The Things I Carried

Unless you have been living under a rock, or preferably on a tropical beach vacation, you will have heard the news - along with my ski partner and friend Seth Anderson, I was involved in an avalanche incident.

A ski descent of the Grand Mesa’s Thunderbird and Snake couloirs was a dream Seth has harbored for a long time. He had thought about it for many years. This winter, with above average snowfall on the Mesa and below average temperatures in the Grand Valley, there existed a rare window of opportunity to ski the line, most likely for the first descent. The terrain is rugged and remote but would provide us with more than 4,500 feet of skiing above the town of Palisade. When Seth suggested the idea I was psyched to join him sharing, as he described, “an indomitable thirst for intriguing and hard-won ski routes”.

Over the past week I have tried to write this story many times. It has not come easy. Like my backcountry ski pack sitting in the corner of the garage waiting to be cleaned out and replenished, I have struggled to address it. At first the white noise in my head, the jumble of images and emotions, prevented any clarity of thought. As the fog started to lift I couldn’t think which one of the many stories to write.  It could be a story of one man’s dream cruelly dashed. A story of the magical mountains – how they give so much and can take so quickly. A story of how the best laid plans can go awry. A story of adventure, a brush with death and life-saving rescue.  In fact it could be any of these stories for they are all real and they all happened. But then I realized my story is about the things I carried.

The vision of my ski partner disappearing into a maelstrom of snow was one I had imagined many times before.  Over the past 17 years I have read about avalanches, how they form, how to detect them, how to avoid them. I have practiced avalanche searches, attended various trainings and prepared the necessary rescue equipment every time I have ventured into the snowy backcountry.  I regularly carry the possibility and consequences of an avalanche in my mind. 

In the midst of our descent of the Thunderbird, the omnipresence of avalanches finally morphed into harsh reality.  As the snow crumpled beneath him Seth was quickly out of sight, the vacuum he left behind was instantly flooded with a wave of shock and loneliness. The sound of rumbling snow was replaced with the roar of fear in my ears.  I was almost overcome with disbelief. This was finally happening to me. For a brief moment, time stood still.

I snapped to. With shaking hands made only of thumbs I reached under my coat and turned my beacon to search. One small green light was flashing as it received the signal emitting from Seth’s own beacon somewhere in the trees below.  I immediately jumped into the bowl and started to ski down where the avalanche had run.

I started shouting “Seth, Seth”.

Nothing.

I made a few more turns. Stopped.

“Seth” I yelled.

Silence. Only ragged breathing coursing through my body and heart beats pounding in my head.

I skied into the narrow snake couloir which was lined on either side with dense timber. Here the snow was stripped from the surface and my skis grated and jerked over rocks.

“Ann” I heard a yell from down low.

“Seth” I screamed. I could not believe it. He was alive.

“Down here” he yelled again.

The couloir was now backed up with debris and combined with my legs of jello, became an unskiable jumble of soft blocks of snow. I wrenched off my skis and stumbled and lurched downwards. I followed Seth’s shouts and shortly found him twenty feet off to the side in the trees.

“Oh my God Seth, are you ok?” He was lying on the surface of the snow, face bruised and bleeding, already on his phone with 911. Shaking with relief, I took the phone from him and started speaking to dispatch.

“Is this Ann?”

“Yes”

The connection was breaking up. The line went dead. Shit.

I took my phone I carried in my pocket and dialed.

“911”. Relief.

“What injuries? Where are you?” I looked at Seth who could hear the questions.

“Left femur, right tib-fib broken” he said. Stomach in knots, I repeated his words.

I put my phone on speaker, down in the snow, and applied my ten fumbling thumbs to my GPS and calculated our location. I gave the coordinates to dispatch. Twice. To make sure it was right. There was no other way to describe where we were, no nearby trails to pinpoint, the Thunderbird and Snake only legend to us skiers and the long gone Ute Indians.

“Hang in there with me, Ann. We’re getting you help”.  The roar in my head quieted. I became calm and focused.

As the wheels of rescue started to turn 5,000 feet in the valley below, I directed my attention to Seth whose legs needed to be straightened and elevated. With the shovel from my pack I quickly built a horizontal platform in the snow for him to lie on.

The hours wore on becoming a blur of conversations with 911, then Rondo at Powderhorn Ski Patrol and St. Mary’s Hospital. Simultaneously I did what I could to make Seth more comfortable: insulating him from the snow with a bivy sack and my pack, covering his body with all my spare clothes, packing and unpacking his legs with snow to reduce swelling, giving him (ineffective) pain medication and trying to keep his spirits up. Despite being strong and an excellent patient, Seth could not hide the extent of his pain. He was seriously hurt.

Finally we heard the ‘whoomp, whoomp’ of the St. Mary’s Flight for Life helicopter as it made a beeline for us.  I started to prep the immediate surrounding area, packing down snow so the rescue crews would have a solid surface on which to work. The late afternoon sun was strong, thankfully keeping Seth warm, but it also softened the snow making travel difficult.

As the first rescuer reached us, the weight I carried lifted slightly from my shoulders, the compression in my chest and head eased a little. I tidied the area around me. The things I carried in my pack either deployed or no longer needed now that Search and Rescue were on the scene.

Several hours later I walked across the helipad atop St. Mary’s Hospital still carrying my pack and watched Seth disappear into the care of medical experts.

And there ended the longest, most intense, emotionally and mentally draining afternoon of my life. It is an experience I will carry with me always.

Now it is time for me to turn to my pack. Replenish it with those important items I have carried for years and never used until now. It’s a heavy pack to carry but I wouldn’t have it any other way. I may need it again.