Kenny Goff laughed at all his friends’ jokes, even the lame ones. His enthusiasm never dimmed, not even if conditions turned sour in the wilderness where he spent so much of his time. And he was the kind of instructor with enough patience to persist until the light of understanding flicked on in his student’s brain, even when many others would have given up.
“He was amazing,” his friend Clair Smith said. “He was such a good human being, really to the core.”
Friends and colleagues in Lander and beyond are mourning the loss of Goff, who was killed Jan. 4 in an avalanche near Togwotee Pass. The 36-year-old hospital nurse, outdoor educator, search and rescue volunteer and devoted fiancé had a sunny disposition, kind heart and abiding passion for the outdoors, they say.
That passion had taken him climbing in Greece and Patagonia, ski touring and mountaineering in Alaska and ice climbing in Montana. Friends are quick to point out that Goff tempered his passion with good judgment, careful observation and a priority for safety — which made the fatal accident extra shocking.
“He was so careful and thoughtful and measured in his risk management,” Smith said. “He wasn’t a risk taker.”
Evan Horn’s last outdoor adventure with Goff illustrates that kind of judiciousness. The climbing buddies set out on an ambitious day trek into the Wind River Range in early October. They hiked in, then roped up and began a multi-pitch climb. They were eight rope-length pitches up the cliff when dark clouds moved in, and they made the choice to retreat, Horn said. They didn’t hit their objective, but they had a blast, he added.
“I’m so grateful for that day,” Horn said Tuesday before reflecting on the loss of a hard-working nurse and generous friend.
“It’ll be a big hole in the community,” Horn said.
A life oriented to the outdoors
Goff grew up outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and went to college at Indiana University, graduating in 2011. He minored in outdoor recreation, which helped kindle his passion for nature and being outside. After college, he began a career oriented to the outdoors, guiding for Mojave Guides and SWS Mountain Guides in California while living in Joshua Tree. In 2017 he took an instructor course with the National Outdoor Leadership School and began instructing courses with the Lander-based school. Before long, Lander became his home.
“He was an amazing educator,” said Smith, a fellow NOLS instructor who spent time with Goff in the field. “He could teach skills to anyone, and he would be so patient with the ones that couldn’t get it.”
Ian Smith, another friend and NOLS colleague, said Goff had a genuine desire to see others succeed and a rare ability to keep laughing through all sorts of situations — attributes that made an excellent field instructor and all-around human.
Positivity is a common theme among those remembering Goff.
“He was just incredibly positive all the time,” said Galen Wilder, another NOLS employee who was Goff’s roommate.
“Kenny was just one of those people that it was like, really hard to not be psyched or happy about the thing you were doing when you were with him,” said Anna Haegal, NOLS field staffing and development director. Though extremely competent, he wasn’t ego-driven, she added.
Goff met his fiancée, fellow instructor Sydney Hartsock, at a NOLS seminar in 2017. They fell in love after working on a course together in 2020, according to Haegel. They shared a home in Lander, went on far-flung climbing trips together and planned to marry in 2025. You can’t really talk about Goff without mentioning his devotion to Hartsock, friends say.
“He thought she was the best thing on Earth,” Smith said. “They were an amazing pair. They really complemented each other.”
Goff went to nursing school at the University of Wyoming, completing the program in 2023, and worked as an emergency room nurse for SageWest hospitals in both Lander and Riverton. He volunteered for the Lander Search and Rescue team, played recreational soccer, spent a lot of time rock climbing around Lander and enjoyed hosting friends for game nights and dinners, friends say. He also continued to work NOLS courses when he had time.
Horn remembers a barbecue at Goff and Hartsock’s after a NOLS course where Goff, a vegetarian, manned a grill filled with burgers, brats and assorted meats for his guests.
“That’s just the kind of person he was,” Horn said.
Goff had close groups of friends from every chapter of his life, friends say. He and Hartsock had a dog, he was excited about nursing and he was starting to get into gravel biking.
“He … had a great life ahead of him,” Wilder said.
Remotely triggered
Goff was day-touring with three friends off of Togwotee Pass in the vicinity of the Breccia Cliffs when the avalanche occurred.
According to a Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center report, the skiers were skinning uphill at around 10,000 feet and came to a section where they broke out of the treed slope and crossed between a steep ridge and creek drainage. The slope angle they were on was about 26 degrees, which is considered on the safe end of the spectrum for backcountry touring. The avalanche danger that day was rated as moderate.
The skiers remotely triggered an avalanche that released in a steep zone several hundred feet above them. Goff was fully buried under about 12 feet of snow, and another member of the party was partially buried and injured. Teton County Search and Rescue’s helicopter was grounded due to conditions, but TCSAR volunteered skinned into the area to treat the injured skier and recover Goff.
The crown of the avalanche was up to 4 feet in places and spanned 400 feet across, according to the report.
In a video accompanying the report, avalanche forecaster Frank Carus said the slope was wind-loaded and the bottom layer, which failed, “consists of very weak, sugary, rotten snow.”
He urged backcountry skiers to keep that weak layer in mind when on wind-loaded or steep terrain.
It was the first avalanche fatality in Wyoming of the 2024-25 winter, and the fifth in the U.S. The sixth fatality occurred Tuesday in Colorado when a skier died near Red Mountain Pass.
My condolescences to his family. I have toured only once in the spot where he and his group got avalanched. We climbed up a gentle slope thru the forest not really knowing exactly where we were headed until we could see the drainage on our left below. There’s kind of a little natural terrace there (or one formed by blasting for the trail that’s supposed to be there, I dont know) that will take you to the upper “pan” of the drainage, and not wanting to ditch any vertical, it kind of suckers you in because as the article notes, the slope angle on the terrace itself is benign and the flatter upper pan of the drainage so close. Then you get half way across the terrace and you look up and think by gosh this really looks like avalanche terrain and then look down and oh my that is a terrible terrain trap down there. But it’s brief enough and traversed commonly enough that it just suckers you in against your better judgment. I could have easily led my group into an avalanche there.