"Near Death" experiences from your past.

[puma]

Hello All,

Perhaps this has been covered before, I could not find a thread via the search...

What is the most intense situation you have been in while at the mountain? Ever had an experience where it could have gone either way, life or death?

Mine went a bit like this and the heart rate still elevates when I think about it...

It was 1991, I was a senior about to graduate from High School. I'd been skiing since I was in late grade school, and thought I was the next best thing to "Scot Schmidt"...My home mountain was Mount Hood Meadows :. As many know, not the most extreme resort out there. Well, I finally got to get off hood\flatchelor, and convinced the family to take a trip to Utah. This was my first trip to a real resort, Alta and Snowbird were to be the focus. One of my long time ski buddies came along, and was equally as stoked. We were to take our "extreme" skills to the "big" mountain...

So, we are at Snowbird, and I believe somewhere in the Peruvian Gulch in between where Chips run goes out around. (It was a long time ago, not sure on the specifics) We see a large sign stretched between trees..."Cliff Area", excellent, we are extreme and charge it...(I think this is about where it was, who knows, it was 17 years ago, and I was young and dumb as you see I'm sure) Anway, it starts dropping off and getting steep, and we immediately hit the breaks as there is what appears to be a substantial drop coming up. We were successful in stopping, but it was very steep. My buddy was a few feet above me, an I was about 5 feet from the drop. We could not see the landing or how high the cliff was, but needless to say, it sure seemed over 40 and things looked somewhat flat far out below...shit, in trouble now. It was so steep that one really was not sure how side stepping in hard pack conditions was going to work. One could say, we were screwed. My heart was pounding. I'd basically been 5 feet from what looked like death. Aside from trying the side step out, we had a flat area to the right of us, seperated by a few foot drop and rocks. From there, it looked like a chute would give us access out of here. We decided this was the best course of action. It took a while, because actually unweighting to make the few foot jump risked a slide over the precipice...

To make a long story, not so long, we both made the jump ok, the chute was steep and narrow, which under ordinary circumstances would have been great...but we straightlined out of there without issue. Looking back up at the drop, our fear was warranted. It was definately over 40, I would say 60+ to a flat landing with rocks...I equate this to nearly certain death. (Felt like 80 at the time, but I am adjusting for the 17 years, the adrenaline of the moment, and the over exageration of an 18 year old mind...)

Snowbird, or any real mountain for that matter, does NOT EQUAL sorry ass Mount Hood Meadows. I learned that lesson long ago. I'd like to say it stuck, but I've got some dumb moments at Baker during college...maybe to be shared later.

Anyone else have similiar?

[Deep Days]

Broked neck. December 17, 2005.

Total injuries:
Fx C2 vertebra
Compressed T7, T10, T12 vertebrae
Fx transverse processes, L1-L5
Concussion
Torn R vertebral artery

All from overshooting a jump. It was scary. Prolly a thread on here about it somewhere...

[LIP]

Starfishing the WHOLE Staircase in CB my 3rd day on pins when it hadn't snowed in 6 weeks. Kick turn to high side to head first off a 10 footer to starfish. Still get a little geeked when I ski that line. There's a tree about 3/4 of the way down that still hasn't regrown the branches that I took out. Ended up with a mere sprained ankle. Lucky is an understatement.

[citycrow]

Sounds sketchy man! Best thing to do is ride it out and hope for the best! The Bird is gnarly, might want to save going big on pow days! When you feel a nerve turd coming might want to think about aborting the mission!

[mmmm...pow!]

Many years ago, Crested Butte. My first trip out west. The first few days we were there it was spring conditions (I won't even get into the worst sunburn I have ever gotten), and then it snowed about a foot on top of the now frozen spring surface. I was somewhere in Phoenix Bowl, just standing on my board while waiting for my friend. Somehow my board found the frozen layer underneath and started sliding. The sliding soon turned into tumbling, and then I felt myself freefalling. Upon impact, I saw myself heading towards a stand of trees, so I dug in everything i could and stopped just before the trees. I looked up and saw I had fallen over a 30-40 foot cliff, and was now a few hundred vert below where the sliding started. Some random skier came by and said he was going to get ski patrol, but somehow I wasn't hurt at all, just in a bit of shock.

[ArmadaBC]

Brighton last year, snowing, end of a pretty good day. Off the Milli lift there is small hike to area, above the cabin we call the rock garden. I'm sure it has a real name but were from PA and don't know shit about what things are called. There are some cliffs we found in there and a small slot chute that is maybe five feet wide and 20-30 feet in length maybe 25 degrees. The cool part is you can come into it with speed as long as you hit the entrance right, just a real fun mellow kind of area.

