w h a t i t ' s l i k e
t h e s k i i n g!
After lunch, you load up the chopper and head for the peaks again. The ride up is fast and fun; a one way ticket to the top of untracked slopes a long ways from the nearest lift line. The views are awesome, and the adrenaline is plentiful. You anticipate many runs of exhilarating bliss.
As you head down your second or third run after lunch, you are fourth in the group of five. The guide, Bill, and a couple of other skiers are down below you. Andrew, one of your buddies, has the 'guest pack,' with the extra avalanche probe and shovel and radio, so he goes last. You are keeping him company.
You pause to consider a little bowl shaped contour full of gorgeous untracked snow, a few yards to the right of the tracks where the guide
and the other skiers went down. Almost instantaneously, your onboard computer does the calculation: 'how does the incline look?' 'what are the snow conditions? temperature? weather?' You instinctively assess the avalanche risk, a habit formed from years of backcountry skiing and avalanche training.
'It looks okay,' you conclude, and head into the bowl. It is good. It is deep. It is untracked. It is nice, nice, powder. You are skiing along in near-bliss, making smooth, even turns. You hear a yell from behind you.
You assume, it is Andrew – the only skier behind you now - marveling at the awesome spot you have found, and your sweet tracks you are laying down.
Then you notice a little snow sluffing against the backs of your knees. This happens often when skiing in powder: a little snow slips and slides as you ski through it. Then you notice it's actually a little more than a little sluff: it's up to the middle of your hamstrings, and pushing you along a bit. Still, you've experienced that before, and always before, a little slide of snow peters out and you keep skiing. Even so, there is that tree straight ahead, at 12 o'clock. You do a lightning-fast calculation: 'what if,' you ask yourself, 'just what if?' Would I be better off heading into the tree branches, just off-center from the trunk, so they could hold me up? Or would I be better off cranking hard to the side and avoiding it entirely? Very fast, you decide that if those branches are frozen solid, which they may well be, that you could get hurt crashing into them. You crank your to the left of the tree.
Then it hits.