That is a moment I won't forget.
On Feb 5 we were on the third day of skiing at a remote backcountry chalet. There were 6 of us in the group with a lot of backcountry experience and we had been enjoying great skiing but tricky weather. Along with tricky weather the avalanche risk shot up.
We had traversed from the area in the background. Today was the first day with any visibility so we gained the ridge right after leaving the chalet and cruised over there looking for some sheltered slopes. The winds on the ridge were gusting to over 100km/h. We knew conditions were extreme and were only looking for low angle terrain. It was apparent quickly that any terrain over there wasn't skiable. Instead of going back along the ridge we followed along a bench lower down that was wind scoured so we were confident it was safe to travel. We just wanted a route a bit more sheltered.
I was in the lead and stopped where the S is in the image below. It was a safe place for us to regroup for the next move. Three others arrived and thats when the victim took over the lead. We were going to stay skiers left and arm rail the trees center right of the photo. We knew that slope was wind loaded and decided not to ski it. He started off pretty much heading to the bottom right corner of the image but he only made it about 5m when a small size 1 released.
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S = Safe spot
Solid Blue Line = Small Size 1
Dashed Blue Line = Skiers Path
Red Line = Remote Trigger Fracture
X = Victims Location
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I radioed "AVALANCHE!!" as I knew two members of the group were yet to catch up to us. He was almost out of it when the slide remote triggered the entire slope resulting in a large size 2. In a second it overtook him and he went down. We watched intently while he was carried down slope. I radioed "We have a burial".
We pin pointed the last see point and switched our beacons to search. The last two members of the group were just catching up and had missed the event. Myself and the last two group members skied down and I was able to get to the last seen point in less than a minute and I saw the victim about 15m below that. He was completely buried and facing down hill but his face and part of his arm were exposed. Miraculously he was completely unhurt.
It took about 10 minutes to dig him out. He had all his gear except one ski was missing. We probed around for close to an hour before we were able to find it and dig it out.
You can see the wind whipping the snow and it filling in the debris on the slope.
We were incredibly lucky. This could have easily been a fatal event. It is important to learn from things like this so once we had left the scene we found a safe area to have a snack and do an initial debrief. What went wrong? How can we avoid making the same mistake?
We skied three more mellow runs down below tree line before returning to the chalet for the evening. Over a hot meal we talked in detail about the situation and the mistakes we made. We discussed how everyone was feeling about what had happened.
Personally I am going to need some time to come to terms with this. I keep playing the slide over and over again in my head watching the victim get overtaken and buried.
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