Buried Pow Vid - Scary POV: USC Ski Team GoPro

abek

abek

Active member
Hey guys,
Here's a video from earlier this winter when we got 8 feet of snow in a week at Mammoth. Chris pitched forward off a 35 foot cliff and was instantly buried and stuck with no air. Here's a vid from the whole thing... pretty scary stuff. Make sure you always ski deep pow with a friend near by.
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damn dude good thing there was someone not too far from him. scary shit. where was this on the mountain?

on a completely related pow note im headin to mammoth next week for a week and i hope some of that sticks around. always been a huge fan of usc ski and board club your vids rock. i woulda joined the club except for the fact that USC rejected me for both undergrad and med school. bummer
 
^ no, it is inbounds just under chair 2. There is a big band of cliffs called Roger's Ridge
 
People usually don't think to wear beacons in bounds, but with 8 feet of new, might not have been a bad idea. Glad he made it out.
 
Dude, on any big pow day, wear your gear. If he had been dragged down or the slide had been bigger, much tougher to find him.
 
Yeah that would have been a good idea. None of us do enough back country stuff to even have beacons at the moment.. we all stayed pretty close together which was lucky. Also there wasn't any slide here, the snow was just so deep that he got stuck under it and was head first off the cliff.
 
damn this thing looks super sketchy with all that trees in the landing. but holy cow, thats a lot pow, i have seen a lot of things and been into that stuff very deep, but never close to be buried completely
 
thats one of the most retarded reasons to not wear a beacon and have a shovel and probe on everyone your with. people die inbounds, you dont have to be in the bc to get buried or caught in a slide. maybe consider investing in proper bc setups. glad to see that kid made it out ok.
 
i know and everyone else knows that, but this area seemed kinda safe, far away from steep and also some trees
still, everyone should have a bc setup just in case. when i was in hospital for my planned ankle surgery i was alone in my bed, holiday weekend, literally NOONE around. all of a sudden, a helicopter comes in and "delivers" the first and second avi-victims of that year. they told me (and we watched it in the news the same evening together) how they got buried like 50 ft beneath the slope. 50 ft, that is an area everyone calls "safe" and it makes me sick.
looking back i am so lucky to live right now. have done so much dumb shit (avi-related) between 14-17 or so.
 
I don't think it's retarded to think the Mammoth ski patrol has done a good job blasting and making sure all runs they open are safe for the public...

I'm not saying people don't die from slides inbounds, but I do think a lot of work goes into preventing them. Whereas nobody's looking after you in the bc.

gnarly shit dude glad you're ok. Could have been a much different story if your friend wasn't there.
 
dude a beacon would have done nothing in this situation. he knew exactly where his friend was, the only problem was that the snow was too hard to climb through. if your going to say he needed to have a beacon, you might as well say he should have had snow shoes too.
 
obviously he wouldnt have used a search mode to find his friend, what meant more of was that its hard to determine in what situation youll need what. it looked like he couldnt find him right away, and a probe would have definitely been useful. obviously you carry that gear hoping you wont have to use it but in case you do its definitely beneficial to have it.
 
Stop badgering him for this like he decided he was gonna go try to kill himself. He was inbounds under a lift next to a groomer for God's sake. A beacon wouldn't have done a thing. In hindsight he shouldn't have hit it, but hindsight is 20/20. What are you guys suggesting he should do? Tie a rope to his waist before he drops?

Shit happens, and luckily you made it out just fine. I don't have to act like the snow god for you to learn something, you obviously did and so did a lot of people who saw this. Thanks for the awesome video and I'm glad to see everyone is fine!
 
That was so scary and intense.
Also to hear that desperate voice saying "I can't get to him!" was very powerful.Glad he came out oke.
 
The thing is with a slide it freezes up right quick and you would have been clawing at ice with your bare hands and ski poles.
He was buried in a bomb hole. If you can't breath you can't breath. Scary video glad your friends saw it happen and continue skiing off to the chair.
I was in a similar situation one powder morning when I watched a snowboarder air off a cliff right into a large tree. Trying to climb up hill in deep snow is brutally hard, I flagged my buddy over towards him and I went and got patrol. Had I not seen him in that tree well who knows what could have happened. He ended up getting airlifted out and had a broken back. P.S He was also a Pro snowboarder accidents happen.
Raising ski awareness. Solid.
 
i would think sidestepping up is the bst bet in deep snow cause it would use the entire skis length to spread out the weight, but its hard when you sink down to your hip every time u take a step
 
Yes, but a shovel would have made the digging out of his friend that little faster. I've been burried before and the clunk of a shovel on my helmet is the what I want to be feeling.

I'd say "damn people are stupid", but up until 2 seasons back I'd have been skiing this without the appropriate safety measures too.

Deffo come prepared though. Tranciever, probe and shovel are three absolute essentials.
 
Yeah, we knew exactly where he was the entire time. His feet were actually poking out the whole time - which he didn't actually move until about 2 min into the climb, so we first thought he broke his back or was passed out.
Anyway, it was just a matter of getting up to him. I was above and went to ski around but came out way below where Matt was. I kept my skis on and made it up probably 30 feet from where I was lowest, and matt made it about 50.. this is in 3 minutes. We were both completely exhausted and covered in sweat afterwards - it's really really really hard to get up hill in that much snow, even if it's not that steep. Right at that last second Matt had already reached chris' feet with his pole, but he came to a steeper section where it seemed to just be a wall of snow. he was so close and that's when he started to freak out saying he couldn't make it. Every time he dug to get closer, he just sank deeper. I yelled at him to start just digging straight into the wall, and he did and eventually reached chris' body.
But yeah, I agree about the avi gear and never being too prepared, but again, none of that stuff would have helped us in the situation. What we learned in the situation was to always have spotters close by at the top or below cliff drops and such. Matt dropped the cliff right before and bounced right out so it was within both of their capabilities it was just that Chris pitched a little forward off the take off and the height of the drop was such that he got much further forward by the bottom and went down head first.
 
The fastest way to hike up a lot of snow like that and/or set a bootpack in a lot of snow would probably be the "ladder" method, where you take your skis off. In this scenario though, it's probably best he didn't do that. Side-stepping was probably the smartest choice.
 
I think the fastest way is to click out of the skis, and use one of them as a snow grip infront of you to pull up on with each lunge.
 
well it looks like a huge amount of thin powder(although i cant be sure), so idk if using the ski would help you... im guessing it would be the ladder method 2, just keep bringing up one foot in front of the other .
 
I just got the chance to watch this and it's really sobering. Well done for releasing this footage guys, it shows how important spotters are. I'm glad you're all OK!
 
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