What did you do inside your avalanche? (Moved from General)

[Comp 670]

I was in a avy in cooke city a few years ago.A friend was stuck on a SMALL hill that was not steep and had a fair amount of trees on it.I went up to help him and set off a slide.I would not have thought in a million years that hill would have slid.I slid down mabie 200 ft and was only buried mabie 1 ft under.I was able to get out my self.As I looked around I didn't see my friend.I turned my beacon(a sos model) to search and started to try to find him.I would get a signal then nothing over and over.Another person from our group came up with his beacon(a beartracker) and located him very quickly.I probed where he said to and hit him in two tries.We dug him out,he was 5ft under the snow for 15 min and was out when we got to him.We did cpr and he came to and we finished getting him out.

As for the question about a air bag being helpful.In this instance I don't think it would have helped because at first I didn't even realise I was in a avy.I thought I had just rolled my sled.I hung on to the sled for about half the way down until it was ripped from my hands.It was over extremly quick,mabie 5 sec and I am only speaking about ME but I would not have had the right frame of mind to pull the cord in time I think.

Things I learned that day,
#1 NEVER go help someone on ANY hill...The hill I went up was so tame but allmost killed us with a 4ft deep slide.
#2 Buy the best beacon you can,the cheap sos model I had allmost cost my friend his life.If the other person was not there I would not have found him quick enough.Your gear is not for YOU,it is for your friends you ride with.
#3 Have your gear in a pack on you.I had my shovel and probe in my boss seat and had to look for them for a minute beacuse the seat was ripped from my sled.Even if it had stayed on the sled I still would have had to dig it out by hand to get the gear.
#4 It happend so quickly I had no time to think.At first I thought I just turned out wrong and rolled the sled,but then realised the whole hill was moving down the hill with me.

To this day I think about that day everytime I ride and what a idiot I was.I allmost cost a friend his life AND put others at risk too.Unfortunately we have to make mistakes to learn in life sometimes.

 

[WARY]

Here's a story from the ski/snowboarding crowd.

"I was snowboarding and so gave up any thought of “swimming”. I did what I do when I wipe-out surfing: covered my head with my arms, roll in a semi-ball and go with the flow. I then made an air pocket as I came to a slow standstill and things started to get tight around my body. This was wasted as I promptly started moving again… but luckily ended up on the surface once I stopped for the second time.

It was a size 2 slide – but with no terrain traps in the gentle convex run out and the slab was quite thin at 30cm. It flowed for a long way. Had I been on skis I think I could have “swum” to keep myself on top most of the time. My snowboard was like a pair of cement boots….bolted together. Forget it.

I now try to ski backcountry more than snowboard."

 

[snocattin]

Hey Bruce, thanks for the post.
I always wondered what started that slide.
I did learn from that incident and have adjusted my behavior somewhat.
Barryvox Pulse beacon and multiple classes on beacon use plus practical in the mountains practice.
Komperdell probe, practiced in the store with several, this was the easiest to deploy and is constructed well.
LARGE aluminum shovel.
Probe and shovel in my backpack, they are no help to you if buried along with your sled somewhere.
"Try" to have only one person on the hill at a time.
Pay attention and tell others sitting at the bottom too. Maybe get them to park out of harm's way if possible.
Plan for a slide, look for escape routes, think that it can happen before you ascend.

So I was playing, climbing through some small trees. Trees got tight and I ran out of room so decided to park it and look for a path back down. I'm pulling on the ski looking down and the snow starts folding up around me. Look up hill, hmmm, wall of snow. Turn back facing downhill and brace for the blast. Whump, here we go. Tried to swim, got maybe 4 strokes in and the weight of the snow pinned me down. My head was still above and to my amazement, there were some sleds down at the bottom. When Brad and I got there, we were the only people around. So I yell hoping they will hear me, "keep an eye on me!"
Snow was really heavy, bent me over backwards so hard, thought my back was surely broken. Slammed a few small trees too, ouch, but my head was still above so I was kinda happy about things.
As I got towards the bottom, I started slowing down, then stopped. The snow kept coming down on top of me buring me with heavy pulses. This compressed me and pushed most of the air out of my chest, great. Within seconds I was totally detained like being in solid concrete, could not even wiggle my fingers. Wow is that a strange feeling. Can you ever remember in your entire life, not being able to move any part of your body, pretty interesting.
Ok, well, guess I'll sit and wait. (like I had any choice in the matter)
Full face helmet allowed me some breathing room, but real shallow breaths.
Not sure why but never did panic or get scared, maybe no time to think about it or something. My buddy Brad (I thought he was gone to the next shoot over, luckily he didn't) saw it and had me dug out very quickly, sore back and some bruises but that was it.

