Avalanche Northern Dogtooth Range 2018-03-11

Activité

Ski

Nombre total de personne dans le groupe ?

3

Nombre de personnes entièrement ensevelies ?

0

Nombre de personnes partiellement ensevelies avec une respiration normale ?

0

Nombre de personnes non blessées (emportées mais non ensevelies) ?

0

Nombre de personnes blessées (emportées mais non ensevelies) ?

1

Nombre de personnes impliquées ?

1

Piège naturel

• Paroi rocheuse

Submitted on behalf of a third party.

We (group of 3) wanted to ski the east face of the Clam Shell, north of KHMR in the dogtooth range (google earth puts the top of it @ 51* 20' 19.17" - 117* 7' 33.71" or so). Skier "J" was the first on slope at around 1-1:15pm, made a ski cut with no result, in fact the snow looked soft and good. 3 turns later the slope released close to the ridge, now 40-50 feet above J. After a vocal "avalanche!" alert, he skied to a high point but the moving snow was too strong and pulled J over a cliff and started his ride down the avalanche path, over another 2 cliffs. I did not stop to see what the failure layer was or how high the crown was. I do remember having an air off the small hang fire and onto the bed surface. I think it may have been around 3 feet. It was easy skiing on the bed surface, able to edge and maintain control with little effort. We called KHMR immediately to start a SAR call. If they recorded the time of the call, that would be the exact time of the avalanche. The width of the slide was not that wide, maybe 30 meters at the most. According to my GPS the slide ran 1km in vertical relief and 1.5km in true distance (google earth)

After searching the debris for 500m or so, I left the other rescuer, who was going to continue searching the debris, top down thoroughly, to make my way to the deposition zone. Time was passing quickly and I figured if J was down there, it would take us too long to get to him. With a helicopter en route, if we could locate his transceiver, the incoming rescuers would be able to dig right away. As I got to the deposition area my beacon still hadn't received any signals. Then I looked up and J was standing off to the treeline, skiers left of the deposition. I radioed to KHMR dispatch that he was standing on the surface and had found him. Then skied to J and asked what was hurt and he replied "I think I'm fine".

After that it was just giving J my skis so he could move to the LZ, he got on the heli and was taken to town. He seems like he just came away with some stiff joints and bruises. Absolutely the luckiest guy in the world on March 11th.