Bob Berwyn at New West has a series of articles about keeping yourself alive amid sketchy snow. He describes a few backcountry-skiing incidents that stick in his mind because they darted around in the general vicinity of disaster, though he came out OK, though this did happen to him one July in the Yosemite high country.

I thought it might be the last ski day of the season, and wanted to milk it for all it was worth, ignoring the fact that it was too late in the day for good, safe skiing. So we hiked up one more time. I chose the steepest line near the cliffs lining the edge of the bowl and decided that I would ski it non-stop to build up a little speed for the skate across the flats at the bottom. After making a few turns, I suddenly felt that things were not quite right and looked up the hill, noticing that the whole bowl was in motion. A wet slab had broken away and was sweeping toward me, not too fast, but I clearly was not going to be able to ski away from it, hemmed in my the rocks to my left. The Sierra had been blasted about a month before by an early June snowstorm that dropped about a foot of snow, and later figured that it was probably that layer that knocked me off my feet and dragged me down the hill. The ride was slow enough that I had time to look up and see where Dave was standing. He was watching closely and that was reassuring. Then I looked down and saw that the path of the slide was carrying me toward a granite outcrop. I didn’t think the impact in itself would be too dangerous. It just didn’t feel like I was moving very fast. But there was enough snow in play that I knew it could pin me and cover me completely, so I fought to try and avoid the rocks. The snow was so wet I felt like I was in a whitewater rapid rather than in the middle of a snowslide. Had I been using skis with releasable bindings, I might have been able to click out and maneuver a bit more. But as it was, my tele skis were like anchors on my feet. The rocks were coming up fast, and I made one big lunging motion to get my skis down in front of me to absorb what I new was the inevitable impact.

CRACK! The tail of my red Karhu Extremes smacked into the solid rock and I felt the ski strain, bend and break with a loud snap, along with the tib and fib of my left leg. I knew it was broken at the instant of impact, but I had an even greater concern. I was indeed now pinned against the rock in an awkward, twisting position. My legs were immobile and the force of the snow pushed my upper body farther downhill. As I had feared, the wet snow was pouring over me and covering me up, to the waist, chest and right up to my neck when mercifully, the last wave receded and all was still.

Interesting how folks can’t take the hint: avalanches are nature’s way of telling us to stay in the lodge and sip Irish coffees.