The original plan was to go to Mirror Lake, but since we had a lot of snow in previous days, plows had no other option than to block the parking lot to Mirror Lake and hence access to it. Now, when they say a lot of snow it means that, at the time, there was more than 140% of the normal snow. At lower altitudes, the problems were even bigger with some locations exceeding 300% of the normal snow. Since we could not get to Mirror Lake, we decided to go on to Tyee Lodge for the day (the same lodge we went to for snow caving). From the trail head it was pretty clear the amount of snow. Just the wall where the access point is was about 12 feet high. Above that, we noticed that there were at least 2 or 3 feet of new snow on top of what we had when we went snow caving. All this snow was new and non-compacted. I was wearing my 30” snowshoes and with that, I was sinking up to my knees! As you could imagine, the scenery was spectacular. It was very hard to see how much new snow there was until we got to see a good reference like the entrance to the lodge that was completely submerged or the power lines just a couple of feet above us. After digging out the entrance to the lodge and rest for a bit, we went out to play in the snow. First we went up to another close by lodge used mainly by campers that go there just for fun. After watching them slide down in tubes, we decided to go look for slides and tubes at the lodge so we could do the same. Luckily there were a couple of slides and a tube at the lodge, so the only thing needed was a clear path to slide. The fun part started shortly after. The highlight of the day happened when we were sliding and Amanda just disappeared, literally, in front of a tree. We already knew about this danger and actually talked about it on the way to the lodge. For those of you who don’t know what a tree well is, it is just a hole filled with very soft snow right under (or around the trunk) of trees with low branches (pine trees mostly). These holes are formed because the branches prevent the snow from falling under. The problem is falling in these holes since you would sink in snow. For skiers and snowboarders this is particularly dangerous since they mostly fall head first. If there’s nobody near to help dig the person out, the possibilities of survival is around 10% and the person can suffocate or drown in snow. If there are people around, chances are better. Falling on the side or standing up or even trying to grab onto anything so the head is up when falling increases the possibilities of getting out without a problem (obviously avoiding trees with low branches helps). So Amanda was sliding down and fell into a tree well. In the pictures you will barely see her head and one arm sticking out. Check out the video as well. Luckily we were all there and rushed to dig her out without major issues. After that we continued sliding and having fun. Nothing like spending a day with deep snow and practice our rescue skills and knowledge of the dangers in the mountain
View pictures of the hike | View rescue video |
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