I’m not sure what to think about this one. Lord knows that getting stuck upside-down in a tree well with your skis or snowboard on and NOT being unable to get them off, would really be a bad situation. I’m wondering how easy (or hard) it would be to get out of a Dynafit binding, while being upside down and not able to reach them with your hands. I roll with TLT Speeds on a few of my setups, which have a smaller toe lever than the Vertical style Dynafit bindings, so it might be harder to manipulate and pop open. In addition, the toe-pieces are usually locked out when I’m skiing, which would probably make them harder still to get off. I guess this is another reason to get an AvaLung, because an airbag ain’t gonna do diddley in a treewell.
(Sorry about the UPS spam.)
1st problem…….. He was using the wrong equipment (snowboard)…. :-}
But seriously, that would really really suck.
I use to laugh at these stories until I got stuck in a narrow stream bed from a snowbridge collapse: – 8 feet deep, vertical walls, and standing in running water with skis on. It took about 1/2 hour to dig myself out. If head first it would have been a very serious situation.
How about the fact that he was skiing alone!!!! Damn good reason to always keep your cell phone accessible (not in your pack).
That is frickin’ scary. Hey, I bring my phone. You knever know.
I also tend to treat trees like slalom gates when I’m skiing, and cut around them, but I probably ought to back off a bit.
hek ya he’s scared, that is no joke. Glad he’s ok… Glad he could share it!
Super lucky! I read somewhere about this happening to someone in an Avalanche in europa. Scary!
the one time i was stuck with my skis above my head in a sort of tree well/steep terrain, i was able to unbuckle my boots and slide out of them in a panic. it was on a deep day in the bridger range, and I was screaming at another skier a few hundred feet away, but he could not hear me. terrifying
this is a very scary situation. I actually had a friend die this way just over 2 years ago. He was a phenomenal skiier and a really dear friend. Unfortunately, his helmet didn’t protect him and he suffocated and died in the treewell.