Video: Avalanche Skier POV Helmet Cam Burial, Rescue

Avalanche Skier POV Helmet Cam Burial & Rescue in Haines, Alaska from Chappy on Vimeo.

An amazing, sobering look at being stuck inside an avalanche. This skiier was outside of Haines, Alaska. Read the full story here.

The writer says:

"This was a decent sized avalanche. 1,500 feet the dude fell in a little over 20 seconds. The crown was about 1 - 1.5m. The chute that he got sucked through to the skier's right was flanked on either side by cliff bands that were about 30m tall. He luckily didn't break any bones and obviously didn't hit anything on the run out.

"He was only buried for 4 and a half minutes which is incredibly short. I cannot stress these next sentences enough; that in and of itself to be unburied in ONLY 4:28 is miraculous if you have any understanding of being caught in an avalanche and what it takes to be found. It could literally be some kind of "world record" just on how good the guide and supporting cast of other skiers was in getting to him. It also shows why you should ALWAYS be going with people trained in avalanche rescue / first aid....as well as why you'd want to be going with a guided heli operation. Sure this was terrifying for him, but he would've probably been dead if not for going with a guide."

Everest Video Update: Avalanche Video Shows Scope of Tragedy

Stalled and shocked by the tragic avalanche through the Khumbu Icefall route, Ed Viesturs and the First Ascent team have been at base camp for about a week, “and that’s probably three days longer than we had originally anticipated.” The group had originally planned their summit push for tomorrow, but a combination of bad weather and avalanches moved in to put them in a “holding pattern.” The next anticipated weather window opens up from the 16th through the 18th. All the teams in base camp are eyeing it hungrily. Stay tuned for more details.

Follow the story in daily dispatches, videos, and photos on the ADVENTURE site. Plus, see the mountain up close in a high-res interactive route map.

Everest Video Update: First Ascent Team Prepares For Summit

Text by Tetsuhiko Endo

Alpine-style climbing is a preparation game. Gear must be checked and re-checked, camps must be made and stocked on different levels of a mountain, the body must acclimatize to altitude and the mind must steel itself against cold, fatigue and fear.

No one knows this better than the men and women preparing make summit bids on Everest. Ed Viesturs and the First Ascent team have spent the better part of a month preparing themselves for the climbing they will do over the next week. Tomorrow, they will leave basecamp and trek directly to camp two where they will rest for a day before continuing on to Camp Three. They plan to arrive at Camp Four (High Camp) on the afternoon of the 11th, then start for the summit on the night of the 12th.

If all goes well it will be an Everest sunrise. But that is a big “if” on the tallest mountain in the world. “The mountain decides, ultimately, whether we reach the summit or not,” Viesturs said on his blog. For his sake, let’s hope the mountain is feeling charitable.

The Adventure Life with Steve Casimiro: A Bad, Bad Week for Avalanches

Mourners at a candlelight vigil in Sparwood, B.C., which lost eight young men to slides.

By West Coast Editor Steve Casimiro

Seven Canadian snowmobilers are dead and one is missing and presumed dead after a series of avalanches hit their group in the backcountry near Fernie, British Columbia, Sunday. Also on Sunday, a snowmobiler died near Hart's Pass, Washington, and on Monday a 15-year-old Utah boy was killed snowmobiling in the Uinta Range. A Lake Tahoe skier is dead from a slide at Squaw Valley on Christmas Day. A Wilson, Wyoming, man perished in a slide in-bounds at Jackson Hole on Saturday. And Monday morning, with the resort closed for avalanche control work, an avalanche crashed into Jackson’s mid-mountain Couloir restaurant, causing severe damage and knocking workers about, including a patroller who was partially buried. CONTINUE READING THIS STORY>>

Deep Survival #1: Gut Instincts

By Contributing Editor Laurence Gonzales, author of the book Deep Survival

(Editor's Note: This is the first Deep Survival column by award-winning writer Laurence Gonzales. Send in your survival stories and questions in the comment area below and Gonzales will give his feedback.)























FATALLY FALSE POSITIVES
On December 6, 1988, Todd Frankiewicz was on Tincan Mountain in Alaska, making his comeback as a top-notch skier. The previous summer, a serious auto accident had left him hospitalized, and after months of rehabilitation, he felt ready. The day before, he had gone to city hall for a license to marry his girlfriend of nine years, Jenny Zimmerman.

That weekend the Anchorage Daily News ran headlines warning of avalanches. But Frankiewicz had skied Turnagain Pass before and took reasonable precautions, first discussing the danger with Zimmerman and then calling Doug Fesler, a friend and one of the top avalanche experts in the area. As Fesler’s wife, Jill Fredston, wrote in Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches, “Todd asked careful, intelligent questions.” Significantly, “he’d never before phoned us at home to ask for a personal update.” Fesler told him to “avoid steep north-facing slopes like the plague.”
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