Friday, February 15, 2019

The Hazards of skiing on 40 feet of snow

About 20 years ago was the last time I skied on this much snow on Mt. Shasta. I was personally amazed that the huge snow blower trucks could even clear a road with this much snow up to Bunny Flats then by the way. And then we had to build a  snow ladder into the snow at Bunny Flats to climb the snow to the top even to ski. The Snow was at about the level of the tops of the highest trees there.

But, here's the problem: The problem is that trees keep a ring about 3 feet out from them that we call "tree wells" or snow wells which keep snow out about 3 feet from them.

I made the mistake of skiing too close to a snow well at the very tip of a tall tree then and fell into the well with my skis and found myself standing on top of a limb near the top of a tree. I was looking up about 7 feet or more to the surface of the snow.

I yelled for my friend to come help me as he is only 5 foot 10 but I'm 6 foot 5 and the cornice broke with my added weight of my height on skis down into the tree well. Luckily, my friend heard my screams for help and he returned and I took off my skis one by one and handed them to him and climbed up the tree and he gave me a hand to get out of the tree well out of the snow. At the time I was in my late 50s or early 60s and I was not prepared at this age to deal with this kind of craziness in my life but somehow we all made it out of there okay.

So, it might be fun to ski on 40 feet of snow but remember really watch the snow conditions for avalanches and snow wells which can end a perfect day skiing in something you might not want.

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