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Canmore avalanche survivor to bike over 4,000km for mountain mental health

Caught in a serious avalanche in March 2024, Giordano Pillarella was left with a broken back, pelvis and hand. Now, he's set to bike from Canmore to Montreal, Quebec.

CANMORE — A little over a year ago Giordano Pillarella thought he may never walk again, let alone ski.

Now he’s about to bike 4,000 kilometres from Canmore to Montreal, Quebec, to raise awareness and support for those, like him, who have experienced trauma in the mountains.

Caught in a serious avalanche in March 2024, Pillarella was left with a broken back, pelvis and hand. While he recovered from his injuries after a long road of surgeries and physio, the mental healing was another story.

“The mental aspect of it has been a long journey…  I was so focused on getting strong again, that it was only like months and months after the injury when I started to get mentally affected by it,” said Pillarella.

With a $5,000 fundraiser goal, Pillarella is donating all the money he raises from his cross-Canada ride to Mountain Muskox — a local organization offering community support and healing for those impacted by incidents in the mountains.

“I just wanted to raise money for something that I think people should be a part of, myself included, like to try to reach out to a community that knows how you're feeling,” said Pillarella.

“I haven't actually gone [to Mountain Muskox], but I do plan to one day ... It feels kind of odd sometimes when I know that I'm trying to raise money for a cause and it's something I support, of course, but it's something like I haven't actually been a part of … so this whole thing is basically about that. It's like trying to build up the courage to go and get help.”

On the day of the accident, Pillarella was skiing Gutentight Couloir on Bow Peak in Banff National Park alongside friend Mattias Hofmann. They were about to make their way down a choke section of the line when the entire headwall came down, funneling through the bottleneck toward Pillarella.

“A lot of snow came right at me and then I just went flying. I don't really remember much. I was in the air for a while. It felt pretty crazy,” he said.

Partially buried when he finally landed, Pillarella was able to clear his airways while Hofmann was quick to his side, calling for search and rescue.

“I definitely knew I could have been paralyzed by the feelings I was having,” he said, recalling the moments after the slide.

Eleven days in the hospital and a long road of recovery later, Pillarella was back on his skis in November of that year, determined to regain strength even if it meant fighting through pain.

“I think I kind of lied to myself a little bit for the first few months by telling myself and telling friends like, ‘Oh, I'm not scared, I just don't think it's worth it’ but then reality was I was probably really scared,” said Pillarella.

“I think it changes you without even knowing.”

In an effort to feel normal again, Pillarella said he would brush off the accident when people asked about it, not wanting to revisit what happened.

“All that denial of sharing is a reason why I hit a brick wall mentally after a while. I think what's felt the best since the injury is actually being vulnerable,” he said.

“There's obviously a lot of tough barriers that I wish I could just break through, which I bet would help me a ton, but they're not easy."

“I think Mountain Muskox is an incredibly good idea and that's why everyone always talks about it. Therapy is like the hardest thing to go to. It's not easy to be vulnerable but when you are it feels so good.”

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Pushing limits

Fuelled by the challenging objectives and tough goals, Pillarella was quick to fall in love with mountaineering, ski touring and climbing when he moved to the Rockies from Montreal in 2019.

“I’ve always liked sports that I'm able to test my mental toughness,” he said.

Cycling for the first time this summer, it wasn’t long before Pillarella was hooked on the sport and setting new goals — 50 km soon turned into 180 and then 250.

“My body felt good, which was the biggest thing,” he said.

For Pillarella, strapping on skis or tying into a rope are the experiences that allow him to feel like a kid again.

“I think if people are trying to understand why the mountains pull people into these crazy sports it is because it's difficult to overcome it, but when you do it feels incredibly powerful. It makes you go home, and you love your shower like 10 times more … it gives so much value to the little things,” he said.

“I feel like one of the most difficult parts mentally was I just feel like a part of me died in that accident. I don't have that drive to push so hard anymore and it bothers me sometimes… it was difficult to realize that that was the truth.”

