Zach Guy melds snow science, dance, biking, and fatherhood with style.
Crested Butte may be the only place in the world that has an avalanche forecaster with a masters degree in snow science who also can get down on the dance floor and crush mountain bike trails. Not only has Zach Guy been a lead forecaster for avalanche centers in Crested Butte and Montana, but he is also a crowd favorite at Crested Butte’s local Move the Butte dance show, was crowned King of Disco at KBUT’s Disco Inferno in 2023, and has podiumed at several of Colorado’s long-distance bike races.
While avalanche work is serious business, Guy has maintained a laid- back demeanor and easy grin. In fact, I’ve never seen him as anything but good-natured as we practiced and shared the stage for Move the Butte crowd-pleasers like Taylor Swift’s “Ready for It?” and “Footloose.”
Dancing in the Butte
Dance was not initially on Guy’s radar, other than in bars, he admits. When Guy was four years old, he and his family moved from Montrose to Estes Park, where his growing-up years were steadily focused on the outdoors. After moving to Crested Butte in 2011, he attended his first Move the Butte performance and was inspired by the joy factor it brought. The following year, Guy gave it a try, dancing in a disco mashup. Since then, Move the Butte has been a regular part of his winter routine.
“My favorite part is the crowd’s energy during the show and the fun of the whole week. I also like to get to know another side of the community — people I wouldn’t otherwise cross paths with,” Guy says.
“Avalanche work can get fully consuming. During dance practice, I can forget about work for an hour. It’s one of the few places I go in town where people don’t ask about snow conditions. Half the people don’t know what I do as I’m there to dance.”
His favorite dances over the years have been to boy band hits with choreographer Barron Farnell, “Jungle” by duo choreographers Chloe Bowman and McNick (the choreographer and photographer simply goes by McNick), and various dance numbers spearheaded by Move the Butte impresario Daniela Runge. In 2025, he managed to take part in three dances, despite being a new dad to his son, Ellis. His wife, Mary Nolan, a massage therapist, also managed to continue her participation in Move the Butte throughout early motherhood.
Nolan, a native of West Glacier, Montana, met Guy while he was working as the director of the Flathead Avalanche Center, a position he held for three years until returning to Crested Butte in 2020; this time with Nolan. In preparing for their move to Crested Butte together, Guy told Nolan that Move the Butte would likely be one of the things she would love about living here.
“I had never seen her do choreographed dance before and thought, ‘Holy smokes, she is really good!’” True to form, the two married in a surf destination wedding in Troncones, Mexico, in October 2023. Baby Ellis arrived a year later.
Keeping people snow safe
Guy’s family skied at resorts around Colorado in his youth, frequently in Winter Park and Summit County. He became a backcountry skier during his undergraduate days studying geology at Western Washington University in Bellingham, although he had dabbled in the sport in high school at places like Rocky Mountain National Park, without proper avalanche awareness and training. While skiing Mt. Baker in Washington, which has an open- gate policy allowing skiers to access the backcountry, a ski patroller grabbed Guy after noticing his lack of avalanche gear and gave him a 10-minute avalanche safety talk.
“It changed my awareness,” recalled Guy, who later took a Level 1 avalanche course while in college. “I thought the teacher had a cool job and could ski for work. I was studying geology, and I was getting burned out the further I got into coursework.”
After graduation, Guy moved to Wyoming to ski bum for two years. While working as a security guard and shuttle driver in Jackson Hole and skiing nearly every day, he completed Level 2 avalanche safety certification and other professional snow safety courses. He was further inspired by a magazine article that mentioned the snow science master’s degree program at Montana State University (MSU). “Back then, avalanche centers were in their infancy; there weren’t as many as now. I didn’t even know avalanche forecasting was a job.”
The serendipity of reading that article led Guy to complete his degree in snow science at MSU in 2011. After which, he visited Crested Butte, a place his family had vacationed years before.
“I was applying for an internship at Irwin Guides, so I reached out to Billy Rankin and Alan Bernholtz and asked if they could meet in person,” he recalled, adding, “Alan teased me about shaving before the interview.”
Guy was also considering an internship in Alaska, but had recently met a few Crested Buttians during the Colorado Trail Race (a 500-mile, self-supported bikepacking race from Denver to Durango) and liked the feel of the town and mountain bike trails. His first stint in the Butte lasted six years as he worked as a forecaster and director for the Crested Butte Avalanche Center (CBAC) and as an assistant snow safety director and ski guide for Irwin Guides.
Since Guy’s early days and return from Montana, CBAC has grown significantly as a nonprofit organization funded by community grants, business sponsors, private donations, and fundraisers. Avalanche Awareness Night, held on the first weekend in December, serves as the kickoff to the winter season and is the organization’s largest fundraiser. Individuals can become members, make donations, and report backcountry observations, in addition to viewing forecasts, avalanche locations and patterns, area weather stations, and other snow condition intel.
Gathering and reporting this kind of intelligence takes major effort. As CBAC’s lead forecaster, Guy typically works three or four consecutive long days, getting up around 4:30 a.m. to sneak downstairs at his Pitchfork home to evaluate a myriad of online resources that catalogue snowfall, winds, and temperatures from satellite, radar, and numerical weather models. Guy then distills that data into an avalanche danger rating and forecast that he shares via website, social media, email, and radio — all by 7 a.m.
The aim is to be off the computer by 8 a.m., eat breakfast, and pack the necessities to go out in the field on skis or by snowmobile until late afternoon. “We travel to good viewpoints, use binoculars, observe snowpack behavior, test slopes depending on conditions, and dig snow pits for stability evaluation,” Guy explained. The evening is spent documenting the details, adding to CBAC’s media gallery, and editing videos.
Embracing summer months and dad duty
During non-winter months, Guy shifts to working for Maroon Bells Shuttles a few days a week. The business, owned by fellow CBAC avalanche forecaster Evan Ross, shuttles vehicles between Crested Butte and Aspen, allowing clients to hike, run, and bike on trails that connect the two mountain communities. It also gives Guy the chance to log trail miles by biking and hiking the other direction.
He also works as a mountain bike and hiking guide for Colorado Backcountry Guide Service and is currently contracted by the American Avalanche Association for several projects. Guy recently authored the “Avalanche Encyclopedia,” an online educational resource, and is the publishing assistant for The Starting Zone: At the Interface of Avalanche Science and Practice, an e-book by Karl Birkeland, who was Guy’s graduate school advisor at MSU and served as the director of the National Avalanche Center for 11 years.
An avid biker, Guy won the Crested Butte Nordic Center’s first Grand Traverse bike race from Aspen to Crested Butte as well as the Breck 100 and Bailey Hundo. He has also placed third in the Colorado Trail Race and finished in the top 20 at Leadville 100, and he’s gone on bikepacking adventures across the Himalayas, Alps, and Cascades.
Guy and Nolan are thankful for the opportunity to raise their son in Crested Butte. “One of the reasons I moved back here is that I love the sense of community and access to the outdoors. Community has a different meaning now as people step in to help watch Ellis if we have a work schedule conflict. It’s different through the lens of having a child,” he said.
And Guy gives back as a volunteer, assisting with Crested Butte Mountain Bike Association’s trail days, KBUT’s Disco Inferno, and Adaptive Sports Center’s Bridges of the Butte. “There are so many great ways to support the community and such an amazing network of mountain biking trails; it’s a pretty special thing.”