The other day, Amtrak announced that the Empire Builder—the famous train from Seattle to St. Paul—could not make it through its normal route at Glacier National Park here in Montana. “Snow slides” threatened the tracks, and passengers were routed around the hazard on buses.
In the last five weeks we’ve gotten ten feet of snow. The last time this much snow fell in such a short period was 28 years ago. Needless to say, the backcountry has been a winter wonderland of seemingly endless days of perfect powder. It’s also been dangerous. There have been six deaths due to avalanches where I live, the mountainous regions surrounding Yellowstone Park. Three fatalities in the Tetons, two in the Beartooths, and one in the Crazies. Three were snowmobilers, two snowboarders, and one skier.
The dangers of backcountry skiing are never far from my mind. I always carry rescue equipment—an avalanche beacon, a shovel, and a probe pole—as do all the people I ski with. I’ve taken courses on avalanche safety and snowpack evaluation, and I dig test pits every time I go skiing. Despite this, I have been in an avalanche.
It’s not impossible for me to describe what it’s like to be in an avalanche. The visceral part I can explain easily. The sonic boom. The wall of snow 12 feet high that ran over me. The boxing match I was involved in, with 30 heavyweights all punching me at once. The tumbling that should have won me a gold medal in gymnastics.
The thoughts in my head are easy to relay, I remember all of them. Watching the wall of snow coming toward me and thinking, Well, if I turn my back to it and do a backstroke sort of thing, maybe I can keep myself on top. When the wall of snow hits me, I realize that no, I can’t do the backstroke. I’m not even sure where my back is in relation to the rest of my body. I’m going to die. Susie is going to be pissed. Oh, and bummed out too. I’m going to die in a collision with snow. I’m going to die when I hit the rocks below. This thing is so big that even if I live through it, I’m going to die from the amount of snow. Was that light? I’m going to die. I can’t believe it. But I don’t want to die. Not like this, all alone, under snow.
All this I can explain, and to some extent you’ll understand. What I can’t explain is the fear, a fear so intense that I have no words for it. A fear I can’t even summon into my memory, I can’t access it in any way. That I can’t recall the fear is probably a self-preservation mechanism. I certainly wouldn’t be able to ski, if the actual full force of that fear hit me every time the thought of an avalanche came into my mind. My memories are compelling enough without that fear. To keep skiing, I have to rationalize. I do other dangerous things: climbing, kayaking, riding in cars. The worst injury I’ve ever suffered was walking in a downtown Bozeman intersection when a car decided to run a red light.
This doesn’t mean I’m cavalier about risk. There are days when I decide the snowpack is too unstable to ski. Other days I only ski in the trees. But avalanche safety is not a crystal clear thing. It’s fairly easy to know when it’s unsafe to ski, but it’s almost impossible to know that it’s totally safe. To put your skis on is to acknowledge that you’re willing to take a risk, but so is getting in your car.
Surviving an avalanche is somewhat different than other near death experiences I’ve had. By contrast I’ve had climbing accidents that never fully registered. Rockfall is fast. It misses you by ten feet, or three inches, and you say “I almost died.” But it’s not real, it’s already in the past. Avalanches give you time to contemplate mortality while you are in them, and any change in me came from that time of fear, the foreknowledge of impending death. I now know, in no uncertain terms, that I am afraid to die.
It’s hard when I hear about an avalanche victim. A movie plays through my head of what happened to me. I remember feeling fear, and I think about dying alone, under the snow. But, it’s a little abstract now, and it doesn’t get to my heart. What gets to my heart is to go out and carve through two feet of fresh powder, like a porpoise playing in a cold, dry ocean.—H.J. Schmidt
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