SURVIVING AN AVALANCHE

Would you know what to do in the event of an avalanche? Have you been properly trained in the use of avalanche rescue transceivers? Do you know how to make responsible decisions regarding minimizing the risks of avalanches?

Consider taking an avalanche course soon.

Following is a gripping account of an avlanche accident in March of 2005 in the San Juan Mountains. It was written by a close personal friend.

Look, if you had one shot, one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
One moment
Would you capture it or just let it slip?

“Lose Yourself”; Eminem

Mistakes were made. Everything started innocently enough: two women, two dogs,and me. Another day skiing in the San Juans. Nine inches of new snow, or so they said, and more falling as we skied up toward “Serpentine” on the West side of Red Mountain 2. The avalanche report:

Near and above treeline on NE to SE to S aspects the danger is CONSIDERABLE with pockets of HIGH. On other aspects and below treeline the danger is MODERATE with pockets of CONSIDERABLE.

Well, we’d be skiing on the West side, so . . . .

There were signs; there always are. We read them, put them into the equation, and came up with the wrong answer. Winds were from the NE, and strong, maybe 30 mph. It had snowed the day before, again with heavy wind. Below timber we could see the wind blowing snow into the open basin above us, and we talked about the obvious wind-loading. There were small (6 ft.) shooting cracks and soft slabs formed at intervals along the skin track. It was snowing, at times maybe an inch an hour.

We kept to the trees primarily, and all agreed that we didn’t want to be up high. We stopped well below tree line and hugged the trees on the way down. Great skiing, if low angle, certainly not much above 25 degrees.

It was snowing heavily as we decided to skin up for another run. And now that the track was in, it was easy up. I was a bit ahead, followed by Sara (with Tucker, her dog), and then Donna (with Sita, her dog). Sara has been a world champion mountain biker, among other things. Donna is a nurse.

On the skin up it cleared, with flashes of sun and blue. At the end of the skin track, I still wanted more up, and traversed to climber’s left across a gully that steepened. I switchbacked up to two tall pines in the middle of the slope on a blunt rib. Sara had doubts about coming up but didn’t express them. The plan was to traverse the slope to another rib to the right and ski down through the trees. We were at 11,300, still well below timberline, but with thin trees. Perhaps 100 vertical feet above us rocks were visible, and immediately above us the slope steepened to 35-40 degrees. Sara and I belatedly discussed our position, and decided to try to cross the open slope to the rib on the right Donna came into view a few hundred feet below, and was crossing below us. We waited until she had traversed toward the relative safety of the trees. Asking Sara to watch me, I started across the slope.

Avalanches are binary: 0 and 1; the snow is stationary, and then it is moving. I tookone step from the trees, and triggered the slide. Sara screamed to alert Donna. Snow broke underfoot; I looked up to see a sympathetic fracture cross the entire gully about 200 feet above me. Sara and I were perpendicular to the slope, with skins on and heels unlocked. My first thought was to somehow turn into the fall line – to what, ski?

It seemed benign enough; there was not much snow; and one is optimistic, yes? Things will be fine, surely. The snow is taking me with it, and I fall face down with my hated skis above me, knees bent tortuously back with skis inexorably being pulled to the sides ripping at my knees. The snow is pushing feet and skis down, and I struggle desperately to stay on top, my back arched painfully to keep my head up. The snow is
pressing down. It is heavy, and pulls me through some tiny pines, and over a small steep section. Forget any illusion of control – there isn’t any. It doesn’t matter how well you ski; it doesn’t matter how fit you are. You are simply taken.

And still I’m being swept down, until it begins to slow, and then instantly solidifies around me, like quick set concrete. And it’s around my face as I fight for the surface, arms outstretched seeking air. Then the slide stops, as snow just covers my head. I am, however, able to – barely – punch through to the surface. I can breathe; I am not broken, although my legs are twisted wickedly, painfully behind me. I gasp and spit snow from my mouth. Am I alone? Where is Donna? Sara?

I can move both arms in about a fifteen degree arc; the first thing I do is set my stopwatch. My knee is slowly being tractioned apart. I have to dig myself out and find the others. My anemic hand-digging drops more snow around my face. I can't get my pack off to reach my shovel. Even if I am able to dig myself out, it will take hours. Will the exertion fend off the inevitable hypothermia that long? I dig, and dig, to little effect save exhaustion. Where are the girls? I poke my gloved hand out of the snow, resting, and a moment latter hear Donna. She is there, at the mouth of my cave.

“Where’s Sara?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Buried.”

“You’ve got to find her, I can breathe.”

