EPTSorry for the long read, but I wanted to share something with you guys that just happened to me today. What it is are the 30 most life-threatening minutes of my life.
My story starts at Sunshine Village, a ski resort just past Banff, Alberta (Canada). It's a fairly "remote" ski resort in that you take a Gondola through the mountains stopping at either two mountain bases where you can take your pick between a multitude of chair lifts scattered about. It's really cool and I'm always amazed when I head up there. Sunshine is definitely one of the best places to ski or snowboard around and is friend to people of all kinds of skill levels. Now, this is my first real year dedicated to snowboarding, but I'm picking it up pretty quick. I got carving down in a few days out and I've been branching out into the park (jumps and stuff) as well as weaving in and out of the trees. But because the resort is in the mountains, you have the opportunity to do a bunch of back country type of stuff. For those of you who don't have experience in the mountains, the back country is basically way off the beaten path. So much so that the resort has large warning signs that if you find yourself in deep shit, there won't be much they can do for you. I had never done anything to that skill level yet and it was quite challenging, but my friends were confident in my aptness for the sport that they had no problem with taking me down there. Our first run there was earlier in the day and it went well. We made it down and headed to some other parts of the resort. Unfortunately the rest of the day was kind of sub par for conditions. The snow on the runs was all carved up and choppy -- not quite matching the back country we had been in before. So, for the last run of the day, we decided to head back to the back country run we had done before -- for the record, this run was called "the backdoor."
To get to the backdoor you need to hike about 5-10 minutes to a small ridge where you strap in and then it's straight into the trees. The paths are tight so it's common to get split up from your group because the paths are tight and people just go at their own pace. It didn't worry me at all because my friends assured me that all the paths end up meeting at the same place and so with that, I went off into the woods on my own. But what my friends didn't know, and what I was soon to find out was that not all the paths meet at the same place . . . .
**Before I continue, the reality of the situation was that it was my fault. I ran head first into an environment I didn't fully understand and almost paid the price. So if you ever go to the back country, be extremely careful and don't split up!
Anyway, after about 5 minutes of navigating around trees and following paths that other people had ridden some time before me, I noticed the snow starting to get less and less disturbed. I mean, people had been there, but it would appear not for some time. And then it became apparent as to why people hadn't been there for a while. As the dense brush started to clear up I noticed my path, quite literally, disappeared. It didn't take long for me to realize that I had run into a cliff. I unbinded my board and crept towards the edge to look down at what was close to a 60 foot drop -- practically vertical. I had no idea what to do, until then I managed to find some of the, now rather feint, tracks I had been following. Even now, I have no idea of how those people got off the ridge because I followed the tracks and they led nowhere safe. At this point I weighed my options: 1) Try and find a way down the cliff (slim pickings) or 2) try and back track the way I came. Since I didn't want to risk falling and breaking a leg or an arm (which would have been a death sentence) I decided to try and retrace my steps. The problem is, leading up to the cliff was a decent slope covered in powder which, in the back country, can be several feet thick. I lasted about five steps before I was exhausted and quite dehydrated as every step I took seemed like millions. There was no choice, I would have to find some way to traverse the cliff (oddly, something I had joked about earlier in the day). Pretty much, there wasn't any way down that wasn't super sketchy so I tossed my board over the edge only to watch it fly through the air like a torpedo and then sail off into the woods below. Jumping wasn't an option. Luckily, the back country is full of trees and many times the trees grow almost out of the cliff. So, very carefully, I skirted down a part of the cliff I found that wasn't as steep as . . . vertical . . . while planting my feet on what trees I could and holding on to the rock face where possible. I made it a good distance until I came to a gap where there were no trees, only a drop. I couldn't see how far it was, with all the snow it looked manageable, but I couldn't see whether there were trees or rocks at the bottom. But I had to go, it was the only way. So, with my left hand I grabbed a hearty branch and with my right hand I grabbed onto the trunk of a tree and tried to lower myself down, but I was on my back. I want you to imagine that you have your hands stretched out right over your head, as far as they can go, like you are making a "Y" from the YMCA song. That was me doing that while laying on my back and hanging over a drop and then I really knew there was no turning back because I couldn't possibly pull myself back up. So I just dropped and luckily landed into some fairly soft powder that gave way a little bit and I rode it down until I stopped, which was conveniently right were my snowboard had stopped as well. I stood up, dusted the snow off me, picked up my board and started walking. Now I was really in the back woods, none of the snow around me had been touched and was pretty deep, but I was heading downhill and, at this point, I could see the Gondola through the trees in the distance.
