Profile: Austin Gibney

By Dawne Belloise

Born and raised in Rhode Island, Austin Gibney came out west to snowboard because he wanted to be in a place with better mountains, and college was just his excuse to get here. Now, as a school counselor for the Gunnison Watershed School District, Austin says it’s a bit ironic that he works with students to help make career and college decisions. He had found Western Colorado University (WCU) as a senior in high school. His process of prioritizing his college choice was by ski resort ratings and how close they were to campus. When his mom required that he fill out at least one college application before he went snowboarding for the weekend, he chose WCU because it was the shortest form. WCU accepted him and he enrolled there to avoid having to fill out any more applications. Besides, he had already checked out CBMR and the mountain’s trail map. 

Austin began boarding at the age of 12, mostly at Loon Mountain in Lincoln, New Hampshire. “I was pretty lucky, one of my best friends had a condo there and I’d go with them every weekend. Rhode Island has Yawgoo Valley, a tiny resort we went to during the week. It’s like 200 vertical feet with a rope tow and two double chairs.”

Driving into Gunnison for the first time in 2002, Austin glanced at all the small hills covered in sage brush and thought, “What have I done?” After a couple of days though, he took a drive up to CB and realized, “That’s more of what I was picturing! It’s a beautiful place,” and he was excited about all the peaks to explore. “I wanted to hike into all the different mountains.” During college he worked for WCU Wilderness Pursuits, which is a student-led outdoor program. He also worked for the college maintenance department. He was living in Gunnison but in his senior year in 2006, decided to move to CB. “I had set up my schedule so I only had classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It made more sense to drive to Gunnison for those two days and then be on the mountain the rest of the time.” 

That first summer of college, Austin returned to Rhode Island to work but decided summers were nicer in the Gunnison Valley. He worked in installing irrigation systems for Mountain Rain, and he mowed lawns. Later he worked for a contractor as an entry level laborer. “I’d work so much in the summer that I didn’t really get to enjoy the local area here as much as I wanted. I was working as much as I could,” but he did find time to go climbing, hiking and camping. Now, as a school counselor, he has the opposite schedule and, “I get to play more in the summer.” 

Austin graduated WCU in 2006 with a BA in Recreation and Communications with a focus on film. In 2008 he worked for the Outward Bound school as an instructor, mostly leading backpacking, mountaineering and rock climbing courses out of Marble. “I maintained my post office box in CB but didn’t have a residence. Right around that same time, snowboarding and getting sponsors for filming was becoming more of a thing for me,” he explains that he was working for Outward Bound from May through the fall and snowboarding and filming during winters. He was filming for other companies but eventually, Austin and some friends created their own company filming themselves boarding and skiing, mostly in the western U.S, Alaska and Canada. He had enough sponsors to support him entirely. “I feel fortunate to have had that opportunity in my life,” he says of the seven years of filming and getting to do what he loved, in addition to being able to work for Outward Bound.

Austin met his now wife Nicki in CB in the fall of 2011. They moved to Jackson Hole for the winter of 2012 to 2013, “just to change things up,” plus, his film partners were there. When Nicki went to grad school in Utah, Austin became rather nomadic, leaving for three to six weeks at a time, returning for a few days and then off to do more filming or work for Outward Bound. “Life was like that for three years before we moved back to CB in the fall of 2015. Nicki had a job opportunity with the National Parks for Curecanti and Black Canyon Park running the water quality program.” They married in 2016, their first son Roland was born in Gunnison in 2020 and Blair came along in 2022. 

When they moved back in 2016, Austin began coaching the WCU freeride team, which he did for four years. During his years at Outward Bound beginning in 2008 as an instructor, he worked his way up to program manager and trainer. “I got to work in Alaska and did about 10 trips to Ecuador, climbing 19,000-foot volcanos. We did trips to Utah and California to do canyoneering and rock climbing. We did mountaineering and sea kayaking in Alaska. I still work for them a bit in the summers.” But the work wasn’t sustainable for a growing family, especially with all the traveling. He felt that school counseling seemed to have many of the same aspects, “but it also allowed me to go home at night. Outward Bound’s main focus is on developing the person and your growth as a person. I feel like I use a lot of those same skillsets in school counseling daily.”

Austin earned his master’s degree in school counseling in 2018 and went on to extend his degree to include clinical counseling in 2020. His job as a district wide counselor covers social, emotional and mental health, and has an academic aspect in working with students to help them to improve their grades, advising which classes they should take based on their interests, as well as their post high school path for careers, college or trade school. Austin primarily works with middle and high school students. 

“Pathways is a district-wide program which houses all non-traditional education for the district. Our biggest area is online classes, also career and technical education (CTE) that includes cosmetology and medical programs like the Wilderness First Responder which bridges the medical program and the outdoor education program,” he explains and adds that there is also a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) program. “The CTE Pathways program started in 2016 and we’ve been adding to it since then. Pathways is the umbrella program that all these other programs are housed under.” Austin started for the school district in 2019 and started with Pathways in the fall of 2020. The program also has internships for any student who is interested in a career that doesn’t currently have a set program, for example, students will do an internship with electricians, plumbers, veterinary clinics, interior design and currently there are students doing internships at Gunnison Valley Hospital (GVH) in radiology. 

Another program offered is in early childhood education, Austin explains, “Those classes are through Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction, but the students stay here. Pathways also has classes in Outdoor Education and we’re starting a culinary program. We’re getting an industrial kitchen added on to our building,” he says of the Pathways building in Gunnison. “The new building was part of the school bond that just passed with a kitchen, medical classroom, and hair salon. The cosmetology program is run through Pathways and the students test for their state license upon completion.” 

Austin and his family currently live in the Almont area and Austin says the valley fits their values and quality of life. “A pretty pivotal thing for me when I was young was that my parents would take us camping and we’d travel. Both my parents were teachers, so we had summers off to go on big road trips like through the Rocky Mountains. One year, we took the whole summer driving to Alaska and back.” Those experiences influenced him, inspiring a sense of adventure. “Ultimately, it’s coming back full circle,” he says. “The reason I want to work in the schools, now that I have kids, is to be able to have that same schedule so I’m able to spend time together with my family.” And now that he has more free time in the summers, he’s been river surfing and wing foiling on Blue Mesa. “There’s a small group of us that are down there when it’s windy. Now I look forward to it getting windy in the spring, late April and early May after the ice is off and you can go until it freezes over.” Since Austin recently had hip surgery, snowboarding is out for this season, but he smiles, “I got some early days in this winter before the surgery.”