Tree well inversion rescue video

Chilling video. I am at the edge of my seat wanting to help shovel, bark orders, and pull on his legs all at once. I am incorporating this video in a instructional setting this year. I have been thinking about what is proper partner ski practices when skiing the trees in deep snow. How close do you have to be to each other, how often do you regroup, how long are your pitches, how do you communicate, do you ski next to each other or one after the other. In the situation in the video if it was only you and one ski partner, would the situation have a happy outcome? If doubtful, maybe you have to rethink your ski practices? Play devils advocate and work through the what ifs and practice them with your friends and ski partners. I bet if this group had practiced 'companion rescue tree well shoveling techniques' prior to the accident that guy would have been out of the hole in a fraction of the time that it took. I will make an effort to practice tree well rescue techniques this winter with my friends.

Thank you for posting the video.

10 years ago I first heard of a tree well fatality. Off Chair 6, skiing down towards Downhill. I skied within 10 minutes and 50 feet of where a person was suffocating to death (learned after the fact). And, I was skiing solo that day. Since, I've increased my awareness and ski with a partner. But as incidents continue, I'm also more spooked. My wife and I always ski within sight of each other. Since I'm the stronger, on short pitches I ski second. On longer pitches, we leapfrog each other, always staying within sight of each other. My fear/question is, if the uphill skier goes down in very deep snow on a steep pitch, moving uphill to rescue may be very time consuming or impossible. How do you protect the last person in the group? Or, if you are skiing last, are you still just on your own? Having skied a dozen of time within 20 yards of Paul Melby last year after he went missing, this question haunts me. Any thoughts on how to protect the last skier in line?

Ken

I don't have good ideas about protecting the last person in the group other than not getting too far ahead. I am curious to hear ideas about that as well. I can recall a couple of times waiting for a partner to catch up, then considering that they must have crashed or gone another direction and may be below me now, yelling a couple of times, just getting to the point of putting the skins back on to look for them, and then they show up and relate a frustrated tale of a face plant or looking for a ski. In hindsight on those instances it is easy to see how by the time I realized the gravity of the situation and managed to slog back up to them it could have become very serious. It is usually on difficult uphill travel days that the risk is greatest and there likely won't be a ready skin track to where you need to go.

A few years ago I was skiing the burn out of the Big Sheep hut in the Wallowas. I recall being the last man down so I was already separated from the group a bit and was also ~100yds further up the ridge when I dropped in. It was some of the best powder conditions I've ever skied as I was making tracks I recall a slight convex in the vicinity of a tree, but I was doing well skiing safely around and away from any trees.
as I made a turn over the convex the ground gave out under me and I dropped into a hole. Lost one ski, the other stuck in deep... I was more upright but on my side. I wasn't totally buried or deep... but I recall more depth below me as I tried to free myself and at one point snow falling in gave me a scare, I stopped making sudden movements to free myself with brute force. Behind me I could feel a large fallen log that gave me support. After about 10 minutes I got out fine and was able to find my other ski but have never forgot this. My imagination it was a hole created by a blowdown pile, terrain, vegetation... don't really know. Overall, I think this is an anomaly type of "tree well" but I thought I'd share.

I can't say what the best practices are, the most I have heard discussed is stick with a partner and ski in control. I have one friend that actually makes 'whoop whoop whooping' sounds (ye-haws, wo-hooos, whatever) on the way down skiing trees. Being the last person down is tougher to spot, especially in low visibility conditions. I know in most of the larger groups I've toured with radios are always in use keeping check on each other BVR and the 'sweeper' being radioed that all are down before dropping in. In hindsight the sweeper should probably be a two person team. I've become a big believer in touring with radios in any group large enough to get split up with no less than one radio for any 2 person team. But whats ideal and what others bring is not always the same even when you request it in advance.

Perhaps we should practice getting out of tree wells more often...

Great discussion.  I have no connection to this video, just came across it on the web.  I thought it was interesting just to see the predicament a rider could find themselves in if inverted in a void.  So for me, it doesn't really matter how or why this skier was upside down in a tree well.  Even if this was totally enacted, it still illustrates to me the "Holy Sh#t, how the hell would I get out of that?"
Monday morning quarterback response is:
-Communicate to the victim, assess airway (determines aggressiveness/injury considerations)
-Communicate the problem to partners, deploy shovels
-make sure rescuers don't knock more snow on victim
-have a plan to dig and recover
-prepare for rewarming victim
-maintain airway as highest priority and reassess victim when extricated
-learn lesson, and ski away

And yeah, prevention is preferred.