Snow groomer’s driver “lucky” to survive avalanche
When Daniel Kristensen felt the back of the 11,000-pound snow groomer he was driving slide toward the edge of the old logging road, he knew he was in trouble.
He’s not sure whether he saw the avalanche that struck the $210,000 machine or he heard it, but the force of the snow hurtling off the mountainside easily tumbled the machine downhill, as if it had been struck by a freight train.
“It doesn’t really matter where you’re at if you’re in the wrong spot at the wrong time,” he told The Billings Gazette.
Kristensen is the president of the Gallatin Valley Snowmobile Association. One of the club’s tasks is grooming trails in the Bozeman area. It’s a chore Kristensen, a 30-year-old Belgrade resident, has been helping with since he was 18.
Thursday night, Feb. 27, he was working his way up an old logging road in Gallatin Canyon that climbs out of Storm Castle Creek up and over the divide to Swan Creek. It was about 8 p.m. and he was only about 3 to 5 miles from finishing when he encountered a large drift across the road.
Using the PistenBully snow groomer’s front blade, he began breaking up the drift where it had windloaded on the uphill side, pushing the snow off the road on the downhill edge. It was a route he had already driven once this winter.
While grading the snow, Kristensen accidentally triggered an avalanche on the slope above him. It broke 2 to 3 feet deep and 100 feet wide before crashing downhill on a 38-degree slope. In the 470 feet before reaching the road, the snow picked up speed and grew larger before striking the groomer on the driver’s side.
“Luckily, this was one of the thinner spots” of snowpack on the mountain, Doug Chabot of the Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center said in a video investigation of the site posted online.
Buried at the bottom of the snowpack this year is a sugary layer of snow that can act like ball bearings if released, allowing the rest of the snow to slide downhill.
“If you get propagation on that layer, you will get an avalanche,” Chabot said.
When the avalanche struck the snow groomer, Kristensen said the disorienting, rolling ride 165 feet downhill seemed like it lasted for 10 minutes, although it was probably closer to 10 seconds.
When the machine came to a stop against some pine trees, it was right-side up and still running. Snow filled three-quarters of the cab, because all the windows had been broken out.
Kristensen took about 30 seconds to assess the situation: He was alive, no limbs seemed broken and there was no blood gushing. Yet his mind was still in disbelief about what had happened. If the avalanche had been bigger, if logs or rocks had been tossed into the cab as it rolled, or if his arm had been thrust out the window when the machine tumbled, the situation could have been much worse, he noted.
“I got so lucky,” he said. “It’s a blessing for me.”
Luckily, he wasn’t towing a trailer at the time, or that would have been an extra 8,000 pounds of metal thrashing around in the rollover, Kristensen added.
“It’s nothing short of a miracle,” he said.
Once he was sure he was OK, Kristensen said he went into survival mode.
After crawling out of the window, he began searching the cab for his backpack, which contained survival gear and a satellite phone, as well as a SPOT beacon that could send out an SOS via satellite with his location. But all of his gear had been scattered.
Grabbing a scoop shovel off the machine, he began digging and found his pack. After retrieving his cellphone, he had one bar of service and sent out a text, but it wouldn’t go through. Finally, he found the SPOT beacon and sent out an SOS, but was unsure if anyone would get the alert. He wasn’t expected back until 3 a.m.
Stepping away from the wrecked groomer, he found a place where his cellphone got two bars and his texts suddenly went through. Crossing his fingers, he called his father for help.
“It was just a waiting game from then on,” Kristensen said.
The snowmobile club keeps machines gassed up and ready to roll in case a groomer breaks down at night in the mountains.
“It’s not the first time I’ve been stranded in a groomer,” Kristensen said. “It’s no fun when it’s snowing and you’re in the dark.”
Struggling uphill through knee-deep snow, although strenuous, didn’t faze Kristensen because his adrenaline was flowing at full throttle. “I was on a mission,” he said.
After reaching the road, Kristensen found a spot where he could build a fire and hunker down until help arrived, which turned out to be only a couple of hours. Their arrival was a thrill.
“I don’t know if I’ve ever had a better feeling in my life, other than when my son was born,” he said.
Calling the avalanche a “freak thing,” Kristensen said he’s unsure whether he will drive a groomer in the future. “My wife, I’m sure, doesn’t want me to continue,” he said.
Kristensen has a sore neck from the crash and scratched up his hands while digging through the glass-filled snow in search of his gloves, but other than that he’s OK.
“You think when you’re on a trail, you’re safe,” he said. “But I’ve proved that’s not true.”