Last Saturday (March 7th) we were flying out of Battle Abbey and our helicopter was delayed.  I called down on the sat phone.  The heli was being used for an avalanche rescue at Kicking Horse Resort and would be at the Abbey in about an hour which is not unusual.  there is often something of that nature going on on the weekend.  There are snowmobile accidents, traffic accidents and skier accidents.  From what I got out of the call, the outcome of the rescue did not sound positive.  This always gives me a pit in my stomach since I work in the avalanche business and know a lot of people who are out there skiing.  I always hope it won’t be one of them.  I rarely entertain the thought for long, so far I have been mainly unscathed by avalanche accidents.  On the flight out of the Abbey Don told me that the rescue went quickly.  the ski patrol located the victims right away and had them dug up in minutes.  However, he didn’t think either of them would survive.  Another disturbing, but removed piece of news.

The next day I went for breakfast in town with Tom and Kellie.  I ran in to Rob who had been skiing at the Horse the day before.  He was the person who told me that Hima had been one of the victims of the slide.

Hima and I grew up together in Canmore.  I don’t have a first memory of him, but I know we only knew each other after Grade 2 or so.  There was no memorable introduction, just a strong connection.  I remember eating spicy Indian food at his parents house, going skiing, doing the usual things kids do in a mining town.  Hima was into cars and motors and I remember a few good four wheeling sessions once we were old enough to get our hands on a vehicle.  He was always working to save money for his motor addiction.  I think he had a real job about 5 years ahead of the rest of us.  I remember when he got his first crotch rocket and saw God for the first time as he was flying through the poplar trees after an unsuccessful attempt at passing a Brewster bus on the 1A highway.  He had a need for speed which translated into motorcyle racing at first, then later in life, car racing.

One time I went to visit him in Edmonton while he was at U of A.  We did a four wheel slide around a cloverleaf at the bottom of the deep valley in town in his family’s Rabbit.  Wow, that was intense, but at the same time I felt like Hima knew what he was up to.  I was in good hands.  After that, I rode back to Canmore stuffed in the cargo area of the Rabbit along with Hima and Deviani’s stuff.  That’s how I remember it.

When Hima married Kavita I was down in Red Rocks, Las Vegas and wanted to be home for the wedding.  We were pulling on to the Interstate out of Vegas and my Tercel started doing some kind of funky thing. The front right brake seized up.  I totally lost it and was jumping around on the side of the road.  When I got back in the car it seemed to work fine, the jumping and yelling must have worked.  We carried on to Idaho, it was getting dark and we were low on gas.  I figured, well, we’re in America on the Interstate, there has got to be fuel available everywhere.  We ran out in a little town with a closed gas station, so we slept at the pump.  In the morning we fueled up and made it to the wedding.  It was at the base of Pigeon Mountain and I remember all the great food.  It was a good party and I was impressed with Kavita.  Those two looked good together.

That winter they came up to Assiniboine for a little honeymoon Rocky mountain style.  Hima brought some Indian food, we skied some of the nice tours around the area, it was great to be in the mountains together.  I think this was the seed for Hima’s trips to Battle Abbey later on.

Three years ago we were talking, having a beer or something, and I mentioned that I could use some help opening up the Abbey.  This involves a lot of shoveling, fixing things, cleaning the place up so it is ready for the guests.  Plus, we usually get in some skiing, make sure the snow is good, dig some pits and get a baseline on the stability.  Hima was excited about it.  He rented touring gear and came along.  I hadn’t skied with him since Assiniboine, which must have been in the mid 90′s.  It had been at least 10 years.  We did a bunch of shoveling, then one afternoon we decided to ski the Blue Danube ridge into the valley.  Hima was crashing all over the place, having a hard time with it which seemed strange to me.  I remebered skiing as kids and he was good.  We finally figured out that his rental bindings had the DIN set to 0 so they would pop out any time Hima torqued them at all.  He was getting kind of tired so he decided to wait for us about half way down the run.  He would begin breaking trail back to the cabin and we would catch up to him.  The rest of us skied on then climb back up to Hima who was still in the same place.  He had tried to go up but wasn’t able to break trail in the deep snow.  He had been working so hard at his racing career, family life and at Riegel Tuning that he was completely out of shape.  I thought, holy shit, how will he do getting back to the cabin which was about 1300′ above us?  We took it easy and slowly climbed back over the ridge to the cabin.  It was dark.  Hima just sat on the bench by the table looking pasty and pale.  He wouldn’t even drink a beer, water only.  Eventually he went outside and threw up.  After that, we took it easy on him.  He enjoyed the rest of the week and was really into the idea of doing more touring.   This was amazing to me because I have skied with a few people who have suffered like Hima did and you just don’t see them coming back for more.  They are usually done with it.  Hima saw the value in it though and was eager to get back out, get back in shape.  He started biking in the summer, riding to work, doing mountain bike rides. He took Kavita to Skoki for a weekend of cross country touring.  Then the next winter he bought his own touring set up and we went to Roger’s Pass.  By this time he was in good shape.  It  was awesome to see, he had the passion to get through the pain and get back at it.  I was psyched for him and he was ready to get out on more trips.  This year he came back to the Abbey.  Unfortunately the stability wasn’t that great, so we had to curtail our ski ambitions.  We did get out and do some good turns together.  Hima was eyign all the great lines around the hut and I was telling him that he had to come back later in the season or another year so we could ski them.  One evening he introduced us to “Din Putty,” a three card Indian gambling game.  There were a few good sessions and quite a bit of beer and scotch was consumed.  At the end of the last game we all went all in and Hima won the pot, sneaky litle bastard.  I had plenty of visions of future good times we were going to have at the Abbey.  Everyone loved him up there and he wsa so psyched about the whole thing.

