"It could've been worse" TR - Y Couloir 1/28/06

[Trackhead]

Sweet! Now we have a Volkl and a Freeride to burn for the October sacrifice!

[Arty50]

Sweet! Now we have a Volkl and a Freeride to burn for the October sacrifice!

Blasphemy!!! One does not burn the Buddha!!!

Congrats on finding your shit, X.

[Trackhead]

Blasphemy!!! One does not burn the Buddha!!!

Bullshit, Budha meant those to be burned, honoring and acknowledging his safe return.

Burn bitch, burn.

[schindlerpiste]

Wow. I'm impressed. Well done! Here's to you, mang.

[Conundrum]

I wish I wouldn't have missed this thread last year. It's one of the better threads on TGR for so many reasons. Definitely HOF material. Glad your ok and Budha made it home!

[skiitsbetter]

I'm glad you didnt get strained through those rocks at the bottom. Glad to see you are ok!!

EDIT: I see I am a year late... Any reflections on this experience?

[tommyvee]

First of all, I'm glad you're both ok.

I just wanted to say that a lot of times on this forum many people try and apply way too much safety to a sport which is inherently dangerous. Our sport is full of risks, and instead of most just accepting that, we're always asking "what could we have done to prevent this"? That is a good approach much of the time, but sometimes you just have to realise that shit happens. That is pretty much the conclusion that I've come to in the events that you both have described. All of us who ski accept these risks as part of the game. I think you both made an intelligent decision, deciding to give it some time to put it into perspective.
Thanks for sharing.

Skiing is inherently dangerous, but we still do have a lot of choice over the risk level we accept. The biggest choice is whether we ski a particular line at all, rather than how we ski it, with safe zones,etc. Personally, I am not confident enough in my avalanche forcasting abilities to ski lines with big consequences in mid-winter conditions very often. Yet I ski those same lines in spring conditions where the avalanche risks are easily minimized with melt-freeze timing, but the risks of falls are much greater. I have been injured more than once in out-of-control falls on icy steeps, but I still more confident in my ability to evaluate those risks than to predict the behavior of many tons of complicated snowpack hanging over my head.
When I do ski midwinter steeps I tend to ski ridges rather than the chutes and couloirs braver people than me put their lines down. So I would argue I have substantial control over my level of risk, at the cost of missing some powder bliss.