifts, the après bars filled with tight-fitting Gore-Tex, and thrilling stories of brutal climbs and daring descents. But if you want to feel the soul of a place you have to get to know its people. And, in my opinion, there's no better place to do that in Chamonix than at La Sapinière. You just so happen to get a front-row seat to Mont Blanc, too.
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To book a stay at La Sapinière in Chamonix, visit the historic family-run hotel's website https://www.chalethotelsapinierechamonix.com/fr
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| An aerial view of the hotel. | Photo: Hensli Sage |
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| The bar area is quite cozy. | Photo: Fabian Bodet |
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| Patio time. | Photo: Fabian Bodet |
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| The bar at La Sapinière. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| My room. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| Gary Bigham's slideshow at La Sapinière. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| Mingling with the locals. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| Foie Gras (goose liver) at Atmosphère. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| Juice selection at La Sapinière. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| Breakfast included. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| Records. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| A journal entry from 1850. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| Ellika combs through her family's historical records. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| Old French passport. | Photo: SnowBrains |
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| Winter views from the patio. | Photo: La Sapinière |
