100 foot slide in Soft Slab Avalanche, in-bounds at Stevens Pass WA Ski area

Monday December 17th 2012 11:37am.

Accessed terrain on the north side of Cowboy Mountain from "7th Heaven" lift. Things go nuts at 1:20.

GPS coordinates were obtained by our product TopoPointUSA. See http://www.TopoPointUSA.com, or http://www.ebranta.com for more information.

My observations and perspective**:

1. This video is NOT representative of what I observed during the slide, specifically during the "Blackout" and "Whiteout" frames. This is due to normal limitations of the auto-exposure systems in the camera. Any video camera will blackout with minimal snow coverage, then whiteout when the lens is uncovered as the camera adjusts exposure parameters to the available light.

2. I never lost sight of the slope surface and tree lines around me, and was actively able to avoid the two small trees I slid past.

3. I remained upright during the entire slide. I started out sideways "slipping" with my right ski downhill as the snow slid past me, then I was spun backwards.

4. My right ski then popped off when the tail dug into deeper, stable snow. When this happened the powder strap effectively anchored me to the slope with my left ski across the slope below me. I was able to remain standing as the remaining snow slid past. I rotated my body sideways to minimize my uphill facing cross section area - this helped "slice" the snow that was traveling past.

5. I was wearing an avalanche airbag backpack, but did not activate the airbag by choice. I was about pull the activation handle, but did not because I came to rest suddenly. I had at least one, and sometimes both hands on the handle during the entire slide. In the video, you can see me checking the handle position intermittently while digging out my ski.

Even though this was a relatively minor slide, the entire situation was extremely frightening. A wave of sheer panic hit when I looked up and realized a large amount of snow had broken loose ABOVE me. Somehow, I was able to "fight" that sense of panic and concentrate on staying upright while attempting to (somewhat) control my path downhill.

**The above observations are just that, they are NOT intended to give advice for what anyone should or should not do during an avalanche.