Video: A snowboarder and a skier managed to escape just in time from an avalanche in the United States

RJ Phipps he was climbing Tuckerman Ravine in Mount Washington this weekend with his wife when he pulled out his camera to photograph a snowboarder and a skier.

Within seconds, Phipps saw how an avalanche almost swallowed the two men. He captured it all on video.

The unidentified skier was able to cross the side of the avalanche on Saturday, when the snowboarder almost seems to be riding the avalanche down the mountain. The snowboarder, who was seated when the avalanche hit, found himself several hundred feet down the ravine and waist deep in snow. Both people escaped unscathed. The location of the avalanche was approximately 4,800 feet up the mountain.

“It looked like it was basically sliding down the mountain,” Phipps said, adding that he was surprised to see the men there and “super worried because there’s a lot of death that comes with avalanches.”

“I was sitting there and when the avalanche hit it and all the snow started coming down the mountain,” he continued. “When I was coming down, my only thought was to keep an eye on him. If he was to be buried, where was the last place Where did I see him to have a starting point if we had to launch a rescue?

Jeff Fongemie, Acting Director of Mount Washington Avalanche Centerhe said that the avalanche was unintentionally caused by the skier, who had experience in multiple snowy climates and mountain ranges. Due to recent snowstorms, Fongemie described the avalanche potential in Tuckerman Ravine on Saturday as significant. It had the potential “to easily bury and kill a person”, he added.

“It was just luck,” Fongemie said of the two uninjured survivors he briefly interviewed before leaving the area. “Once you enter it, there is little you can do to control your destiny. You only hope for the best.”

Fungemie said that avalanches are relatively common from December to May in the White Mountain National Forests, which includes Mount Washington. But they rarely hurt or kill anyone.

A Vermont backcountry skier died in February 2021 following an avalanche on Mount Washington. In December of that year, two skiers became trapped in a man-made avalanche near the summit of Left Gully on Mount Washington, seriously injuring one of them.

“There are a lot of people out there having fun and not causing these avalanches,” Fongemie said. “These are just field options.”

(With AP information)

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