+++Vibes for Seth Lightcap aka Bigfoot

Man that is one terrifying ordeal. All the best on recovery.

my god that sounds shitty. heal up quickly seth!

Oh my dear god! Dude, Seth, you are SOOOOO LUCKY!!!

Thank you for the writeup. Stories like this are priceless.. We all need to hear this stuff and be aware of the dangers. Even from just 6 inches.

I recently did a ski cut on the top of the White Salmon Glacier, and set off a 12 inch wetslab that propagated and built into monstrous proportions. Upon riding down to the bottom and across the debris pile it became CLEARLY apparent that getting caught in one of these is serious bad news. What started as a 6 foot wide, 1 ft deep point release magnified to a slide that traveled 2000 feet down hill, and piled up over 100 feet wide and 6-8 feet deep. This was the biggest slide I’ve ever set off, and I can only imagine that the crushing forces must be truly astronomical in there.

SAFETY FIRST!!!

Get well soon!

Scary ordeal!

Thanks for all the well wishes everybody. I really appreciate the support. Excited to say i’m finally healing up and getting stronger everyday. My mind is set on a full recovery by late summer/fall but definitely taking it one day at a time.

Stoked many of you found hearing about the accident details worthwhile as well. It was a horrific ordeal that i’d never wish upon anyone so hopefully you’ll remember seeing my gruesome x-rays next time you’re debating a line in suspect conditions…even if the snow is only six inches deep.

Don’t let my accident deter you from a splitboard trip to Japan though. The travel logistics are simple, the terrain is insane and the backcountry access is ridiculously easy. Avy conditions will vary as usual, but there is rad terrain of every aspect so you can always find something safe to shred. If you care for a little more Ja’Pow stoke, check out this video that highlights some of the good times we had in Japan prior to the accident:

http://unofficialnetworks.com/2011/05/31/japow-shots-hakuba-myoko/

Enjoy the endless winter!

Holy shit, been outta town for a while and finally getting caught up stuff here. Damn, that is one scary avy account! Glad to hear you’re OK Seth. Also, I wanted to say thanks for posting a detailed account of what happened. I think that there is a tendency on the online forums (moreso in some of the “other” forums, but also happens here) for people to not want to talk about this kind of stuff, or when anything bad happens, poor decisions made, etc. Maybe it’s a fear of getting blasted on the public interwebz from armchair quarterbacks who have no idea what they are talking about – certainly a legitimate concern on some forums! But I think this can lead to a communal sense of complacency, particularly for noobs who come here and just see a bunch of TRs with pics of people getting rad in the backcountry, with little discussion of when things go wrong, or the thought process regarding snow safety when people are approaching descents.

Anyway, hope you heal up soon, and thanks again for the detailed account. Gonna look into one of those tarps! The way things have been going here weather-wise, you may still be able to get in a few more Sierra turns in this season by the time you’re healed up!

(BTW I realized that I actually met you last summer at N*. It was in Oct, last weekend the bike park was open. I was having lunch with Karl Rogne and his girlfriend in Earthly Delights, and you were in there with a buddy and he introduced us. I kept thinking to myself “why does this guy seem familiar”… then later Karl told me that you were really into backcountry snowboarding, and I finally put 2 and 2 together. Small world!)