Tree Wells - It can happen to anyone, including me.

I enter the ski area via a path along the survey line between my property and the hill. It is narrow, and in this weather, very fast. As I picked up speed, I was thinking about the old skinny ski trick of putting one's poles between your legs and sitting on them to slow down. I didn't have time to try it.

I must have caught an edge or something, and the next thing I knew, I was sitting in a chest deep tree well with my skis in the air.

I was able to remove my skis using my feet, and after some effort, was able to get on my feet in the sugary hole. I knocked a lot of the snow down to raise the level I was standing on, then uncovered a stump of a small tree that gave me a little raised step. Poles horizontal up top to keep my hands from sinking as I pulled myself up.

If I had not been able to extricate myself, I was in shouting distance of a nearby cabin, and I am sure Wylee would have eventually found me. I did have my cell phone with me.

I didn't panic, but a fall like that can have much worse consequences when the tree(s) are heavily laden with snow - it lands on you before you know it.

On the hill - the wells are deeper. Don't ski off piste alone. Waiting for your companion at the bottom doesn't cut it. When skiing the powder, try to keep each other in sight, and stop and holler if you don't know where they are.

I have posted about this many times - the year that Whitewater opened, Terry Smith drove a bunch of us to Whitewater in the Baldy Bus mid-week. I was skiing under the chair with another Baldy ski instructor, and lost sight of him. I stopped, knowing he couldn't be that far ahead of me. I found him head down in a tree well, suspended by his skis. I was able to take his skis off and help him out.