Avalanche: Douglas Island

Following a ski cut slough, I jumped in. A moment too so, as it had propagated, unknown to me, it ripped out a lot bigger, per the details below.

I got carried about 220-250 meters. There were two slides off the +/-100m crown. Unknown depth (I was looking back up at it from where the slide deposited me), but over a foot. The slide that carried me went over 300 meters. The one to the lookers left carried down almost all the way to the woods.

"Accidents" happen in spite of proper precautions. This was avoidable- I broke one of my cardinal rules, and got lazy, accommodating injury over good sense. Accordingly, I attach my name versus an anonymous posting.

"I am never afraid to turn around." I have lived that for years, not empty words. But not today. Today I wound up to the right of where I wanted to be, which was a steep, wind loaded roll over. It would have required a bunch of side stepping to go around the group of trees to get back toward main SB. The lazy option- I ski cut it. It sloughed off. Had I waited 2 more seconds, I would have watched the whole aspect slide from a safe perch. From observations below, the crown was +/- 100 meters across. The sloughing had propagated, and sent two slides down, one of which I had skied into just I saw it open.

In spite of a poor, lazy choice, I got lucky.

Initially I swam. In retrospect, I should have pulled the airbag right away. Another mistake. Fortunately the slide was still running when I got the bag pulled- very lucky since the snow was compressing more and more- and I popped up.

DO NOT use equipment as an excuse to make poor choices. I got lucky. Hopefully there is something for all to learn in that.

If you happen to find a Volkl Katana....