"Lucky" was the word on Steve Waltcher's black and blue T-shirt as he spoke Monday to a gathering of at least 150 backcountry skiing peers about surviving an avalanche.
Waltcher suffered critical injuries in a slide that occurred March 25 on Titus Ridge in the Smoky Mountains, northwest of Ketchum. He was swept through trees and suffered two broken femurs, a broken pelvis -- his right iliac crest -- a broken wrist and fibula and a blown out knee. Waltcher was flown to the hospital in a helicopter about four hours after his accident. But first, ski companion Lee Melly had to stabilize Waltcher's injuries, while another friend, Tom Pommeroy, skied out to Galena Lodge for help.
Rick Hoffman, a Utah resident, was caught in an avalanche the same day on Kessler Peak in Big Cottonwood Canyon in the Wasatch Mountains. He joined Waltcher at the informal gathering of adventurers organized by Salt Lake attorney Dan Hindert and sponsored by Wasatch Touring to describe his experience of being buried with two friends. Hoffman sustained five broken ribs and a collapsed lung in the slide.
Waltcher was injured while skiing down the mountain. Hoffman's party was buried while skinning up that day.
"I was buried to my chest and hurting a lot," Hoffman said. He told the gathering at Memorial House in Memory Grove Park in Salt Lake City that although his party was near the road, after the slide the trio only had two skis between them. He said a cell phone facilitated their rescue, but he added that despite the technology and proximity to the road, conditions were such that it still took search rescuers two hours to reach the injured skiers, get them out and transport them to the hospital before nightfall.
"There are a lot of really experienced skiers here," Waltcher said as he opened the evening of narratives. "I'm thankful I don't have to follow Jeff Lowe."
Part of the old guard, Peter Lev and Jock Glidden, who both survived a massive avalanche with Lowe on Pik Lenin in the Ural Mountains in 1974, joined the survival roundtable to talk about survival during remote adventures far from roads and cell phones. The three mountaineers read aloud narratives of the Pik Lenin slide they had given 30 years ago that were published in a book by Bob Craig titled "Storm and Sorrow."
They each admitted to a bit of youthful boasting about their survival, reddening somewhat as they read.
Waltcher was audibly emotional as he explained in detail the things that went right and led to his successful rescue following the traumatic impact he sustained.
"The key to my survival was who I was with," he said.
Waltcher described Melly's levelheaded response to the psychological shock of skiing with someone who at one moment is healthy and active and in the next moment following an avalanche is completely incapacitated.
"It was like he flipped a switch and became my rescuer. He did what he had to do to save my life," Waltcher said.
Due to his situation, including a compound femur fracture and exposure to cold, his body temperature was 91 degrees Fahrenheit when he reached the hospital, where he received about eight units of blood.
Treating an open femur fracture in the field was something Melly had just reviewed in a Wilderness First Aid refresher course.
As Melly was treating Waltcher, they eventually heard the Sun Valley Heliski helicopter piloted by Lon Stickney coming through a snowstorm.
"(Stickney) knew the country very well and he went for it," Waltcher said with gratitude and humility. "The guides brought me to the landing zone. Eight months later I'm riding 50 miles on my road bike."
Waltcher began to share his tale about surviving the snow slide by telling an allegory about a moose that he and his partner Laura Todd rescued two years earlier while out skiing in the sublime woods of Vermont.
"We saw a leg sticking up from behind a boulder," he said, explaining that he and Todd discovered an 800-pound female moose upside down and completely stuck in the snow, apparently after misjudging the terrain. "She'd been there that day. How to save a turtled moose? I didn't learn that in any rescue class."
But, using their skis as shovels Waltcher said he and Todd were able to dig the moose out on one side of her body so she could right herself.
"She just started tipping ... she stared at us for about a minute and went down the slope," Waltcher said. He said he told the story because even though a moose is a highly experienced, highly adapted animal for the winter environment, in that moment, "the moose had no skill, no gear, nothing she could use to get herself out of the snow by herself. She was belly up and running out of steam."
Waltcher added that although seeing a stuck moose or getting caught in an avalanche are rare occurrences, he noted that those who had come to the talk represented thousands of skier days in the backcountry where accidents can and do happen.
After polling of the audience about their level of preparedness, including questions about training, experience and gear people carry into the field, Waltcher explained that his laundry list of what it takes to survive is meant to help other backcountry travelers with their own preparation for survival.
"I've had a lot to think about in the past eight months," he said.
Following the event, Bruce Tremper, an avalanche expert with the Utah Avalanche Center, said the evening of narratives could lead to a new approach for teaching avalanche safety.
"Like a lot of the people this evening have been saying, the more they know about avalanches the less they know—I think we don't know anything about how to teach," Trember said. "Rather than lecture people, I think we should be telling stories."
With the Christmas decorations in place at Memory House, as Glidden, decked out in a Norwegian sweater and green turtleneck, read his narrative about the Pik Lenin avalanche, it was as riviting as if he was reading a Christmas story.
"I felt the ground settle with a whumpf," he recited from "Storm and Sorrow." Lowe recited that he "felt jumpy like a half-tamed coyote in a crowd of people." As Lev read his contribution, Glidden gestured with both hands as if the snow was at that moment sliding over his head again.
"I have to admit I was quite gripped," Lev concluded.
Lowe shared many photos of climbing and skiing adventures to illustrate in detail his aversion to avalanches, which lead to many of his successful technical first assents of famous mountains around the world.
Awareness about the dangers of avalanches in the mountaineering and backcountry skiing community is not as high as it should be, Lowe said, explaining that he has a reputation for being "ultra-cautious."
"I recognized at a young age that I don't know anything about avalanches," he said. "It's just nice to get up and see a new day."
So, far this winter only one human avalanche fatality has been reported. It involved a snowboarder at Berthoud Pass in Colorado. An accompanying dog was also killed in the slide, according to the U.S. Forest Service National Avalanche Center Web site, www.avalanche.org. Last year, 37 fatalities were recorded in North America.
As his final piece of advice, Waltcher admonished skiers to review their skills, practice with avalanche beacons, but also look at their gear list, consider additions like foam pads bigger than a camp chair, a bivouac bag and an extra hat and get medically trained.
