On my most recent film trip to the BC Coast Mountains near Mt. Waddington, a number of us had a very close call. After hearing a number of different stories recirculate and get to me, I figured it was time to retell the sequence of events.
To start, shit happens in the mountains. Whenever an accident, tragedy or close call takes place, there’s always speculation about how it happened, who screwed up etc etc. Of course it’s extremely important to scrutinize an event in order to learn from it and apply lessons learned but I’ve also realized that sometimes you can take all of the right steps and make decisions based on the right process and feedback, and sp,e scaru shit can still down.
Backing it up just a bit, I’ll give you some history to set the stage. I had been planning for a year to head back into the Waddington area for a film trip. Mother Nature sent us home a year ago with erratic weather and some bad avalanche conditions but the best terrain that I’d ever witnessed brought us back for a second go at it. This year we headed in with a Levitation Project crew consisting of Adam Clark, Billy Poole, Dan Treadway, Stian Hagen, Dustin Handley, Riley Morton, Jane Mauser and myself. All of us were very much looking forward to getting into the zone but at the same time were very conscious of the setting and knew that we’d be easing into the bigger terrain.
After only being there a day, we where able to get out with blue skis and some really good snow conditions. We started out taking a couple of warm up laps while assessing the snowpack and overall conditions. After 2 laps, we moved on to check out some medium golf style terrain closer to Mt. Waddington where we knew the big spines and ramps existed from our previous year’s visit. Dan, Billy, Adam and I were in the heli and found a great zone. It had it all including great snow, very clean, mellow runouts, small features, nice light and filmable angles. The entire slope wasn’t more than 700 or so vertical feet and there was no exposure on any of the lines. After a run mirroring the aspect that we’d ski, we called in the second group and so that they could get set up for our first shots.
Jane and Stian were dropped on the backside of the slope that we’d be skiing and the filmers were dropped off on at our first lookout point with great angles shooting from the skier’s right of the lines that we’d be skiing. The communication was clear and straightforward as the two filmers moved into the obvious spot that they’d be shooting from.
We loaded the heli while the rotors were spinning as the guide loaded the basket. That’s when I first remember hearing someone yell “avalanche!” My first thought was that something small had kicked off but it wasn’t more than a second later that I looked up and saw the entire face rushing at us. It was big to the point that I couldn’t see anything in my peripherary through the front window of the helicopter. I couldn’t even see the sky with the massive cloud and debris coming at us full speed. I started yelling avalanche and the others all looked up to see the mountain coming at us. We started yelling at the pilot to take off but he couldn’t hear us in the front with his headphones on. Billy, who was facing the back of the heli turned around, hit the pilot on the shoulder and pointed up at the slide. At this point, our guide was still outside and he had signaled for us to take off with out him. I looked back up thinking that maybe the slide would dissapate or slow down before it got to us but it was so massive that even though we were parked a long way into the flats of the glacier, it was evident that we’d be pummeled in seconds.
What happened next was miraculous. Just as I excepted the fact that we would get hit, our guide jumped inside holding the door shut as the slide was upon us. Looking back, we figured that the only we we had the lift to get the skids off of the ground was because of the air blast from the avalanche. The massive volume of snow was pushing enough air to help us get off of the ground just as the biggest debris was running underneath the helicopter. Not knowing about what it took to keep a helicopter in the air, I thought that we had escaped almost certain tragedy. After finding out that we were completely underpowered and spinning uncontrollably in the avalanche cloud, I realized that we were inches away from crashing the helicopter. One of the filmers who witnessed the entire thing thought that we had been hit by the avie because we dissapeared for a solid 2 seconds only to shoot up with our nose facing the ground. He was sure we’d crash but somehow the pilot pulled us out of the spin.
After pulling the helicopter into control and getting a chance to look around, someone quickly spotted what was either a big rock or a person in the middle of the biggest debris. Turns out Jane Mauser had gone down with the slide and was in the middle of car sized debris. Making the entire situation even crazier, we then spotted Stian at the very top of the slope holding on to rocks. We were quickly dropped off while the heli took off to pick up Jane. After loading Jane who had a dislocated shoulder and was severely shooken up, the heli toed in just above Stian so that he could grab on to the skids and climb in while holding full power. Stian was holding on to rock that stood above what was the slope and was now a cliff over exposed rock and ice where the slide had ripped to the ground.
Turns out Stian and Jane knowing very well that there was a cornice above them, where walking parallel to the ridge in order to get to their lines. Stian was in front and was walking on with visible rock surrounding him when he took what he recalls as a 6″ step only to see the entire ground in front of and underneath him pull away and fall down the other side of the mountain. He quickly grabbed on to rock and after stopping his fall, looked up and saw Jane airborne, flying over him into the slide with our snowboard following behind. He said that he “knew” that he had just seen Jane die at that point. Somehow, after being taken down 500 or so feet Jane was buried before being spit up by the secondary slab that released only seconds after the first. It was yet another miracle that most likely saved another life.
After getting shuttled back to Knight’s Inlet where we were staying, we all sat there in the sun, had a few drinks, exchanged hugs and had a sober celebration, recapping how damn close it really was. Within only a couple of seconds, 8 of us could have been killed that day and somehow we were all back together, living to talk about it. Nothing that I could ever write or say could truly portray how dramatic this day really was. I could talk until I was blue in the face but it’s completely impossible to paint a clear picture that demonstrates how close we all were.
People ask if it makes me question whether or not it’s worth pushing it in the more exposed, big mountain environments. After knowing some that have passed away and hearing of many others and then having been in some very close calls myself, I can definitely say that it has made me reassess my goals and ambitions as a skier. When I say that I’m not just talking about goals as a professional skier because skiing for myself and professionally are never mutually exclusive. End of the day, I’ve gravitated to big mountain skiing because I love it on the purest, personal level. I love the terrain, analyzing all of the factors, skiing runs fast, skiing them slow, making calculated risks and everything else that goes along with big mountain skiing. That said, I can say that I view it all much differently after the last couple of years and where I take it in the future still remains to be seen.
