Alex Gavic, snowboarding the Utah backcountry with a friend, was cautiously making his way down a couloir when he noticed a fracture in the snow 200 feet below, forcing him to quickly take evasive measures.
Gavic, using a 360 GoPro Max camera mounted on a pole from his backpack (it automatically edits out the pole), captured his slick move in video:
“We knew the avalanche stability was touchy,” Gavic told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors on Tuesday. “I entered this line with caution. When I thought I was safe I started to make some turns. I saw the dope fracture 200 feet below me so I gunned it to the shelter of the rocks.
“Had I not made it there, I would’ve definitely ‘gone for the ride’ for the remaining duration of the slope, about 500 vertical feet. I was so relieved to grab on to that rock. I don’t think I would’ve gotten buried, as the avalanche debris trickled out, but it’s never something you want to do, get carried down a slope with a bunch of snow.”
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Gavic, snowboarding out of Salt Lake City, always carries a beacon, probe and shovel, and knows how to use them.
“That’s the key, knowing how to use them” he told For The Win Outdoors. “But this was the first time I’ve almost been carried away in the 10 years I’ve been in the backcountry.”
Photo courtesy of ViralHog.