VIDEO: Looking Back On A Successful 13-foot Deep Companion Burial Rescue

This is a sobering reminder that the worst can happen in the mountains – sometimes we miscalculate and a partner gets buried in an avalanche. In the case of these climbers, an already bad scenario turned into a full-on nightmare. When Tim Banfield turned on his avalanche transceiver to find his friend, climber Michelle Kadatz, buried four meters beneath him, he realized this rescue was not going to follow the textbook. In the spring of 2018, Tim and Michelle headed out with friend and fellow climber Maia Schumacher for a relaxed day scouting ice climbing routes in Banff, Canada. The remarkable series of events that followed ended with one of the deepest companion rescues on record. Watch Tim, Michelle and Maia retrace their steps and reflect on the lessons learned in Mammut’s latest episode of their Aspects series. Mammut is the official safety partner of Teton Gravity Research.