Well I hit the entrance with too much speed and proceeded to eject the right ski, I should have then slammed my face off every rock in sight. Somehow though I balanced out and skied the whole thing on one ski, the funny thing is I never had time to be scared until it was over. I know that with that amount of speed and the force it takes to kick a ski off I should have ended up planted in the rocks but somehow I got real lucky and pulled it out.

My buddy actually got a shitty pic of me on the way out - I promise its not as flat as this pic makes it look.

[Kenny Brockelstien]

Rockfall while booting up Grizzly Chute near Aspen in May of 07. We were the first guys on the peak in the AM; I would have thought everything would be frozen in place. But halfway up the coulie, we heard a rumble and the rocks starting coming.

Rocks the size of basketballs and larger came hurtling down within six feet of us in every direction. The scariest part was not knowing when it was going to stop.

[Tye 1on]

Crossing over a dam over the Dead River in college. On the upstream side. Feet on the top round rail of a fence, hands under the roof overhang, kinda of pulling with hands as feet scooted across. Hit a slippery spot, feet go out from under me, hands catch the rail on the way down. Pulled myself back up and back to the bank. Had the hands not grabbed in time, the water and then turbine was the next stop.

For some reason, things like log crossings over creeks still fack with me...

[TyWebb]

I don't know if I've ever been more scared that I was last year at BS when I lost a shoe on a smallish drop and cartwheeled into a tree well. I was completely with-it, but had gone in head first and was now hopelessly stuck with only my feet sticking out and branches caught on my pack keeping me down with no chance to get out. I gasped for air and got a mouthful of snow and was completely asphyxiated. I was loosing consciousness and freaking out. I tried not to struggle at one point, but then just lost it and began to thrash as I felt it was my last chance for survival. I distinctly remember deciding to give up, as I was simply going deeper every time I moved. Only a few seconds passed from that moment and my buddy began to pull me out. I had completely forgotten about him....but I'll never forget him again (eternally grateful).

[_SouthLake_]

At Jackson Hole 3 years ago. A good foot or two of fresh and still puking. Bombing down somewhere in Saratoga Bowl, all of sudden one of my skis pops off for no apparent reason and as I'm beginning to tumble notice a large grove of trees about 30 feet ahead. I rag doll for a bit, my head slams against something hard, and then I gently roll to a stop. Other than a lost ski, some bruises, and a large dent in the temple of my helmet, I was fine. Somehow managed to squeek through a 3-4 foot opening in the grove of trees. I still miss my Gotama, but am a big fan of helmets since...

[Optimus Prime]

When I was about 14, I was on a sailboat, in somewhat heavy weather and got bucked off into the waves, I was wearing all my rain gear to keep warm so I couldn't swim, and my PFD was sucking balls at that moment, I was pretty sure I was a goner, thanfully my grandfather saw the whole situation and was able to turnt he boat around and haul me out...

About three months ago, I was lying in bed sucking on a Ricola cough drop,when it slid into the back of my throat and got stuck...The thing that sucks for me is my wife is tiny, and so she wasnt able to do the Heimlich very effectivley, not to mention that she was freaking out, cause I was turning blue, it must have melted enough so when she whacked me on the back It popped out...I dont remember anything during that time, but I will never again eat a fucking throat drop in bed....

[bmg97]

Padded room JONGS !

[vinzclortho]

I got cliffed out at Whistler last march, no idea where on the mountain..I was fully lost and trying to find my friends, I saw some tracks through the trees and figured "oh...other people have been through here, as long as I traverse high skier's left I should be okay." I was fully exhausted after doing the super early morning tram thing at like 6:00am and this was the end of the day with the sun setting and operating on maybe 20 mins rest (other than sitting on the lifts) all day.

anyways, I figure out that I am standing over a maybe 30 or 40 foot cliff and no clue as to what the landing looks like? flat? rocks? poison spitting donkeys? who knows... no way of telling. I am exhausted and it's going to be dark within probably and hour. I sat and weighed my options of flailing off the cliff and hoping for the best, staying put and hoping to either be found by ski patrol or just survive the night being really cold or dig reallllly deep and figure out how to get my board off my feet and climb up the steep slope. at this point I'm hanging onto a tree and really not stoked on any of my options.

finally I decided I had to go for it so I got my rear foot unbuckled and somehow shimmied and clawed my way up to a point where I could actually see where I was and what my options were. I had been on this cliff area for maybe 1/2 hour or so just freaking out. I climbed up and was able to get over the ridge, strap back in, make 2 turns and then wipe out due to lack of energy but at least I was away from the super hairy cliff of death....which...it turned out was maybe a 15 foot drop but I couldn't tell that from where I had been stuck so I just felt like a fucking pussy and didn't tell my friends what had happened when I found them!

