Self-triggered, self-rescued size 2

Quick report

Weather

sunny, cold, windy

Ride Type

convexSlopes

Riding Quality

good

Snow Conditions

deepPowder

Snowpack

Obs Type

point

Site Aspect

N

Site Elevation

1600

Cracking Observed

1

Site Elevation Band

tln, alp

Surface Conditions

newSnow

Whumpfing Observed

1

Avalanche

Trigger Type

skier

Wind Exposure

crossLoadedSlope

Avalanche Size

2

Trigger Sub Type

accidental

Start Zone Aspect

N

Vegetation Cover

sparseTrees

Avalanche Character

deepPersistentSlab

Number Of Avalanches

1

Start Zone Elevation

1600

Runout Zone Elevation

1540

Avalanche Observation

moreThan48hrsAgo

Start Zone Elevation Band

alp

Avalanche Occurrence Datetime

2016-12-24T12:00:00

Incident

Group Size

1

Group Activity

skiing

Number Involved

2

Number Caught Only

1

Snow Depth Trigger Point

average

Terrain Shape Trigger Point

convex

Number Partly Buried Able Breathing

1

Stepped into too much terrain for me to have expected to safely ride by myself. Decided to ride the bowl in thirds (two safe spots). From the second safe spot I began traversing left to get a better look up a wide chute from the bench in the middle of the bowl and had thought that if anything were to happen that the funnel straight down to the melt-out pond of sorts at the bottom would stack up deep and be my biggest terrain trap. I was riding switch on my toe-edge for at least a hundred or more feet gaining the small convexity of the ridge below the chute when it popped. The slope broke into blocks much larger than i'd ever experienced from previous seasons in Whistler and Banff and I thought I was for sure going to get buried and die. As the snow began to accelerate I thought less of swimming with my arms and made sure to stay on my feet (riding switch, leaning back into the longer nose of my splitboard, which was submarining deep into the slide). In the upper part of the slide, my left knee (I'm regular, riding switch so what was the back leg I had to continue leaning into) smashed into a boulder that was very apparent afterwards, that dislocated my knee cap to the left and broke the right side. The slide came to rest and set up faster than I could have ever imagined, with me buried to my knees. Frantic, injured and alone I grabbed my shovel from my bag, dug my feet out one after another to unstrap and crawled off the debris into the older trees where we would normally change over to skin back up. What followed was hours of excruciating pain breaking trail on my verts and split in waist deep snow to make the five or so kilometres back to my car to drive back into cell service so as to avoid my girlfriend and her parents from sounding the alarm and further ruining a Christmas I almost didn't get to attend. I've had way too much avalanche training to have made such poor decisions that day. Very lucky to be here today.