I saw Hima once more after that trip.  He came by my place to drop off my car which he had taken to Calgary to put a block heater on it.  Later on he called me to invite me to Mike Weigele’s in April.  I was stoked about that.  4 days of heli skiing as a guest with Hima, nice.

Well, Hima isn’t around anymore.  Its a big loss for all of his friends and family.  You don’t meet people like Hima very often.  All I can say is that I have a lot of great memories and I miss him.  He died too young and right as he was starting to do well at all his ventures.  Since I started writing  this I had a bad ride in an avalanche myself.  Its a bad way to go and I’m sorrry it happened to you Hima.

Last Friday I was skiing with a group of long time guests and my friend and fellow guide, Tom Raudaschl, in Lee’s Trees at Sorcerer Lodge.  We had been skiing the same area all week due to poor stability.  There were only a few lines that we hadn’t skied at some point during the week.  On our last run of the week we went into one of these to check it out.  Tom took the group down into a gully on the left we had skied the day before and planned to cut back right into the line farther down.  I stayed on top and poked around the gully on the right.  I tried to ski cut two wind loaded pillows at the top of the gully with no success.  Next, I ski cut the gully itself.  I was going to cut across to a group of thicker trees on the other side.  When I was into the gully, it propagated higher up the slope and wider than I thought it might.  I got caught in the moving snow and lost my forward speed.  It was like bogging down in soft sand. I knew I wouldn’t make it to the other side of the gully.

My mind was churning out a ream of thoughts, “stay on top, keep your feet forward, you can’t get buried, I guess this is what Hima’s last ride would have felt like, you have to survive.”  There was nothing to grab on to and nowhere to go.   The main lobe of the avalanche hit me broadside and quickly flipped me over.  I felt one of my skis get ripped off.  I surfaced face forward in a river of moving snow with a good view of the trees ahead and the floor of the valley about 800 feet below.  I knew the trees were going to kill me.  I was desperate to get my feet in front of me but had little power to maneuver in the surging mass of snow.  I still had one tele ski on that I couldn’t get rid of.  It made a good anchor.  In a few seconds I smashed into a tree right across my chest.  I hung there for a moment as my legs swung around.  I thought I would be dead soon.  My breath was bubbly and rasping; it felt like my chest was crushed.  The avalanche carried me on through the trees.  I was struck numerous times on the feet, arms and chest.  I couldn’t see ahead very often as I was tumbled and pushed under the snow.  I did feel like I was able to keep my feet downhill most of the time.  At one point I fell over a small drop then surfaced in a steep glade leading to the bottom of the avalanche path.  Everything was moving around me.  There was one last tree at the bottom of the glade that I knew I was going to hit.  I was thrashing towards the side but ended up catching the tree on my left inner thigh.  I was flipped upside down, face up and hung off the tree by my left leg while the remains of the avalanche surged over top of me.  When everything settled down I was on the surface.  I was breathing in rapid, bubbling breaths, my chest ached.  I spit, expecting to see blood, but the spit was clear.  Maybe things weren’t completely dire.  I felt like everything might work out OK.  I realized the gurgling was from all the snow I had inhaled rather than from blood filling my lungs.  I might not be too badly beaten up after all.

I took off my gloves and my fingers were cold, white and clumsy.  It seemed like I had no blood in my extremities.  I carefully unzipped my jacket and pulled out my radio.  I was scared I would drop it down the slope.  It didn’t work, it must have been damaged when I hit the first tree.  I took off my pack and got out my shovel.  I was shaking and had a hard time putting it together.  I could barely shovel.  I made a few feeble scoops before I saw Baron coming down the slope above.