“Two will be better to search,” she says, and I hear fear in her voice.

“Get me out of here.”

She is digging, but it is taking so long, too long. I am encased, unable to move. “Donna, hurry, dig above my back.” My knee is rotating out of its socket. Five minutes.
Donna, hurry, you’ve got to get me out of here; Sara’s dying. A shovel in my back. She’s getting close. I should be able to move now, but can’t. “Uncover my legs, my feet. Hurry.” More digging. “Release my bindings.”

Seven minutes? I’ve lost track now, but I, finally, can move. My left knee untwists painfully, but it moves. As I crawl toward the light, I switch my transceiver to search.

There are no visual signs of Sara, just a vast slope of debris hundreds of feet above and perhaps 100 feet below. Eight minutes?

We have a signal. She’s close. 3.5; 3.3; 2.9; 2.5; 3.3; 3.5; 2.5; 2.2; 1.9; 2.5.

“She’s here, right here!” says Donna. We are both reading the same thing. She’s here, under this clueless debris pile. She has to be here.

“Get your probe!” I shout.

“My probe is fucked!”

I have mine, and begin systematically to stab in the area where she must be, HAS to be. It’s up to me; I have to find her, NOW. Nine minutes? Ten minutes? I’ve lost track.
Probing: one, two, three. For what? A body recovery? Sara. Sara.

Four, five, six. Sara. Seven, eight. I feel something! Rock? Bed surface? It’s nearly six feet down. Could she be that deep? I probe again two inches to the left. Nothing. Probe again, and I think I feel something soft. Is it her? It HAS to be. There is no time for no.

I leave the probe, and begin to shovel. The snow is desperately heavy. Donna is to my left, exhausted, but helping as much as she can, but I am right on top of Sara, I MUST be. I’m excavating a grave, one shovel at a time. Fifteen minutes? I am anaerobic, gasping and screaming for air. Jesus, where is she? Four feet down; two to three feet wide and NOTHING! Keep digging, she has to be here. She has to be.

There is a tan glove, sticking up out of the snow, groping towards the surface. Is it just a glove? No, there’s a hand in it. Where’s the other? More digging, and there is her ungloved hand with its fingers at the level of her other wrist; both hands supplicating toward me. This second hand is ungloved, ice blue – death blue. NO! But what did you really expect after so long?

Where is her body? I move the first arm hoping it remains attached to the rest of her; it is limp, lifeless. Sara. More digging, and there is hair and blood, and then, finally, her face, from which I desperately scrape the snow with my hands. She is azure ashen ice; her thin lips pulled back in a frozen grimace; her mouth is open and blue; her matted red hair a Gorgon’s splay in the snow; blood in the snow; on her cheek and forehead. She’s not breathing.

“Donna, get in here!” Donna crawls into the pit, and begins mouth-to-mouth. It’s fucking useless, I think, but continue to excavate Sara’s chest. I can’t bear to watch Donna try to resurrect the dead. We’ve failed; we’re too late.

“She’s breathing,” Donna says.

She’s breathing, God she’s breathing. No time now for tears; keep digging. She’s so blue, so cold. After a few minutes, she begins to regain consciousness, and she moans, very softly, “Thank you.” No, thank you. For being one of the toughest human beings alive. For the years of training that made your heart strong. For having faith. For staying alive, for me, for Donna, for your four-and-a-half year old daughter. For your husband.

We wrap her in our spare clothes, but still she shivers uncontrollably. Minutes later, the ashen blue begins to fade to slowly to pink. I hold her to bring warmth. I hold her to hide our tears, hoping that the panic and fear will dissipate and the adrenaline rush will fade. I hold tight and feel the pulse of life within her, the beating of her heart.

Tucker is gone. There is no time for him now. Sara is hypothermic and in shock, and can barely stand. I dig her skis out from her tomb, and excavate mine from mine. We collect the three ski poles we have left between the three of us, stuff our gear into packs, and manage to ski to the car.

Sara and I skied up to the accident scene the next day. Her head had been buried about four and a half feet under the surface; her feet six feet under. My burial had been about the same, except I had been able to scratch a hole through to the surface. The fracture line had propagated about 200 feet from where we had triggered it, was about 300 feet across, with a crown perhaps a foot to eighteen inches deep. We had been swept down together about 500 feet and ended up within six feet of each other within debris spread about 100 feet across the slope.

As Sara wandered uphill from the burial site, I probed for Tucker, and found him near where Sara’s feet had been buried. We left him there, with a couple of Snicker’s bars; Sara said he would have liked that.