AVALANCHE FILES: Lessons from Dale Atkins
If you like powder and face shots, the backcountry of Buffalo Pass, Colorado is the place for you. Known for the deepest Colorado snows, Buffalo Pass is a powder-skiers paradise. Most skiers and riders today might call the terrain around the pass mellow. The lines are not “big mountain” like those found in other parts of Colorado like the Gore Range, Elk Mountains, or San Juan Mountains, but steep shots exist. Buffalo Pass is the kind of place where avalanches don’t happen all that often; it’s the kind of place where it’s easy to let your guard down.
On the morning of January 3, 2005, Mike, age 26, his brother and two friends left Steamboat Springs, Colorado on snowmobiles for the powder of Buffalo Pass. The skiing was good with 20 cm of powder over hard, old snow. It was avalanche country. They knew it, but only three of the four carried avalanche rescue transceivers, and as a group they had two shovels. They did not bring collapsible probe poles. In reality no one expected trouble. All had skied steeper terrain and with deeper powder and never had avalanche problems.
The skiers saw no fresh clues to avalanche danger such as recent avalanches or shooting cracks; however, on nearby east- and west-facing slopes were nearly a dozen old avalanches slightly covered by recent snow. After lunch the men moved to steeper terrain, an open hourglass-shaped slope less than 500 feet tall. Half way down the slope steepened to 35+ degrees with a narrow 20-foot-wide trough before pilling out onto the open slope below. Locals call it the “Flume of Doom.” Mike had skied it the winter before.
Mike and his bother would wear the transceivers and get first tracks while their buddies—with one transceiver—took the snowmobiles back to the bottom. About half way around they dropped off a backpack with one shovel to mark the trail back to town. By the time Mike started down his friends had reached the bottom. After a couple of big, sweeping turns Mike threw in two tight turns to check his speed and lined up for a rock jump. He skipped over two big rocks, almost like stairs before cutting hard right into the trough. Mike straightened his skis to rip the gauntlet when he was slammed from his right side by a swelling wave of cascading snow. In a second he was gone.
From above Mike’s brother had just started down. He couldn’t see the bottom but heard yelling. He hurried down but stopped and removed his snowboard. He ended up wallowing down to help.
A lone ski stuck out of the snow but no Mike. Transceivers were switched to receive and immediately detected Mike’s signal. Survival statistics from Europe and the United States show that if found within the first 15 minutes, nine-in-ten buried victims survive. After that survival plummets, only half will survive by 30 minutes, by 35 minutes only one-in-three survive. They were in a race against time. Within minutes they had the strongest signal and started digging. Time seemed to slow but in reality the minutes raced by. Using a shovel, snowboard, and hands the trio dug ferociously but no Mike. Something was wrong. They tried a transceiver a second time, and it led them to a different spot three meters away. Fooled by a false positive signal—something that happens frequently—the trio wasted valuable minutes. This time they found Mike beneath one meter of snow.