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OUT OF BOUNDS AND OUT OF LUCK - Part One By Lou Dawson Keno is a game of chance brought to the U.S. by the Chinese. Keno is also the name of an out-of-bounds (O.B.) backcountry skiing run off the backside of Aspen Mountain -- Aspen Colorado's signature ski hill. I remember Reno, Nevada late one night when I walked away with eleven hundred dollars in my hot little hands, won from a Keno game. Recently, while skiing O.B. in Keno Gully I lost a different game. I severely broke my leg and could have died from exposure or medical complications. Aspen's backcountry ski community has always talked about someone getting badly hurt while skiing out of bounds in Aspen. What would the ski patrol do? And how long would an evacuation really take? Little did I know the person we asked those questions about would be me. It snowed all day Friday and through Friday night. Saturday turned out to be one of those beautiful clear March days. The skiing was outrageous, bumps with piles of soft snow on top, good powder everywhere. It was crazy mach-ten all day except for a rest at the Sun Deck restaurant before last run. We decided on and O.B. shot down Keno gully. We left the restaurant at quarter till four and organized our group at the rope. It looked good, just five people, all strong and experienced. We were under equipped however, with little more than the items we skied with in the resort. No packs or shovels, just the clothing on our backs. As poorly prepared as we were, I shiver when I think of what the following would have been like with less competent companions. There were two former ski patrolmen in our group. The skiing was beautiful. Tasty March fluff. We knew the avalanche danger was extreme, so we skied one-at-a-time from tree to tree. We reached the real gully and ski cut the top several times. This produced an extensive settlement. I decided on a line a little to the left of the main gully, sort of a security line through some bushes and small trees. We worked our way down until we were above the large avalanche deposition area where several gullies intersect. The skiing looked great below so I went firing down the large open area at top speed. Everything seemed mellow and my mind faded out of the picture as I clocked off high speed turns. Then suddenly there were more bushes than snow, and it was all over. I made a quick turn to the right and tried to drop onto my ass. But I hit the bushes while still forward on my skis. My left ski caught, and my right ski came down on top of it, gluing it into place. My body kept moving forward but my randonnnee bindings didn't release.
I heard a loud CRACK as the bones in my lower leg fractured. My momentum then caused me to spiral back to the left. I ended up sitting on my butt with my left foot turned completely backwards and my feet still in my bindings. I was supporting myself on my hands, desperate to change position as the pain was intense. The problem was to keep razor sharp broken bone ends from punching through the thin skin of my leg as I sank deeper in the snow below my hands. My struggles caused the leg to bend farther and farther; panic overcame me. Just as I was getting ready to try something desperate, like gnawing off the trapped limb, my companions arrived and someone unlatched the binding. The relief was intense. But my foot was still turned around backwards and causing intense pain. More, if left that way the circulation could be impaired and I could loose the foot. Kendal, one of the former patrollers who was along, applied traction and twisted my foot back to the correct position -- as I screamed in pain. After that I was still hurting and in shock, but I switched from panic to survival mode. We splinted the leg then discussed alternatives. Our location wasn't the worst you could imagine, but it was bad. We were still about a thousand vertical feet above the valley floor, with the exit route below us blocked by thick brush, steep gullies and deep unconsolidated snow. We considered requesting a helicopter, but figured it would cost to much or only come in the morning, necessitating an overnight stay.
Also, we weren't sure a helicopter could get close enough to extricate me from the brush thicket in the narrow gully. We were loath to involve the ski patrol because of the Ski Corporation's well known aversion to backcountry skiers using their lifts for access. And we didn't want to involve mountain rescue because we'd developed a strong culture of self-sufficiency in our group, and frankly, we were blinded by pride.
Our attitude about Mountain Rescue Aspen (MRA) did have some basis in reality. While MRA could do competent hike and helicopter style missions, they couldn't perform extremely technical climbing rescues, thus local technical climbers such as our group didn't feel connected with them. As a result we'd always thought in terms of self sufficiency. A noble attitude in some ways but more than a little impractical in real life, as we'd soon find out. So, our attitude about getting rescued was to wonder if we really should expect MRA's help, e.g., any group of danger junkies should cover their own asses! And we're out there all the time around here, a lot of us, so we've got the manpower. Thus we planned my evacuation with this crazy do-it-yourself attitude and wouldn't notify the authorities till much later that evening. A mistake in some people's eyes [including my own 30 years later], but what turned out to be a beautiful experience of mountain brotherhood. Here I was, in the middle of the backcountry on the side of Aspen Mountain, with my leg half twisted off. And three-quarters-of-a-mile of mountainside, dense brush and waist-deep snow between me and the road. Not the worst situation with a good splint and four strong people, or so we were thinking. But as these thoughts tried to assert themselves pain took over my consciousness and I ceased taking much more part in the rescue than that of being a shock addled victim. Pain signals something isn't right in the body. I've always thought that after I became of aware of the damage from an injury, I could say to myself, "it's just a nerve impulse, I can handle it." But when my friends picked me up and tried to move me (It was necessary for us to move out of the middle of the avalanche path, in case a slide triggered), the pain took over. It got worse, and I soon I was ready to strike out blindly in the midst of desperate screaming. The waist-deep snow made it impossible to carry me without an incredible amount of jostling of the leg. Our splint didn't work. We'd used some crooked tree branches, and my leg wasn't supported properly. Every movement was agony. Luckily it wasn't too far to an area out of the avalanche path. As soon as we were safe I begged to be set down next to a fire and wait for rescue that would hopefully be something like a patrol toboggan. So much for our noble plans of self sufficient carrry-out. But we kept working from the point of view that we could do this with the local mountaineering community and not involve Mountain Rescue. PART TWO -- The Rescue, and an Analysis |
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