I think we saw each other at the same time, we were both yelling and excited to see each other.  I haven’t felt that euphoric and relieved before.  I wasn’t sure how long it would take Tom and the group to get to me because we were on opposite sides of a small ridge feature.  If they had skied farther down the other side, they could have ended up below me.  Seeing Baron took that worry off my mind.  I knew my leg was damaged but it felt quite comfortable wrapped around the tree with the natural traction of my body hanging down the hill.  Baron dug out a little ledge for me then the others began digging just above my leg.  The tree began to spring back uphill and I could feel the queasiness of broken bone at the tension on my leg increased.

Tom got on the radio and called back to the lodge.  Great Canadain Heliskiing was working nearby so they flew over to drop us a trauma kit with a Sager traction splint.  By this time they had me off the tree.  Brice was holding my upper body while Chuck kept traction on my leg.  It was only just at freezing but I was shivering violently.  Tom got the others to dig out a heli pad about 20 meters below while he ran around picking up the trauma gear and getting the Sager splint on me.  He was getting a hell of a work out, I bet his lungs were burning.  By this time Dirk from Canadian Helicopters in Golden was on the scene with an Astar.  Tom and the crew dragged me down to the improvised heli pad on a tarp.  This was unbelievably painful but I was glad they were getting me out quickly.  I would scream in agony then give a few words of encouragement to keep going and get it over with.  Dirk came in with the machine and they lifted me onto the floor.  I said a quick thank you to everyone, Chuck jumped in to ride with me, then we were airborne for Golden.

The vibration of the helicopter was uncomfortable but I was just glad to be heading for the hospital.  Dirk gave me the headset and Don McTighe, who flies us to Battle Abbey, gave my some friendly ribbing.  “Hey Robson, get off your back and get to work!”  He had just flown another guide from Battle Abbey to Golden with a broken tibia.

In Golden I had excellent care.  They even got me out of the helicopter with no pain.  I saw Tannis and Steve and talked with Diana.  Seems like the word was out.  When I got in the ambulance for the ride to Calgary, I got a visit from Jon and Jacob.  It was great to see some friends.

The ambulance ride to Calgary was a bit nasty because the attendants couldn’t give me any pain medications.  They had put me in another Sager splint in Golden and it started to feel like a leg hold trap around my ankle about 45 minutes into the ride.  Also, ambulances don’t have the smoothest suspension.  The driver offered to slow down for a smoother ride, but I asked him to speed up and get it over with.  We ended up waiting in the hallway in Emergency at the Foothills Hospital for an hour and a half before I could get some pain relief.

Once I got into Emergency, I had to get past the traction specialist.  This crusty bastard should get a different job.  He was going to remove my Sager splint and put on a more comfortable traction device.  He seemed oblivious that my leg was on the verge of excruciating pain.  He started rough handling the Sager and I just knew it was not going to end well.  Sure enough, he sent my leg in to full spasm, so I got one last taste of the pain of a broken femur.  Thanks buddy.  After I was past him, the care was excellent.  I was operated on right away and was out of the hospital on Tuesday.

Modern orthopaedics is incredible.  I have no cast and have already started simple rehab with no weight bearing.  From what the docs say, I should have a smooth recovery.

I would like to thank everyone who helped me out during this ordeal.  Thanks for getting me to hospital so quickly and thanks for looking after all my affairs.  Olivia, thank you for all the good care and love.  Mom, thanks for cleaning our house and helping out at the hospital.  Everybody, thank you for the meals and the help with our move to Harvie Heights on Saturday.

arrow is where I entered, X where I ended up and H is the heli landing

Propane is a refined energy source that should be used to run refined equipment, like cooking ranges, fridges and high efficiency heating equipment. I’m guilty of owning a regular propane hot water tank, and a propane instantaneous water heater that I use as an alternative to my wood fired boiler to run the infloor heating in my house. I added a water to water heat exchanger to my hot water tank so I can heat the water with wood heat when I fire the boiler. I’ll feel better once I get a solar hot water panel hooked into the system. Then I’ll have hot water from the sun in the summer and from wood heat in the winter. I think heating is a rudimentary use of energy and that we should make an effort to use rudimentary fuels in a clean way to produce heat, especially in our homes. We should save expensive, processed fuel like propane and electricity for other things.

Wood burning often gets a bad rap because a lot of us use inefficient, derilect woodstoves. It is worth getting a good stove. A clean burning stove makes some smoke while it warms up, then it just burns with mimimal visible exhaust. Your neighbours will hardly have time to get pissed off at the smoke belching from your chimney. Golden even has a rebate program that kicks in a few bucks when you buy a new stove and trade in your clunker. I know the current trend is moving away from wood heat, but we should consider the whole picture when we decide which energy is clean and which isn’t. A clean burning stove stoked with some locally grown firewood is a pretty sweet alternative to a baseboard powered by cheap coal and flooded valleys.