MOUNT WASHINGTON, N.H. — A snowboarder and a skier are lucky to be alive after they got caught in a human-triggered avalanche on New Hampshire’s Mount Washington over the weekend.
The snowboarder and skier set out to ascend the Lion Head Trail on Saturday morning despite being aware of “considerable” avalanche danger in the area, according to the Mount Washington Avalanche Center.
Both members of the group had previous backcountry experience in multiple snow climates and mountain ranges, and they were carrying avalanche rescue equipment including a beacon, shovel, and probe, the Avalanche Center said.
After passing the top of Lion Head, the pair is said to have sought out a path offering less resistance, which ended up being “The Lip,” a steep, southeast facing convexity that rolls over into Tuckerman Ravine.
The snowboarder descended steepest part of the route first, pulled off to the side, and waited for the skier to descend the same section. As the skier made their way down, some debris to start to fall down the slope.
“A hard slab fractured underneath the skier and propagated diagonally out in both directions. The skier was able to stop above the crown line, while the snowboarder was entrained by the hard debris, which slid down into and through Chicken Rock Gully into the Tuckerman Ravine floor,” the Avalanche center said in a news release.
The snowboarder was left buried up to their waist in snow, but fortunately they were able to emerge unscathed.
Witnesses to the avalanche were able to capture high-quality video of the terrifying incident:
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