AVALANCHE!

As many of you already know, a couple of weeks ago Marc was caught in an avalanche while skiing the  backcountry by our house.  Fortunately he was with Shawn and not alone.  For the most part this was a pretty freak thing to happen.  Marc was setting an up track with his skins on so that the two of them could ski off of the peak.  Because of all the wind drifts a hard slab had formed and broke from above him.  There was pretty much nothing Marc could do especially since he had his skins on and couldn't ski out of the slide.  He ended up staying on top of the slide, which he describes as an unstoppable magic carpet ride, and did not get buried.  He tried to grab onto several branches to stop himself, but they broke away...eventually he ended up getting thrown into a tree.  It's estimated that he slide 250 - 300 feet down the ridge line and the total slide was estimated at an 800 foot vertical. 

Throughout this whole ordeal we are lucky that Shawn was with Marc.  Marc and Shaw were on the I-80 side of Mt. Aire when this happened.  Marc ended up having to crawl back up to the peak of Mt. Aire and then he slide down from the peak to our driveway.  In all it took them 4 hours to get back to the house.  (That is one hell of a survivor story huh!)  Once we got him home, out of his wet ski clothes, and boots we put him on the snowmobile and drove him down to the cars so that we could get him to the PC emergency room.  At the E.R. the doctors pretty much looked at him like he was a freak of nature.  I can't tell you the number of times they said over and over,  "you were in an avalanche and walked into the E.R.?"  Yes he was classified as an anomaly especially once everything was said and done he left the ER with 4 broken ribs, a partially collapsed lung, and a broken leg.  Remarkably he did not have any major internal trauma.  Seriously I think this Norman has 9+ lives! 

( This is a picture looking down the slide, Marc thinks that the closest tree in the picture is the one that he slammed into.)

Since his magic carpet ride down the down the mountain we have been adjusting to a "different" life on the mountain. But yes, we are still up here, no reason to leave, and yes we are riding snowmobiles up and down to commute.  All in all we have managed pretty well.  Marc has been healing up pretty well and has another appointment with his doctor in a couple of weeks to make sure that everything is healing properly. 

 

Oh and one last crazy thing....when Marc hit the tree he lost one of his beloved BD Verdict skis.  Yes we thought it was a casualty of the avalanche, but when the patrollers from the Utah Avalanche Center went up to assess the slide (these are their pictures and videos) they found his lost ski...in perfect condition!  Again he really is the luckiest guy around! Oh yes ... and Shaw Frye is my hero!