I hope people reading this thread, get the proper gear, PRACTICE with that gear, and then most important, think.

Hardass, any chance you could take me for a ride up in the Troy area sometime soon..??

Thanks,

LG

 

[priest lake rmk]

Unfortunatly I helped recover the aftermath.

 

[SilverGriz]

Good info. Thank you for sharing your experiences.

 

[akstormin]

Got caught while out skiing today, but hopefully the experience is similar enough to be worth reading, and this was a slope that I would've highmarked and played on in a second had I been on my sled. Additionally this slope had been skied several times in the last 2 days with no issues... lots of tracks to make you feel safe. Nothing special in the Avy reports, but I was unlucky enough to hit a shallow spot and set off a large slide that propagated all the way across the slope and into a large sideloaded windslab, fortunately my luck changed drastically at this point. The crownface went from a foot deep to nearly 6 ft at the far edge. First thoughts were disbelief and then pissed at being so stupid to be in this situation. I kept swimming and struggling to keep my head uphill and working on staying on top of the snow. However the skis were like anchors that kept creating drag and flipping my head down the hill. Was finally able to pop my bindings off and then manuever my head uphill and feet downhill, while swimming to stay on top. Then was able to self arrest using my one ski pole I had left by grabbing it with both hands driving it straight down in the snow and keeping my feet downhill and underneath me to try and dig my toes in the snow. However as I slowed down, snow kept coming over me. I was eventually able to fully stop and let the snow outrun me, but I was buried waist to chest deep from the snow that piled up as I stopped. Plenty of time to think, and more than enough time in my case to activate an airbag if I would've had one. Went about 100-150yds before finally stopping, avy went for about 1000 vertical ft with a huge debris pile. And somewhere in that pile are 2 skis and a ski pole, don't think I'll be seeing those anytime soon. It was a long walk back to the car in waist deep snow. Its going to be a rough night of sleep as well...I could easily be dead. Be careful out there.

 

[xrated]

were you buy those rocks in the middle when it released?

 

[akstormin]

No, I was skiing the far left side of the picture, where the crown face is real thin. You can see the tracks from my turns above the avalanche in pics one and three.

 

[Powderhound]

My Buddy from last Friday in IP

It was Friday, March 13th, (I just realized it was Friday the 13th you can view this lucky or unlucky. I think I will view it as a lucky day) and we were planning on a three day weekend to work on the cabin and go to the snow expo. We had been riding Bryon’s bowl and decided to go down carrot creek towards butterfly. We had hit Bryon’s bowl and decided to ride further down. We stopped and built a fire and ate hot dogs for lunch. Right after lunch we started for Butterfly. On the way there we were hitting a couple of small hills and riding in the creek bottom. We stopped and were hitting a southeast facing hill that was pretty steep. As we would climb or turn out, the snow was really balling up. I thought right then that there may be some avalanche danger. I found out later that the avalanche danger was “moderate” that day. We continued down the creek and found a place that was pretty opened and started hitting a Northeast facing slope with a lot of tree coverage. I believe Bryon hit it first then me and then Bryon. I went up for my second pass and was thinking that I would shoot up past the trees that we had tried to get to the first time up. I thought I could go up past them and around. As I approached the trees, I could tell I wasn’t going to make it so I started to turn out. That is when I felt like I simply lost my balance and was falling off of my sled. I have two theories of what caused me to fall off. The first is that the hill had started sliding and that is what caused me to lose my balance and fall off the sled. I think while I was turning out, I could not get traction to complete my turn, so I started to feel like I was going to roll, so I simply was falling off. The other theory that could have caused me to fall off was that as I turned out, my downhill ski fell into one of the holes that we created which caused me to lose my balance. Either way, I fell off of the sled. And as I did, I remember seeing my tether cord stretching out and me pushing my sled away from me. I wasn’t worried about my sled, as there were no real big trees at the bottom and the snow was deep enough that the sled wasn’t going to get damaged. Besides, Bryon was down there to catch it.