[Mustafa]

Big day at Big Rock(surf spot in La jolla, CA) in march 05, crowded lineup so everyone was jockeying for waves, and it is sucking hard off super shallow reef. Set comes, I get the first wave but take off way deep and get pitched into about a foot or 2 of water. Start rolling along on rocks in the washing machine and am heading straight for the rocky shoreline. So, like i said it was big and sketchy and I am already getting fucking worked and somehow manage to grab a couple handfuls of reef grass and wait through 4-5 more set waves until I could hop up scurry off the reef. No major injuries...just a lot of scrapes but it could have been a lot worse.

[samthaman]

straightlineing tuckermans and almost wiping out 5 days after getting my second concussion in a 5 day period (con - 5 days - con- 5days - tux). came straightlining right down through some huge ice chunks at top speed, then got bucked and realized if i couldn't ride it out on the tails i'd be taking a ride in a chopper. time slowed down, i focused on keeping my quads as tensed as possible and managed to pull it off. really really really stupid in retrospect. I saved it though thanks to the stiff tails on the big daddies...

the time i was most convinced i was going to die was when i had mono 4 years ago, i sat up in the back seat of my car at an awkward angle and felt a huge sharp pain in the region of my spleen, i thought i ruptured it and i was convinced i'd be dead in under 10 minutes. very bizarre feeling.

some scary stories in here.

[Tri-Ungulate]

Plenty of sobering stories here.

[ill-advised strategy]

fire:
a large rolling boulder (~3ft diameter) hauling ass down the hill actually touched the back of my pants while I arched my back and dodged it as it passed.

had a buddy blow it falling a tree and sent it right at me, had to scramble sidehill as fast as possible and the tree landed where I had been.

refused to sit in a particular spot at about 2 or 3 AM one night when everyone was taking a break because I was worried about a snag. Tried to convince my crew not to sit there, but fatigue was heavy and they said fuck it and I did too, so I head up the hill with my buddy and the tree comes down 5 minutes later. the trunk was like 3 feet from this guy Randy when it it hit, Randy was still sitting, right next to the tree when it was done.

Had a door pop open in forward flight on a helicopter. I grabbed and held on for dear life because of the potential for it to fly off and into the rotor system.

I was at the top of the flank of this burn we had lost and were chasing, the thing was pushing up the hill but we were pinching it off. I hiked across the hill into the smoke to scout ahead and meet with a squad coming from the other side. The smoke got super thick where I could only really keep one eye a little bit open, and breathing was pretty tough. I met up with 3 others, one of whom was having trouble, so I sent them out of the smoke. After a little while I got kind of disoriented, and I just got really spacey. I remember feeling like I just needed to sit down for a bit, so I did that, and after little bit I was starting to pass out. In the middle of passing out, I remember thinking NO! you can't pass out! gotta get away from the head of the fire and out of the smoke, so I dragged my ass up and sidehilled it out of the smoke. There were 10 ft flames just down the hill the whole time I was hiking out. Once I got to the flank and out of the smoke for a bit I realized it was really a close one.




Motorcycles:

crashed harley chopper when oil pump plug failed dumping oil onto the rear tire as I rode..throttled out of a right hand turn and the bike just slid out from under me...did a baseball pop-up slide on my hip.

crashed honda CB400 in Hondo canyon when a bolt came off the bike, I lost focus on riding and missed a turn, ended up ditching the bike and took a long headfirst slide on pavement.

came around a corner doing ~70mph (cornering hard) in Hondo canyon after dark to see a large cottonwood tree across the road. I straightened out the end of the turn into the opposing lane and stood up on the pegs. I hit a limb, caught air, bent a wheel, but did not crash.

