A book based on true events that explores the life-threatening risks and ethical dilemmas of outdoor adventures debuted on Nov. 11. Now, it’s author is coming to the Fraser Valley this weekend.

As a passionate backcountry adventurer and freelance writer, Devon O’Neil has spent his career capturing stories that take place outside. The November release of “The Way Out,” his first majorly-published book, marked his longest and most arduous reporting project to date.

O’Neil will be discussing the book’s themes and touching on his outdoor experience from 6 to 7:15 p.m. at Fraser Valley Distilling on Saturday, Nov. 15. The author event was organized by Mountain Shire Books & Gifts in Winter Park.

In “The Way Out,” O’Neil tells the story of three dads and four teenagers, who in 2017 ventured out to Uncle Bud’s Hut near Leadville for a two-night ski trip. The morning after their arrival, 47-year-old Brett Beasley and 15-year-old Cole Walters-Schaler stepped out to get some laps in while the others were still gearing up for the day.

The outing should have taken less than an hour, but when a fast-moving blizzard blew in, the pair got lost in the snow overnight, and the rest of the group began to panic. A local search and rescue team began a mission and scoured the area later that afternoon, but the skiers were still missing that night, and eventually, a civilian search party out of Salida came together to continue the search.

The next morning, the civilian search party had amassed dozens of people. Finally, on the second day of searching, snowmobiler Chris Burandt located the missing duo three miles from Uncle Bud’s Hut in the Porcupine Gulch area. Disoriented but uninjured, Walters-Schaler was sent home while Beasley was taken to the hospital to recuperate from hypothermia. 

Both skiers made it out of the wilderness, but only one survivor made it through the tragic, life-altering evening. Traumatized, the survivor refused to speak about the incident for two years, and the community of Salida continued to grapple with the mystery of the ski accident and its aftermath.

Exploring a wilderness mystery

O’Neil’s curiosity about the accident resurfaced in 2019, when speaking with a friend who claimed that he “still didn’t know the full story of what happened that night,” O’Neil said. But the real investigation did not fully get off the ground until January of 2022, when O’Neil began interviewing community members involved in the incident. He would spend the next four years reporting and writing what would eventually become “The Way Out.”

“I hope the book answers the questions that have lingered,” O’Neil said. “Salida is one of the most tight-knit mountain communities I’ve ever come across, and I hope it can bring closure.”

Reporting on a topic of such sensitivity and depth was a challenge for O’Neil, who has lived in Colorado for over 20 years and worked in the 10th Mountain Division Huts network as a cleaner.

“It is an enormous responsibility to tell this very fragile and delicate story,” he said. “I followed my curiosity and interest while trying to understand the broader depth.”

One chapter in the book is titled “Is the adventure worth it?” and weighs the potential risks of keeping hobbies like backcountry skiing, in which the participant is at the mercy of the elements. 

Surviving an avalanche

O’Neil, also a skier, took a trip with a friend to Bald Mountain in 2022, in the midst of the writing process. It was a run he had skied many times before, he said, and in late April, he was confident that the snowpack was consolidating and safe from avalanche risk.

Then, he heard something that resembled the sound of Styrofoam breaking as he felt part of a cornice collapse a few feet in front of him. He had triggered an avalanche; soon, there was an “almost inconceivable wall of snow thundering down the mountain,” he wrote in a story for Outside Magazine in June of that year.

“The avalanche would have been completely unsurvivable if we had been caught in it,” he said. “It rocked me in a way I never knew was possible, and changed my entire perspective on what I do in the mountains and what I want out of those adventures.”

Spreading the ‘wakeup call’

It was a wakeup call about the risks associated with his outdoor hobbies, he said. In the same way that the avalanche made O’Neil want to take extra safety precautions each time he embarked on a backcountry ski expedition, members of the Salida community also changed their approach to outdoor recreation in the wake of the fatal 2017 accident.

O’Neil posed questions in his interviews with affected community members, many of whom reevaluated hobbies and snow sports after realizing how unexpectedly these activities can cause death. 

Ultimately, the book aims to inform and probe the reader, he said, encouraging them to dive deeper into their motivations for exploring the outdoors.

“This mountain life that we live is fraught with these dynamics that are just really blurry and grey, which bring us great joy, and come with great peril,” he said. “I’m not sure if we are really aware of how close we are to the edge when we’re out in nature.”

After a brief presentation, O’Neil will hold a Q&A and book signing at the Saturday event. Books will be sold at Fraser Valley Distilling, and tickets to the event are $10. Those interested can purchase tickets at mountainshirebooks.com/events.