Now, the cliff was bad, and I was full of excitement that I had made it down, but what happened next was far more dangerous than that. Suddenly and sharply I fell into a hole. What I didn't know at the time was that this was, infact, a tree well . . . .
A little info on tree wells
Hundreds of people have died in these things. Their formation is best described by wikipedia
Branches of a tree shelter its trunk from snowfall, allowing a void or area or loose snow to form. Low hanging branches as on small firs further contribute to forming a tree well, as they efficiently shelter the area surrounding the trunk. Such wells have been observed as deep as 20 feet.
Because the snow is so loose, stepping into is like stepping into quicksand. The more your move, the more you sink. It's so hard to get out of these things that 90% of people who fall into them cannot get out with assistance, making the odds of survival after falling in one very slim. I reckon the well I fell into was about about 8 feet high. I'm somewhere between 5'10'' and 5'11'' and it was well above my head. Fortunately for me, I landed in it feet first rather than head first; however, the snow was past my boots and my knees so moving was very difficult. It was at this point I knew things had gotten dramatically worse and I was in some serious danger. At first I tried to climb out, but in such soft powder my hands just sank in and I ran the risk of falling over. Then an idea came to me. Now, this may seem counterintuitive considering all the flack that the internet gives this show, but my idea came from thinking back to the countless episodes of "Man vs. Wild" with Bear Grylls that I had watched (and no, it wasn't to drink my own piss). I remembered what he said about quicksand and that what you needed to do was create a large surface area with your body to stick on top. This wasn't quite quicksand, but it was close enough considering this was the only idea I had. First I took off my backpack and launched it over the lip of the hole. Next, I placed my snowboard on the lip because I figure I could use it later to disperse some weight. Next was the tricky part. I spun around so I was facing the tree and then managed to lift my right foot out of the powder and braced it against the tree. Next, I pushed my back against the side of the wall just enough so I wouldn't sink in, but so that I could lift my left foot out. It worked. Next, I spread my legs apart and dug them into the snow as solid as I could so maybe I could push lightly against them. When I figured I was sufficiently braced, I straightened my back and, quite honestly, started back stroking up the well, digging into the snow, but not so much that I sank. And it worked, slowly. Severely dehydrated, drenched in sweat and covered in snow I inched my way out of the hole. When I made it to the lip I flipped over onto my snowboard and just laid there for a couple seconds. I started moving again, belly sliding on my snowboard and making it to make backpack. Unfortunately belly sliding, or any sliding for that matter, on a snowboard is very difficult, so I launched my board in front of me again and it went sailing down the hill, rocketed into the trees and disappeared.
Not long after the tree well incident, I stumbled into an large, open area that had compacted snow and was a lot easier to walk on. I walked through the opening and back into the woods to where I thought there might be a trail and sure enough, after about 5 minutes I found some very tiny and raggedy looking paths, but paths none-the-less. I put little effort into actually finding my snowboard because at that point I wanted out and wasn't going to start trudging through more snow to find it (it was only 400 dollars excluding the bindings T.T). I followed the trails for a bit, coming back into cell reception where my phone was bombarded with texts and I managed to get through to one of my friends for a second before being dropped. It was still an uplifting sign, but not as much as what happened next. I put my phone back into my pocket and start to hear this shouting coming up fast behind me . . . IT WAS ANOTHER SNOWBOARDER!!! Although he was yelling at my to get out of the way, I had never been so happy. I got out of his way and followed him to a main trail where I tried to call my friends. I got through this time and had good news. I made it out and was heading down the trail they had parked themselves on to see if I would pop out. After about 100ft down the hill, I came over a ridge and saw them. Once that happened my face lit up and I made my way to them. After they gave me all their water (the first thing I asked for) I told them what happened and they couldn't believe it.
Now, obviously, I've made it home. I'm warm, dry, and have food in my stomach, but most of all I'm filled with both joy and disbelief at what I went through, just hours ago. I know when we talk about survival stories, we get an image of people spending significant hours or even days in the wilderness, perhaps on the brink of death. And, although what happened to me was only about 30 minutes, had I not climbed down the cliff or got out of that hole, I may not even be writing this blog.
TLDR;
Please read it, but if not: I got lost in the woods, climbed down a cliff, rescued my self from a kind of hole that many people die in, and made it to safety
For those interested in some reading into tree wells:
http://www.treewelldeepsnowsafety.com/
![[image loading]](http://professionalwatches.com/assets_c/2010/01/bear-grylls-thumb-450x362-5201.jpeg)
