I have been caught skiing in an avalanche alone

I was skiing by myself in the spring and it was warm and sunny enough to ski with my shirt off to get some sun and also I was warm from all the outlay of energy to climb up to 10,000 feet from 6900 feet where Bunny Flat is to get to 10,000 feet. I was skiing down when suddenly about a city block size of snow starting moving down the mountain with me. Though I was worried about being buried in the snow alone and not being found until the snow melted in June or July then, I was actually more worried about hitting some trees at about 30 mph which was how fast the avalanche was traveling at the time. 

Being smashed against trees at 30 mph was the biggest worry of all at that point. Somehow I was young enough to struggle on my metal edged mountaineering skis and poles to be able to stay up on top of the avalanche. If I had been on downhill skis I likely would have died. So, often in an avalanche you have more possibilities of survival if you are on cross country skis or mountaineering skis because you can move your skis better to stay up on top of the snow if you struggle enough. I can see how being on a snow board could be fatal easily in an avalanche too because there is no way to stay up on top of the pieces of snow bouncing around you in all kinds of configurations.

 I was incredibly lucky to have survived this because when the avalanche was stopped by the trees suddenly I was chest deep in the snow.

 I was cold because the snow was against my bare chest and back because my shirt was off but the sun was out too. So, I struggled to get my ski tips above the snow and finally succeeded because I was young enough to do this and vital enough to succeed at this.

However, I decided that day to never ski above Tree line(which is where the trees stop growing at around 8000 feet on Mt. Shasta and pretty much have never skied above Tree line much since then. This happened in the mid 1980s when I was around 35 to 37 years of age on Mt. Shasta above both Bunny Flat and Horse Camp Sierra Club emergency Lodge. Horse Camp is at Tree line by the way so it avoids most avalanches because it is at tree line. The trees tend to stop avalanches somewhat from progressing down the mountain. However, if they get going at 10,000 feet to 12,000 feet often whole acres of trees are knocked down or are buried so deep in the snow or both that the trees don't survive this for one reason or another. There are many places on Mt. Shasta where this has happened where acres of trees have been knocked down by big avalanches between 6000 and 8000 feet in years past.