Brooke Maushund
Brooke lives in Eastern Sierra, California. During the summer, she works on Yosemite Valley Search and Rescue, and during the winter, she ski patrols at June Mountain. This winter she is also going to teach avalanche safety courses! In her role as ski patroller and avalanche safety instructor, Brooke thinks it is important to meet people where they’re at, and remind ourselves that we all began our journeys in the mountains somewhere. Brooke is passionate about learning from what the mountains can teach us each day we move through them: about our environment, safety, and ourselves. With her humble attitude, she sees herself as a student for life of the natural world around us. She says “There is a lot nature is trying to tell us, it’s just a matter of if we listen.”
Brooke first found out about snow science in college while taking her first avalanche course with friends from the ski team to learn how to move through the mountains safely. However, it was while working a handful of summers in the high country of Yosemite for the National Park Service as a hydrology technician maintaining weather/snow instrumentation that she got hooked. Through the NPS she got involved volunteering with the California Cooperative Snow Survey in the park, and then knew that the snow industry was for her. She soon became a Key Observer for the Eastern Sierra Avalanche Center, began ski patrolling, and this season she will begin to teach avalanche courses. She hopes to continue down this track, completing the AMGA Ski Guide track and becoming an AIARE Course Leader, with hopes to acquire enough experience to potentially forecast one day.
Fun facts about Brooke: She has spent more than a month living on big walls in Yosemite this year; she loves writing about and making woodcut prints of my experiences outside; and she is happiest with a dog next to her!
What is citizen science? Why join CSO?
To Brooke, the term Citizen Science means that science has the potential to be accessible to everyone, and that you do not need a degree to contribute to the advancement of science. Brooke joined CSO in order to not only share the information she already was collecting in the field with a broader scientific audience for public good, but also to connect with more snow professionals with a passion for nerding out about snow!
Brooke encourages people to join CSO this winter because “when you venture into the mountains, we know that the experience is solely for ourselves. CSO gives you a chance to give back to the community with very little additional effort.”
Find Brooke on Instagram @brookemaush