One time I drank way, way, way too many coronas (I remember like 13 in like an hour and a half) at this middle of nowhere bar where the Carson highway outside of taos meets the 285. Went out to the bike at probably 2PM and I was having trouble walking. I thought I'd ride around the corner and smoke a bowl to relax for a bit before I made the hour and a half or so ride home to taos ski valley. Then I was really, really super fucked up. So on the ride home, I was having the worst time trying to stay concious, I nearly passed out on the bike a couple of times near Carson NM. I couldn't make the ride into the rio Grande Gorge, so I remember deciding to just stop and sleep for a while. Somehow I got the bike onto the sidestand and I got about 10 steps away before I passed out on the side of the road. I can remember at one stage realizing that there were people around me talking, and I remember crawling away from the road. I woke up around midnight, cold as shit, on the edge of a cliff, with bloody puke all over my jacket. Had to ride home then, so so so cold.

Had a truck tire explode in front of me in Nebraska. The big meaty part of the tire went right over my head and I got some shrapnel to the face. I pretty much panic-stopped and couldn't get back on the bike for a while I was so freaked out.

^^hours later I bought some underaged girls some beer at a gas station in Alma NE. It was like 11PM on a summer saturday night in this little town so all these people were hanging around this gas station, as it was sort of a hub in this little town. Well, some guy saw this and called the police, and some other guy came up and told me the guy called the police and that I'd better get my long haired hippy ass out of town. So I did like 120 mph out of town past 3 cops to the first left turn and hauled ass into Kansas and rode all night and all the next day back to Taos.


Jackassery
Got stuck on some cliff I was free climbing when I was like 16...couldn't go down, was a sketchy move going up. I thought about it and thought about it for like 2 hours standing on this little ledge, and finally decided to just go for it. I jumped up and grabbed this root and it held my weight, and I made the last little bit of the climb to the top.


life:
I agreed to give this indian guy a ride back to Taos Pueblo once. We get to his house and he pulls a pistol out of his coat and sits there with this pistol on my head talking a bunch of nonsense. He ends up telling me he'll be right back and not to go anywhere and walking into the house. I hauled ass.

was surrounded by like 15 sketchy bums once outside the los angeles greyhound station. They were all in a circle around me with one of them talking/demanding money. I had like $2000 cash on me going to Tacoma to pick up a truck I'd bought on ebay. I ended up telling them some story about going to visit my dad in prison and not having any money and just bullshitting my way out of it somehow.

I pulled a mouse nest out of a ceiling once doing demolition, then got ridiculously super sick, I really thought I had Hanta virus. But no, just regular mouseshitdust viruses.

skiing
went over the bars putting the traverse into lower evergreen at solitude. ended up hitting a tree, in the air, upside down, back first...then dropping onto my head in a pile of branches.

tomahawked down big chute in crested butte. I remember tumbling, feet hit, head/shoulders hit, over and over. At one point long into this I smelled pine, didn't feel it, didn't see it, I just smelled pine. when it was all over I found that I'd obiliterated a little 4-5 foot tree. I just smelled it as I went past.

Skiing with my buddy Socco in Taos on a storm day, we get to the top of Donkey. Nobody is near, it's just a whiteout, nobody else on the ridge, it's just blowing and dumping. The chute is totally windloaded and as we're standing there it does this huge whoomph. Well, we're already in the middle of it, so I just pointed it and straightlined the whole chute with it coming down behind me, where it opens up above avy road I made a big right turn out of the chute while the whole thing ran over the cat road. Socco skied down on the bed surface and a lap later the patrol closed the ridge and the backside.

there are so many more, but my mind is failing.

[hop]

Timely thread.

This morning I was about 1cm away from getting flattened by a 6-wheel truck.

I was biking in the bike lane down to Uni when I see a truck pull out trying to make a right (this is in the UK btw so he has to cross my lane of traffic). He stops in the middle of the bike lane and is poking into the car lane. I make eye contact with him as he's looking up the hill to see if there's a break in the cars so he can cross. Of course since he's completely blocking the lane I have to merge into traffic to get around him, but right as I am just crossing in front of him he guns it and tries to pull across traffic. I distinctly remember seeing the "VOLVO" insignia at my face level start heading towards me and I yelled "FUCK!". He stopped, and once I got passed him I stopped, turned around and gave him the "you're lucky I don't crawl into the cab and fucking kill you" look, then carried on.

I was also run off the road by a bus on the very same road about a month ago.

Whee!

Aside from that... can't think of much that I've done that I was really worried I might die because of.

[flyby]

shit yetiman, i gotta sit down and buy you a drink sometime.

[booner]

At Stevens Pass on Cowboy ridge if you hike up from Tye Mill all the way up the ridge and hit that nice steep shot with that tree that's always bent over for a nice drop...comes into a flat open area then there's 3 or 4 entrances to short chutes straight ahead...went to far right when first learning the different exits. I got into the trees with no way thru...I start traversing skiers right...basically up hill relative to the rest of Stevens...PHHOOOM!...fractures right between my feet about a foot and a half deep and 30 feet across and didn't take me with it. I was about 30 feet above nothing but solid trees.