Now for the weird part, as I was falling into the snow, I thought to myself that I was going to slide a little ways but with the snow as deep as it was, I didn’t think I would slide very far. Well I went in head first pointing down the slope. And it immediately got very dark and felt like I was in a river. I kept thinking I should be slowing down but instead I kept going faster. I would see some light but could not see anything but snow all around me. I kept trying to get my head above the snow but just kept feeling like I was heading down. As I thought I would start to slow down, another wave would hit and I would speed up. I saw light (snow) then dark, then light (snow), then dark, then light again, and then dark. And when I say dark, it was pitch black. I have no idea how deep I was going, but it was very, very, dark. The entire ride only lasted about ten seconds and it wasn’t until the last 2 seconds that I realized I was in an avalanche. And even then I thought it was just a small little guy. The last two seconds were the scariest because as the slide slowed, everything around me started to tighten up and it was still very dark. Right before I came to a complete stop, my left arm and head poked up out of the abyss. And boy was I glad for that. I looked down the hill and I could see Bryon coming up towards me. I started yelling at him to get me out. The crushing feeling was very claustrophobic. He said to hold on that the mountain was still sliding. I could not move any part of my body that was under the snow. It was like cement and my legs and other arm was only under about two feet. When I say the feeling was crushing, I am not exaggerating. I had the taste of stomach acid in my mouth right after this experience. From what I went through, I am pretty sure that even a foot under this snow, a person would pass out very quickly because him to get me out. The crushing feeling was very claustrophobic. He said to hold on that the mountain was still sliding. I could not move any part of my body that was under the snow. It was like cement and my legs and other arm was only under about two feet. When I say the feeling was crushing, I am not exaggerating. I had the taste of stomach acid in my mouth right after this experience. From what I went through, I am pretty sure that even a foot under this snow, a person would pass out very quickly because of how tight the snow packs you in. It is a very sick feeling. When Bryon and Austin dug me out, I was shocked to see how big and how much of the mountain had slid. I feel extremely lucky to have come out of this alive. I feel like I was given a chance.

A side note, if you have an ABS system, always pull your cord. If you cannot control your slide, and you have no idea if you are or are not in an avalanche, pull your cord! I had no idea I was in an avalanche but the shear fact that I could not control my slide, and the fact that I couldn’t see anything but snow around me should have clued me in. The thing is, because you can’t see anything, you have no gauge on how fast you are moving or what is going on for sure. All I am saying is pull the cord no matter what. You can always repack the bladder and pop in another canister.

 

[CatWoman]

Any other stories to add?

 

[backcountryislife]

I've been in a couple with my board on & one with my board off.
Board on is scary, it's like being tossed in an overfilled waterslide with a weight on your feet.

The occasions with the board I worked to keep the plane of the board pulling my feet up & swam hard backwards to try to keep my head above snow. Both of these I was buried stomach to chest deep in a sitting position, I self extracted on both. (these were both in small/narrow chutes that we were ready to slide & we were positioned to dig if it happened, I also had an avalung at the time)

When I had no board it was much easier to keep my body on top, but this one had MUCH larger debris, which beat me up a bit (had pack & full face helmet, so just legs & sides got beat up, head was always out of the snow on that one). I did a constant backstroke to stay above, but was spun around a few times which dug my legs under as I was backwards. This slide I ended up on top completely, but in between a few pieces of cornice.

Knock on wood, but I've never been off my sled in a slide yet, those slides were all skiing/ boarding. I have set dozens of them off because of the high risk area where I ride, but I'm usually cutting to get them to go before doing anything else on the slope so I'm expecting them.
I hope it stays that way, but one moderate day we'll come across that sleeping giant that we don't expect, hope I end up on top of that one.

Don't mean to underplay it, but none of these were anywhere near as scary or abusive as a swim in class V whitewater is.

 

[hardcore2]

I remember seeing it coming at me but it hit so fast that I felt like a Rag Doll coming down the mountain . Ended up buried 4-5 feet under for about 25 minutes . Thank Goodness for friends . Couldn't breath when I came to a stop and passed out . Didn't have time to feel scared even . Buddys found me and dug me out .Kicked me twice and I started breathing ---LOL---Dug out my sled and rode it home .

 

[Fireman35]

Thanks all, this is an eye opener for those of us that just come out west a couple time a year and think this wont happen to us and dont need an avy class or beacons....

 

[hypnotoad]

Thanks everyone for sharing these stories, lots of helpful info can be gathered from these stories