After training for the ride, getting stronger and realizing the trip was attainable, Pillarella said he felt he found that passion for chasing big objectives again — the same feeling he found pushing the limits in the mountains.

“Now that I look back on [the accident], it wasn't a good side of me … I was so mentally driven by what I could achieve that I didn't think of the people in my life,” he said. “I didn't think of my safety. I was just like, ‘Oh, I want to chase these huge goals,' and the bike ride is honestly something that makes me feel like I could do that again.”

Pillarella knows the physical challenge of the ride won’t be easy, but he’s ready to push himself, knowing there’s a purpose behind the miles.

“It’s going to suck, but I love that. I love that it’s going to suck,” he said.

Starting Aug. 1, with close to 80 per cent of his funding goal reached, Pillarella’s objective is to make it to Montreal in less than 20 days.

Joined by friend, Michio Green, for the first three days, Pillarella says day one from Canmore to Brooks will be his biggest ride at approximately 300 km — most days after that he’ll hit about 200 km.

“I’m getting messages from people in Winnipeg, in Saskatchewan being like, ‘Hey, I heard about your bike ride if you need a place to stay or if you need food one night’ and I'm just like, wow, the amount of support that I've seen from a community is …. unbelievable,” he said.

“There’s a lot of good people out there and a lot of people with big hearts and I think this fundraiser has taught me that and it's made me a lot more positive.”

Completing most of his ride alone, Pillarella will be joined by his mom who will “crew” him home for the last leg to Montreal.

Pillarella expressed gratitude to his girlfriend, Leah Parisotto, his mom and sister who have been constant sources of support throughout the recovery journey.

“I want to make sure that people know that what motivates me are the people I care about,” he said.

He hopes that the ride won’t just be about his story, but that others will be able to connect to the initiative and know that their experiences and their stories matter too.

“I don't want to be the focus of it. The focus is Mountain Muskox. It's weird though you can't pull yourself away from a task like this, but it feels better for me knowing that it’s about everyone's story, not [just] my story. That's the biggest thing,” said Pillarella.

Support through community

Clinical psychologist and Mountain Muskox board member, Geoff Powter said there’s an "interesting conundrum” in mountain trauma.

“In the mountain community … people know that loss does happen, and trauma does happen, but when it happens to individual people, it seems universally like people are surprised by that,” said Powter.

“Because people in the outdoors want to try and do whatever they can to protect themselves from mountain trauma they judge when traumas happen and they can be a pretty judgmental community that looks at other people in accidents and say things like, ‘Well, they shouldn't have done this, or they shouldn't have done that or why were they there or they didn't make good decisions.’”

Bringing together mentors, counsellors and fellow outdoor recreationalists, Powter said Mountain Muskox connects participants with a community that understands all those factors, providing support through a network of people with shared experiences.

With peer support groups and through tools for handling grief, guilt and self-regulation, the organization walks alongside those who love the mountains but have also experienced loss and heartache in them. 

“I think Mountain Muskox is an awesome group because I know that one day, when I find the courage to go, I know it'll help … because I've felt it firsthand where talking with friends and coping with it, [it’s] the only thing that makes me walk away from that conversation and feel like weights actually off my shoulders,” said Pillarella.

Powter said that Muskox also recognizes the importance of helping participants feel like they can return to the mountains again — especially for those, like guides, whose livelihoods are connected to those landscapes. 

“I think Muskox does a really good job of helping people feel like the way that they're responding, the way that [an incident is] impacting them is normal, other people have been through it and that's actually a really healthy process,” he added.

All support circles offered by Mountain Muskox are free of charge.

To support Pillarella’s fundraiser ride visit: gofundme.com/f/pedalling-for-healing-4000km-for-mountain-mental-health.


The Local Journalism Initiative is funded by the Government of Canada. The position covers Îyârhe (Stoney) Nakoda First Nation and Kananaskis Country.

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