My account of the fall: https://www.facebook.com/notes/patrick-luk/falling-into-king-ravine-interview-excerpt/679140355493444

Lost my PX4 during the fall, found it. Thread here.

Other coverage

http://www.unionleader.com/article/20140409/NEWS07/140409153

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2014/04/09/backcountry-skier-survives-fall-down-nh-mountain/

http://www.wmur.com/news/man-survives-mt-adams-fall-7hour-crawl-through-snow/25402494

http://www.myfoxboston.com/story/25209047/nh-man-survives-after-skiing-accident

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2014/04/extreme-skier-tells-story-of-how-he-crawled-hours-to-safety-after-downhill-fall/



Most of my gear was recovered. According to an ice climber who was in the area a few days later, the fall was close to1000 vertical feet measured by GPS and topo maps (from the slab break to the area where I landed).


(Excerpt from an interview with ABC News)

As for back country skiing, I started back country skiing my junior year of high school with a trip to Tuckerman Ravine (Mount Washington), and have gone up to the Presidential range ever since for the spring season to ski. I have skied Tuckerman Ravine, Huntington Ravine, and King Ravine multiple times over the past few years. Out of the three, King Ravine is by far my most favorite, due to the remoteness, scenery, and superb snow conditions compared to the other ravines.

I have skied King Ravine several times, and hiked it numerous times in the summer as well, so I am very familiar with the area. In the summer I frequently climb the in the White Mountains with a full ruck and gear (weighing roughly 70lbs) to stay in shape. I've done several long hikes in the area, such as a Mount Moriah to Wildcat day hike (which is 26 miles round trip and roughly 8,000 vertical feet of climbing), and a 36 hour Pemi Loop (40 miles and 12,000 vertical feet of climbing), so I am used to endurance hiking.

I left my house at 9am to make it to the trail head for 11am. Many would consider that an unsafe and late start for a hike, but since I was planning on skiing down that was ok. The past few times that I have skied King Ravine I spent a few hours to hike to the top and only thirty or so minutes to ski back down. When I got to the trail head I texted my mom the route that I was taking for the day with a time that I would be down. I took my time getting to the top, taking several breaks to enjoy the views. I hiked up the Airline trail, and noted at the junction of Airline and Short Line that the only tracks on Short Line were ski tracks. Short Line is the train that connects King Ravine back to the trail head. I continued up Airline took the Gulfside trail cutoff at the elevation of 5200ft. At that point it was roughly 4pm and I started to get ready for my descent. I put my ski boots on and clicked into my skis and started to traverse over to the Great Gully. I had a few good looks at the gully on my ascent, and noted a large frozen waterfall toward the bottom half of the gully. My plan was to ski the first quarter or so of the gully, then traverse to skier's left (if you are looking down the hill, to the left) through a small brush field to another gully that would bypass the waterfall at the bottom. When I got to the top of the gully, I spent a minute standing looking down the hill to finalize my route in my head. As I was doing so the ice that I was standing on gave away.

That day the sun was out, making the snow soft and wet. In the latter half of the day, some cloud cover moved in, allowing the top layer of the snow to refreeze. The layer that I was standing on was roughly a quarter to half in thick of this re-frozen layer. The slab that gave away wasn't big at all, no larger than 10ft by 10ft. I went to put pressure on my uphill ski to prevent myself from sliding further down the hill, and while doing so the binding on my ski prematurely released, and the ski came off of my foot. At that point I knew I was in trouble. It is relatively difficult to stop yourself from sliding down hill on one ski, especially in terrain that steep. At the top of the gully the terrain ranges from 45 to 65 degrees in spots. Loosing that uphill ski caused me to lose my balance and one of the only ways to control myself from sliding.

Once the ski came off I started to slide. I got thrown around a little bit and went to take a swing at the snow with my ice axe. At that point I was going so fast that when I took the swing the axe got ripped out of my and and the restrained came off my wrist. After it came off, there was no other safe way for me to self arrest my slide, so I just let the fall happen.

