Tree well burial

Really snowy

Snow was really deep, no sign of avalanche, bad visibilty

Incident happened yesterday tuesday January 18th in Shames Backountry. At 11:45 we dropped into No Dogs (measured 2m of snow on the ridge, probably 1.5m recent), my ski partner was leading the way and fell head first in a tree well which I didn’t see or realised until hours after. After a few turns I stopped to close my vents filling up with snow. Excited by the ski conditions, I then kept skiing until reaching the skintrack while whistling and calling for my partner. Waited a good 15min at the skintrack, not hearing back from him I supposed he stopped higher up on the skin track because the snow was getting heavy. Made my way back up to the top of our run, waited a good 1/2h which is the time it usually takes us to climb this run, still no sign of my partner. I then decided to follow his track to see where he went, I quickly lost his track and ended up at the same spot on the skintrack, noticed that no one else than me went up the skintrack since my last run, I followed the skintrack all the way down looking, whistling and calling for him. Noticed no new tracks up, no skin track out of valley bottom and no signs of anyone else skiing around. With all the new snow and tree bombs falling off it was not easy to follow the signs. At this time I started to get worried… Made my way back up again, got to the top of the same run at 3pm, contacted a friend with my Inreach to check if they saw him at the base of the mountain, getting this weird feeling something was wrong. I started skiing down the same run but this time with my beacon ON, it did not take long until it started to bip, now the big worries were here… I slowed down and started a fine search, after less than 30sec I randomly hit his lost ski buried in the snow, next to me was a small tree cleared of snow, looked down and saw his blue jacket, triggered SOS on my Inreach and started yelling his name and digging him out from the downhill side. He was unconscious until I got his head cleared of the snow in around a minute. 3.5h have gone since burial…. He woke up and got out of the hole, he was buried around 2m deep head down at ground level and feet stuck in the tree. Quickly checked on him and started to warm him up with spare dry gloves, puffy, tuque and emergency blanket. Many cuddles were made to warm him up while I was communicating with the rescue team trough my Inreach. He was too cold to move, shaking, hyperventilating, and coughing a little bit of blood, no injury were found. Help was needed. I then regrouped all our gear before dark and grabbed some wood to start a fire, was not easy but got it going. Plan was made with rescue team, too late for helicopter, rescue was on the way, ETA 4h and planning to spend the night here and wait for the helicopter. After a few hours, conditions of the victim improved so we decided to get moving to stay warm, after communicating the new plan with rescue team; we followed the skintrack down until we met SAR team at valley bottom and made our way out all together. All this to say that being prepared for the worst by carrying the right equipment and knowing how to use it definitely saved his life. Be prepared to spend the night injured, and carry an emergency communication device is definitely a must! I used the Inreach for hours, sending around 20 texts and SOS in really wet and cold conditions with no problem, battery was at 70% when we got out at 21:30. Also would like to add that we probably all have lost a partner while backountry skiing, most of the time being so excited we just keep skiing just hoping for the best, well this will probably never happen for me again. Making a plan of where we are going, where we regroup and what to do if we loose each other would have saved hours of wandering around. Also thinking of carrying radios now… Backountry skiing for around 20 years, I have been in a few bad situations, trained for avalanches rescue and first aid but never had to deal with a tree well burial. I guess this is the case for most of us. Big thanks to everyone involved in the rescue, the community here have saved the skihill and lives more than once. Please keep on the fun skiing, and play safe!