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Yeah, but sometimes you never know how the snow is going to break, so you have to adapt to whatever is thrown at you.
When it comes to cliffs I definitely agree. I check 2,3 maybe even 4 times on the landing and how the takeoff would throw me before jumping.
As for where I was skiing, it was a huge wide open bowl. There were no cliffs, and the closest trees were way far away. Far enough away that the snowbreak stopped before it even got close to them.
Me and the couple of guys I was skiing with hadnt a clue as to how the snowpack would react to skiing on it, but we knew it was really freakin deep, so we were pretty well prepared with our beacons, shovels, and we each had an avalung just in case.
I dropped in, took about 3 turns,then made a pretty sharp turn to regulate speed because I didnt want to just straightline the thing. I wasnt thinking it would cause the snowpack to break, but unfortunately thats exacly what it did. I popped out of that, and made about 2 or 3 more turns and started to hear a rumbling that sounded like a giant wave about to break on top of me.
The pack swept me up, and luckily it was sierra cement, and heavy enough that I just kinda floated on top and didnt sink under too far. I think I only sunk under about 2 or 3 feet or something, because I could see light through the snow and It didnt take long to be dug out.
When all was said and done, I still had to be dug out, but thanks to my beacon, my group, who had seen the whole thing go down, was able to locate me and dig me out pretty quickly.
It was scary as fuck, but thats the risk you take when you go skiing in a freakin wilderness area, where there are no AV controls nor is there anyone around for miles and miles..