Cabin in Sultan WA...3 of us there middle of nowhere, no phone...woodstove in the 400 sq ft living room. Me and a buddy sleep on couches in the living room. It's DUMPING when we crash at about 1 AM...ended up with I think 14" by morning. I'm woken up at about 2:30 by the sound of the fire that has engolved the entire corner of the opposite side of the room we're on. By the time I was on my feet half of the living room was on fire. Wake up buddy...other dude in the house is in the back and we can't get to him and he's not responding after screaming his name 3 or 4 times...he comes flying out right thru a small wall of fire...we get out of there...this dude grabs a 5 gallon bucket and I shit you not there was a creek 2 feet outside the door of this cabin. He puts the fire out in about 2 minutes by running right into the burning room and throwing water on the fire. My ski bag with 2 jackets, pants, 3 pairs of gloves, 2 pairs of goggles, 3 lenses, hats and MY BOOTS went down. One boot was just ugly looking, like a rabid pit bull got at it...the other was about the size of a baseball. Slept in my truck, puked from the smoke and didn't get the 14 inches of pow...The Chuck Norris kid that ran thru the fire and put the raging fire out with a fucking bucket slept in the house! I had room in my truck and 3 pieces of furniture went up...it smelled baaaad.

[toast2266]

yetiman FTW

his motorcycle stories reminded me of a (relatively minor) similar one.

Riding the VFR down I-25. Coming up fast on a large dump-truck. The kind that has an open top that's usually covered by canvas or whatever. What looks to be a large (8'x12' ish) piece of cardboard peels off the top of the pile of shit in the truck. I decide to avoid it, because hitting a large piece of cardboard at 90mph will suck. It's blowing around unpredictably as it floats to the road. As I pass it (its still half in the air), I notice that its not carboard - its a sheet metal highway sign. Missed it by ~5 feet. That would have sucked more than cardboard.

[TheArchitect]

bouldering under a fairly well known climbing area in new hampshire. went to grab what seemed to be a fairly solid flake just before the last 3 movies. i go to put all my weight onto my left arm and go to grab the next hold with my right. the flake that i just weighted made a fairly loud popping noise and i start to fall. 12 feet later i hit the ground on my back and the piece of granite that just popped lands about 3 inchs from my face. i get up and look at what i thought was a small hold, maybe softball or volley ball size, but it was not a small hold it was in fact a microwave sized hunk of rock. my friends just look at me and we all decided to call it a day.

[Shepherd Wong]

I don't think I've had any. I need to take more risks.

[Skipig25]

almost blowed myself up once playing with gasoline in high school.

snapped a rope over a tree once rappelling, lost control of the rope, caught it about 10' off the deck

[Nathan Explosion]

Not really skiing, but it scared the hell out of me. I had stomach problems for about a year, nobody could figure out what was going on. I had all kinds of answers from all sorts of different doctors, from diverticulitis, perforated ulcer, even stomach cancer, and even more unpleasant things. I was driving back from Taos, and then suddenly I was in agonizing pain and vomiting. I ended up at an emergency clinic, they couldn't really figure out what was going on, but evidently I had alot of blood in my urine. They loaded me up with Demerol, and I waited while my dad flew out to get me. I got home and went immediately to the hospital. After about an hour of CT scans, and then 45 solid minutes of ultrasound trying to find the problem, a surgeon who happens to live down the street from my dad now, finds the problem. My appendix was huge, almost six inches long, and had inverted. It had burst and healed a bunch of times, and I'd evidently been walking around with varying degrees of infection, and was at this point essentially septic. They told me I needed surgery immediately, or I'd be dead in 10-12 hours. Needless to say, I had the surgery, and have one of the more gnarly appendectomy scars that you can still get, mine was waaaaaaaay too big for MIS.

Skiing related was actually at PCMR last year. Skiing with my cousin who was just back from the DMZ (a ranger), he wanted to hit Tycoon, so I decided I'd hit the Black Forest and meet him at the lift. I dropped in and was amazed by the quality skiing at PCMR for once. Next thing I know, I'm cartwheeling through the trees. Some little tree snaked me and sent me flying, and I ended up bent in half with a tree in my stomach. No injuries, but I was damn glad I didn't hit my back/head.

But YetiMan has the best stories, I don't know why I bothered.