I got thrown around even more, and at one point I was thrown on my back going head first down the gully. I then felt a sense of weightlessness and knew that I was airborne. I thought in my head "oh shit" while I was in the air for what seemed like ever. I landed on my back, and thankfully I still had my pack on as it broke the fall. I then got bounced around even more, and must have bounced off of one of the rock walls with my head, as my helmet has big puncture going through the top of it. I then went airborne for a second time, this time I knew I was going over that waterfall at the bottom, which was from my estimate 40ft in height. I thankfully landed on my back again and tumbled down a couple hundred feet further down into a large body of soft snow, which stopped my slide.

I sat up, looked around for a few seconds to regain my bearings, checked myself out to make sure my arms and legs weren't broken, then looked around to see if any of my equipment made it down. My goggles were close by, but my skis, poles, and ice axe were no where to be found. I'm assuming that they got stuck somewhere above the lower waterfall. I then tried to stand up, but had issues with my right leg, so I sat back down. Knowing that it was well past 4pm at this point, I decided that I needed to get out as soon as possible, as the forecast had called for rain and freezing rain for that night. I put my phone on auto dial for 911, and started to slide on my back further into the ravine. Once it flattened out, I tried to stand again but couldn't. I started to crawl my way down at that point. As I was getting out of the ravine, my phone made a brief connection to 911 (for a few seconds) and then the call got dropped. I tried going back up a few feet to get the signal back, but it didn't connect. I then started back down the mountain, following the set of ski tracks that I saw earlier coming out of Short Line. It got dark, my phone died, and I didn't have my lamp on me, so I continued to crawl around following the tracks by feeling around. Thankfully the moon was out (even though it was behind thick clouds), so I had some light to work with.

While I was making my way down, I had a few things going on in my mind. I kept thinking to myself that I needed to get out, and several times would look up at the sky and think "don't rain on me, please". Aside from that, random, annoying and catching songs would shuffle through my head as I crawled out. At one point, the song Waterfalls by TLC came in, and I thought to myself "wow, what is wrong with me?". I laughed to myself a little bit, and kept moving on, periodically screaming out hello and help. During my struggle down the hill I saw several lights further down hill toward the road. I kept thinking "oh, they are finally here to come look for me, I can take a break now", but thankfully the smarter half of my consciousness kicked in and told me to keep moving my ass down hill. Ends up that the lights were cars passing by on the highway and some of the houses by Durand Lake.

It started to rain, and shortly after I felt the snow that I was crawling on get harder. I knew at that point that I was back on the Airline trail and close to the parking lot (about a mile). I continued to my car as the rain and wind started to pick up. I finally made it back to the parking lot with a notice left by the NH State Police left on my car. I was pretty out of it at that point. I managed to get my ski boots off and plugged my phone back in. I called the number on the phone to let them know that I was back at my car, and at that point I started to doze off. I remember Fish and Game arriving and trying to talk to me, but my mouth was so dry and my lips so swollen and blood covered that I couldn't get much out.

Ended up with a broken nose, concussion, bruising everywhere, cuts, scrapes, a dislocated hip (back in place and now feels fine, other than being sore), and possible knee damage (we'll find out to what extent once the swelling goes down).


X's mark the start/end of the fall, the line was the route that I planned on skiing down.

Glad you are not seriously hurt.  Did you have a buddy with you?

Ouch!

Glad you are still alive.

Battle buddy was busy with school, so I was alone. Had to crawl 3 miles back to the road.

Is that Tuckermans?

Yikes.

I thought snow was soft when you fall in it at high speeds. Like water.

Silly, you are supposed to go down with your skis, not your face. That'll be a good story someday.

Owie!

Glad you're alive. Good news is that you don't appear to have been all that good looking to begin with!

Ouch

Posted Via AR15.Com Mobile

No, not like Tuckerman. Steeper in spots and more rocks.

