Amazing, claustrophobia-inducing video of a skier getting buried in an avalanche, then dug out by his friends. His helmet-cam starts seeing daylight again at 6:06 (so you'll eventually want to skip some stuff in the middle). He's OK, but it's pretty harrowing to watch.
Check it out below:
Background Info
The guy in the video was the first one to drop from their group and while not a guide (he was going tail-gunner style), had a lot of Utah and AK backcountry experience. He had a Black Diamond Avalung on, but as you can tell from the video while hes talking as hes dropping in, it wasnt in his mouth to start. He tried to shove it in the instant of starting to get sucked down, but it didnt stay. It was just off to the corner of his mouth he said, and he definitely got snow / ice build up as youll see on the second sweep of the mouth by the guide after they get to him.
So as he drops in you can also see the sluff to the skiers right immediately start building.and thats actually the chute that was the intended route down. For whatever reason well pure, unadulterated powder will do it to you he didnt go make some strong skier cuts into the upper pack to do one final snow check.
Instead he just sent it. And it didnt take more than a few turns out on this big shoulder above this cliff band to break loose.
This was a decent sized avalanche. 1,500 feet the dude fell in a little over 20 seconds. The crown was about 1 1.5m. The chute that he got sucked through to the skiers right was flanked on either side by cliff bands that were about 30m tall. He luckily didnt break any bones and obviously didnt hit anything on the run out.
He was only buried for 4 and a half minutes which is incredibly short. In that time, though, you can hear his breathing already accelerate. The ruffling noise back and forth is his chest rising and falling and the noise that his jacket makes. The intermittent whimpering noise you hear is him trying to swallow and get some air. Still sends chills up the back of my neck. Oh and they located him so fast because his right glove came off just before he came completely to rest and there was an excellent visual of course.