Life Saver

What a weekend. I watched the new Harry Potter movie with Sam last night. While we watched it  I thought about all the myriad times their lives are in danger and they manage to survive through wit or pluck or magic. It struck me a little differently. I've always wondered if I would be able to keep it together in a life-threatening situation. And now I know that, at least sometimes, I can.

Huy and Sam and I went up for opening day at Meadows on Saturday. I was so excited to share a resort that I absolutely love with Sam. We had some issues with his bindings falling apart run-by-run but finally got it together and started taking some runs together. And then we got to this gully and decided to go down it. Gullies are fun. You can ride up the sides and there are little things to jump over and Sam found this tree to slide on and then he disappeared down a little drop and it sounded like he fell. I went down around the other side and found his board and his legs and that was it. He was buried face-down in some sort of hole. He could only move his legs a little bit. I started digging around him and tried to pull on him, but obviously couldn't move him (he weighs about 170) and people have about two and a half minutes when they're buried in an avalanche and I was just using my hands and couldn't find his head, had only uncovered his back and finally one of his arms and I was yelling for help and it had been about five minutes but no one was around and we were hidden in this gully, anyway. It was the most terrifying thing I have ever experienced. By far. I have nothing to compare it to. I sincerely thought he was going to die. Finally I just grabbed onto his board and I pulled him out. I must have had an adrenaline rush because it wasn't that hard, it just kind of happened and he popped out. He told me he expected to see like, three people standing there, but it was just me. He had created a little pocket with his hand so he still had some air but his face was still kind of purple. And we both just kind of sat there and tried not to be hysterical. And we hugged and tried to warm up my hands because I took my gloves off at some point, in the panic, and they were frozen.

So, we took a few more runs after that (we took a break and dried out our goggles and whatnot) and the whole day felt so surreal, with this disaster averted, this thing that you hear about happening to other people but never to you, and it's staying with me. I still can't believe it happened.