I couldn’t sleep last night.
I was up in a helicopter yesterday putting some large explosives on one of our avalanche slide paths at Crystal when I had a very close call.
As usual we had taken all the safety precautions of confirming the area was closed all day, and guards were posted at the rope lines. We had a clear view of the slide path and run out when I lit a 25 pound bag of anfo and threw it out the door of the ship. Then I saw a man skiing over my shot. He was skiing towards my burning explosive and had no idea it was there.
I froze. Knowing it would detonate in seconds. I thought I’d be sick. Here I am trying to keep people safe and open terrain for everyone to ski and I might kill him. I couldn’t breath.
Fortunately, he kept skiing and the explosive blew up 30 seconds after he skied over it. And fortunately the slope did not release.
I can’t post any pictures or sugar coat this article with how great powder skiing is because I am so angry with poachers for making me this upset. If the timing had been different I would never be able to live with myself. I wouldn’t be able to work at Crystal any longer or get a full night of sleep. How could he do this to us?
Don’t poach.
by Christina von Mertens
Thanks, I too would love to get this event out of my patrol history. He looked right at me while I was yelling at him to stop. Closest call I ha
ve seen in 30 years as a pro patroller!
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I hope this can be a lesson to others. This one violator wasn’t alone. There were several tracks on Employee Housing from earlier that day. I just hope people realize that when we close terrain, there’s a very good reason. A 50lb explosive is a pretty darn good reason.
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