"Go that way really, really fast.  If some thing gets in your way, turn!"

Charging!

Bright side: in this picture, you look like a total fukken badass.

Glad you're not dead, man.

Sheet of ice in spots. Rocks. Waterfalls.

Glad you're ok, had to be a helluva ride though.

Tucks is no joke

Damn skiers.


Feel better OP.

I'm impressed!

Big huge lesson I learned as a yout, never ride/ski/bobsled/hazardous activity alone.
If you must do so stick to well trod routes so you can be found should something occur.

Glad to see you made it out OK.

It was only 1000'.  

Glad you are ok relatively speaking.

Looks like a jelly samwich kicked your ass.Glad your Ok though.

Looks like the helmet saved your life.

So, you gonna do something like that again? (the ski attempt, not the falling down the mountain thing)

WHERE'S MY TWO DOLLARS!

Had a buddy that went down turkerman's similar to what you did. His entire back looked just like your face.  



glad you are alive and had the smarts to put on a bucket.

You are damn lucky that wasn't Southern ice.

An important part of life there.


"Did I ever tell you about the time..."

Of course, by the time you're MY age the 3 miles you crawled to the road will have grown to 30.

Gravity is a motherfucker.

So in the BC with no partner?? Should I assume you didn't have beacon, probe, shovel etc as well? Not that it would have mattered. Glad you are still alive, you got lucky. Be smarter next time.

Glad you're okay.  You're lucky is isn't worse.

What's with that line?  It looks rather contrived.  Why not just ski the chute on the looker's right (the one you were trying to get into and out of)?

Glad you are mostly OK

You should contact the helmet company and see if they want to do any promos.

You're officially a bad ass. Fell that distance AND crawled 3 miles? Holy shit. Take my AR, I don't deserve it, I'm not badass enough.

He would have never made it out of the parking lot.

Glad you're ok.

Same, same. Now you look like this guy  

Is that look the "Agony of Defeat"?

There was no need for a shovel or probe that day, literally zero chance of a slide that day. The slab that broke loose formed from the refreeze that day. I had gone up the week before to evaluate the snowpack, and had no concerns. The avi-advisory pretty much said the same. The kid that was gonna go with me would have never made it down that gully with some of the ice, esp on a dull board.

Dude that's terrible....




You're local newspaper is called the Union Leader?  WTF kinda Marxist shit is that?

That'll buff out

Taking the chute that connects the two X's would have required me to ski over a 40ft waterfall at the bottom. Skiing the one to the right would require going over a cliff at one point. During a normal season that waterfall isn't there, so I'd normally ski right from X to X down that chute. Instead I fell from X to X, going over a smaller waterfall up top and that big one at the bottom (the one shown in the close up).

Glad you made it Bro!!!

ETA: You should change the Title to this thread--: "And almost Died" !!

That will be a good story to tell your kids!



Glad you didn't become a statistic!!!

An odd thing for the first poster to notice, but well spotted.
Keep a stiff upper lip, OP. Things will get better. Glad you're here to tell the story.

Fuck dude.

hahahahahahaha!

Basically everything you just said, with 20/20 on the situation tells me you have no business from a decision making perspective to be in the BC. You say there was no chance for a slide? Well, something broke away. You went up a week before to evaluate a snow pack. Snow pack can literally change overnight depending on conditions. Your partner bailed. Even if he was there, it does not sound like he has the skills required to be in the BC.  Rule #1 is don't BC without a partner. If you had been knocked unconscious, there is a chance you are still laying out there. Sorry, but a guy my GF went to HS with was just killed in an avy while making far better decisions and having much more experience then yourself.   RIP Aaron Karitis  

Be careful dude, take (another?) avy class. I would also recommend a Spot locator and airbag if you are going to spend that much time out there.

holy fuck, first post

DUDE!!!!!!!!    You are one lucky sob!  Heal up fast !