Snowboarder left ‘shaken to my core’
Harrowing account of being swept up in avalanche
The Charlotte Observer
A longtime snowboarder whose gender was not revealed got caught in an avalanche for the first time — and recounted every harrowing detail in a report to the Utah Avalanche Center.
The person did so hoping their experience in Big Cottonwood Canyon might help others, according to the Jan. 18 report. Utah Avalanche Center officials thanked them for the “honest assessment.”
The snowboarder dropped off a 10-foot cliff “into what looked to be an absolutely pristine untouched chute” and “landed the cliff drop into what felt like perfect powder,” they wrote in the report.
Then they tried to trim their speed with a “slight heelside turn.”
“The next thing I knew I was being carried down the mountain with unbelievable force,” they said. “I tried swimming to the surface as I saw the light turn from bluebird, to somewhat muddied dark, to almost pitch black.”
The loose snow buried the person and swept them between 100 and 200 feet down the mountain on their back, the report said.
When the avalanche stopped, they were buried up to their chest, they said. But luckily because their body wasn’t vertical, they were able to struggle free.
“I’ve been snowboarding for 30 years, and besides some sluff, and some spider cracking causing slabs to break below me, this was my first experience of being in an actual avalanche,” they said. “Had there been any debris/exposure below me, or had I sunk just a little more I wouldn’t be writing this. I am shaken to my core.”
They hoped their experience would be helpful for others, they said.
“I feel very lucky to be alive. I ride with a beacon, but I also ride solo — so I’m at a loss of what a beacon would do, if no one was around to see the slide take place,” they said.
They looked up at the slide that had just swept them down the canyon, and it appeared as though it spread almost 200 feet across, they said.
“Up until today avalanches felt very remote and unreal,” they said. “Today it was very real, and I feel VERY lucky to have escaped it without serious consequences.”