In-bounds Avy

We received a good bit of snow over the past few days, and once again I was there for the early morning dawn patrol clearing out the instructor hut. Once again I was invited to do some early morning Avy patrol, which was going to happen a little later due to the delayed opening that day.

We have two major areas of concern in this process, the east and west facing cliff zones. On this particular morning we started on the west side and were moving towards the east. Within the first few blasts, we were able to see the east side was not that stable just from the sound waves on the west. Small powdery slides were happening occasionally. While we were on the path over to the east side we got a fairly clear view of the east wall area where most of the slides occur. Sitting above the wall were three guys on snowboards, who had obviously hiked up, and were now scouting out lines down. We watched in horror as one strapped on his board and cut his first line running it out towards the trees.

The second guy strapped in but was not nearly as lucky. As he dropped beyond his buddies cut line, the entire slab came free underneath him. I watched the entire thing oblivious to the activity going on around me. One patrol member was already on the radio calling in for a search crew, while another was keeping a visual marker of where the boarder was within the slide. He eventually lost sight of the boarder as the slide pushed him towards a wooded area.

The third guy apparently had some common sense and started making calls to get a rescue crew and find out what happened to friend #1. He informed us none of them had an avy beacon on because they thought in-bounds would have been patrolled already.

The following few minutes were very rushed and my recollection spotty. I've taken the avy training before, but this was the first I'd witnessed with any human participants involved. It was a much different feeling then the search for a beacon. A lot of probing, searching, and a few false leads. The good news is we did find the snowboarder, who was very lucky. Buried in the snow, his face was exposed, although he was knocked out. His board had broken between the legs and semi-wrapped itself around a tree. His ankles were broke when the bindings did not release and his crotch was firmly pressed into the splintered board section.

Lesson to be learned, despite the fact that in-bounds is avy patrolled, it does not mean it has been yet. The area was roped off before we started hand charges, and the resort as a whole was very closed.