Backcountry avalanche rescue: From bliss to terror
Blowing snow and a mid-sized soft slab avalanche in a closed area at Loveland Ski Area. PHOTO COURTESY DALE ATKINS/RECCO AB.
Speedy partner rescue the key to survival
By Bob Berwyn
SUMMIT COUNTY — One second, you’re on top of the world, floating blissfully through a foot of crystalline powder, but an instant later — just as long as it takes a 150-foot slab of snow to crack loose — all hell breaks loose.
Instead of dancing gracefully with the mountain, you’re suddenly in the icy arms of a much crueler mistress who aims to batter your body, snap your bones, plug your mouth and nose with snow, and finally trap you and crush you in an icy tomb. Just before the snow stops heaving, you lunge and swim and thrust your upper body toward daylight.
It’s not enough. Darkness and silence, except for the pulsing thunder of your heart. You’re lucky, because there’s small airspace in front of your mouth, but with every exhalation, it becomes more ice-like, blocking what little flow of air there might be under three feet of dense snow. Soon, it will be a mask of death.
You try to remember when you last practiced an avalanche rescue with your ski partner. Since you survived the initial slide, your chances of survival are nine in 10 if she finds you within 15 minutes. After 30 minutes, only about half the buried victims survive, after 45 minutes, only a quarter.
There’s no time to call for a search and rescue team, to wait for an avalanche dog or the Flight for Life chopper. Your life is in your partner’s hands. 
Is she fumbling with her beacon, trying to switch it to search mode with cold, numb fingers?
Can she put together a probe without breaking it? Does she know how to do a fine search, down to the last square meter, or will she have to waste precious time probing a larger area? Is she physically able to shovel 1.5 tons of snow to free you (the average amount of snow above a victim, with an average burial depth of about three feet)?
Every second is critical — literally a matter of life and death.
