These guys were damn lucky

Hello everyone, this was me.

We went touring up behind Mt. Proctor, Skid a E aspect treed slope, 27-35 degree slope.

I ended up going for a 300m ride out of the trees, and being fully buried with my head 2m bellow. my head was exposed after aprox 15min, i woke up 5 later. I have 2 probe marks in my helmet, and some of the best friends on the planet. We took every step to be safe while out there, and it still hapend. I am sooo lucky to be here today, Play safe out there, but keep playing. I will post photos soon....

Getting to my Head

Getting my legs

Getting out of the hole

2m deep

2m deep

I was stoped at the trees in the top left.
1.5 m crown approx 60m above, 300m ride

Holy Sh*t - I can't believe you walked away from that.

Nice work on your friends part - that's a pretty deep burial.

holy fucking shit!!!!

Glad to hear you're okay. I've got a lot of questions, but first up, what layer failed? The incident report mentions stability tests on a different aspect coming back with little to nothing for results. Did you guys do any research on the aspect skied or did you just get the fuck out of there asap?

EDIT oh and thanks for sharing. I feel one of the best ways to learn is to analyze the mistakes of others...

Glad your here to talk about it Todd :D

we toured up the same aspect, did quick tests on the way up. We skied a variation of the same line the day before. It felt good, no signs of anything.
this one failed on the ice crust, about 60m above the trees i was stopped at. 1.5m deep the ice crust it failed on was not active in any of our tests. we were the 7th track thru the trees.

If this were true accidents would no longer happen in the world, as I am pretty sure every mistake has already been made at least once....the way I see it though, people are only truly capable of learning from their own mistakes.....

Glad to hear you were alright Todd, crazy looking slide and huge props to your buddies for their actions. Think carefully about who you venture into the back country with people.

nate

Excellent post. Very educational. Glad you are OK.

Add it up: plenty of avie activity, fatalities, near misses and incidents. Spells M-I-N-E-F-I-E-L-D. Just like the CAA bulletins have been pointing out.

Going jogging in downtown Baghdad might offer better odds than BC BC touring at the moment.

Balls todd, Glad to hear your all good.

Revelstoke had a bunch of close calls below treeline the last couple days. Buddy rode a 2.5 got away with only a lost ski and the next day another skier accidental on the dec 5th rain crust across the valley.

To get a visual of the sketch factor in the snowpack check out big white's inbound oopsfuck

http://gallery.castanet.net/albums/2008/January/album/?g2_page=2

given that a recovery from anything below 1 meter is typically fatal did you infact have your avalung in your mouth? If so a great testimonial for it working - if not even luckier...

this is just scary, I get sick thinking I'm going to hear about someone else...

the avalung got ripped from my mouth as i sank,

Todd, did you stay attached to your board the whole time or was it ripped off? Do you think it contributed to you being dragged down?

Nate, plenty of people learn from other's mistakes. For example, I tie knots in the ends of my rope EVERY time I rappel, due solely to reading about accidents like this one: http://alpineclub-edm.org/accidents/accident.asp?id=70 I can give more examples if you like?

My snowboard most defiantly dragged me UP, it was above my head and i could feel it the whole time

Tod so good to hear your all right,......thats the best bday present you could give your mom, :D and thank the gods for your two great pals who knew what to do........
cheers Joe

don't know you todd but man i am glad you are ok, thanks for sharing!

Wow. Todd, glad you're ok, and thanks for sharing. You have some damn good friends there to get you out that quickly from that depth. Most of the time you just read about these things, the pics really hit home.

wow man. That was a biiig slide. I'm glad your buddies were able to get to you in time :shock:

Holy shit man!

Glad you are ok.

Your friends obviously had their shit together and deserve mad props.

That one is gonna haunt you for a while.

Thanks for sharing your story with the rest of us.

Careful out there everyone.

Thanks for sharing this man. So glad you guys had the skills to deal with the situation.

Holy crap!! thank god your alright! That super scary!
Wow, super dangerously unpredictable snow right now
Everyday I'm thinking more and more about heading to mexico and catching waves till things settle out...

you are so lucky to be alive!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Glad your okay!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Don't know you but it's good to read a post by you rather than an obit.

Yeah Todd,

Thank god to your partners and grace for sure. Glad you are alive and well.

Thanks for sharing your story and photos - fuckin gnarly.

Nice work on livin!
Robin

Wow.

Your friends deserve medals. Seriously. I can only hope that if I'm in a similar situation I'd be able to pull that off as well as them and save someone's life. I can't imagine dude; that had to be damn scary. Those pics really hit home, what it takes to get to somebody 2m down. :shock:

Thanks for that post Todd. Puts it in perspective when you hear of others dying... someone makes it out alive, and someone else doesn't get that chance.... :(

Glad you're well man. Peace to everybody out there!! I sure don't wanna die anytime soon... respect to those who've gone this winter.........

- Dave.