“Waqaa! Wiinga Ayagina’araugua,” says Allen Dahl. “Mamterillermiunguunga, taugaam maantelartua Anchorage-ami.” The greeting translates to: “Hello! I am Ayagina’ar. I am from Bethel (Mamterilleq), but currently live in Anchorage.” The 26-year-old Yup’ik skier and climber grew up bilingual, attending the Yup’ik language immersion school in Bethel where his mother also taught. Now an avalanche safety professional and mountaineering instructor, Dahl credits his upbringing in Bethel with providing a strong baseline for his ongoing work in the outdoors.
After graduating high school in Bethel, Dahl moved to Anchorage to study environmental science at Alaska Pacific University. But it wasn’t long before the university’s outdoor studies program caught his interest. “The fun and adventure of those classes really called to me at the time,” he explains. He eventually switched majors, pursuing classes that developed his technical mountain skills including rock climbing, skiing and snow science. “I loved skiing and the avalanche side of things so much that I made it my concentration,” says Dahl. He finished school with a major in outdoor studies, a concentration in snow science and a minor in environmental science.
Dahl’s passion for connecting with the snowpack motivated him to pursue an internship with the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Center in 2021. The internship can be a stepping stone to a career as an avalanche forecaster, and is quite competitive. But Dahl had been working diligently to make his name known in the forecasting community — every time he stepped out for a personal ski day in the backcountry, he made sure to submit a detailed public snow observation to the forecasting center. His internship provided valuable opportunities to collect field data alongside forecasters, sit in on forecaster meetings, and write mock avalanche forecasts. “I learned a lot from the field days with the forecasters,” he says. “But because of COVID, not seeing the overall avalanche community in person was a bit challenging.”
Drawn to connect with the recreation community in person, Dahl also instructs avalanche courses with the Alaska Avalanche School during the winters and instructs mountaineering courses for Alaska Mountaineering School in the summer. On the twelve-day expedition courses, students practice glacier crevasse rescue, rope skills, and navigation skills on glaciated terrain. “I really love how appreciative the students are from sharing knowledge,” says Dahl. “It feels good when they express that what you teaching them is going to have an impact on their lives.”
And Dahl says that as he grows and evolves, he finds himself less drawn to mountaineering and more attracted to skiing as a means to connect with the landscape. “Climbing has deep ties to colonialism,” he explains. “I don’t feel that quite so much in skiing — mountaineering is tied to conquest of a mountain, and that can be a tough thing for me to navigate.” But he looks for opportunities on his multi-day courses to help connect students more meaningfully with the land they are recreating on. “On my last trip, we really emphasized the meaning of these glaciers — not just their role in the greater overall ecosystem, but also the reverence Indigenous people have had for these areas,” he explains.
In recent months, Dahl has been practicing slowing down in the outdoors — hiking barefoot, picking berries and noticing details like the sounds made by insects alongside the trail. These efforts help him to resist the fast-paced, growth-oriented culture of outdoor industries and society at large. “I still have these ambitious objectives, but I’ve been trying to bring ‘slowing down’ to the way I move through the mountains this summer,” he says.
For Dahl, this act of slowing down mirrors a broader shift in how he envisions his future. He’s increasingly drawn to practices like permaculture and land-based living, and sees them as antidotes to the extractive pace of the outdoor industry and society at large. His evolving path reflects a shift from achievement to reciprocity, a desire not only to move across landscapes, but to live in deeper relationship with them.
Emily Sullivan is a photographer and writer focused on outdoor recreation, environmental wellness, and community empowerment. She is based on Dena’ina lands, where she can usually be found skiing, packrafting, or berry picking.
