Jason Parker Reflects on Palisades Tahoe KT-22 Avalanche Burial
Wondering when a lifetime playing in the snow would finally catch up to him
I knew the numbers. 15 minutes was a critical mark, but so was 30. I also knew all the odds of survival under what conditions. I’d been playing them for years and I figured there could be a time soon when the ball of the big roulette wheel in the sky would land on lucky number 13. There was plenty of time to contemplate this now here in the dark and cold. I was almost fully still except for my eyes which were quickly darting from left to right and my hands and fingers which were making small movements in front of my face.
I could almost read my eulogy as I sat in this world of darkness with a single source of bright light maybe a couple of feet in front of my face. The eerie silence all around me in every direction was disturbing. “Don’t let your mind get carried away,” I consoled myself while trying to control my breathing. “You are not alone. The darkness will lift sometime soon and there will be people on the other side.”
Avalanches aren’t rational, though all the science and technology that accompanied me as I marched through my career as a professional engineer begged them to be so. We had taken avi classes with guided in-field training sessions. On multi-day tours, we had learned from experts all about the science of the snowpack and how to read terrain. On our own outings, we had dug pits of all sizes to perform shear tests with our portable shovels, skis, and sometimes with our full body weight jumping above giant holes to see what loadings would make blocks of snow fail under which conditions. We had bought and regularly practiced with all the right gear too: beacons, shovels, probe poles, field books, magnifiers, and the rest of the whole nine yards.
We’d skied in lots of places where we shouldn’t have been and had gotten away with it. Ski cutting across a heavy loaded Olmsted Point, an infamous avalanche zone in the Tuolumne Meadows high country deep in Yosemite National Park, immediately after days upon days of near continuous snowfall was particularly sketchy. Adding heavy sleds and huge packs to the mix didn’t do us any favors with the weak layers that were surely marbled somewhere beneath in the deep snowpack.
Repeatedly traversing across another well known avalanche path in Lassen National Park over many weekends and seasons, enroute to our favorite snow camping spots perched below the many gloopy gloppy gullies that make up the winter wonderland of the park’s backcountry had tested our luck as well. Was it going to slide this time? Let’s hope not, but let’s unbuckle our pack hip belts and loosen the straps, remove the wrist straps of our poles, and unhook our ski leashes so that we can jettison everything at a moment’s notice, if possible, should we hear the dreaded “whoomph” sounds and feel the world suddenly moving downhill.
Or how about on that ski descent on Mount Shasta when my buddy Pete and I were caught in a slow-moving wet slab avalanche? We were nearing the bottom of Giddy Giddy Gulch and about to congratulate ourselves on another safe summit descent when the mountain started moving. Deep in the gully, our horizon lines were cut short so we couldn’t see the full extent of the slide, but we certainly could tell that the world didn’t look or feel right. At a full stop to get our bearings, we saw what seemed to be the entire gulch flowing down around our boots. Crap! Quick! Ski out to the left! FAST!!! Thankfully at that time and place, we were close enough to safety that we were able to dodge another bullet.
Skiing through old avalanche debris was also very humbling. Passing beneath old avi runouts, treeless gullies with mangled wooded wonders sprinkled along the edges, was always spooky, even in the summertime when you could let your imagination run wild. Seeing a forest of giant pine trees turned upside down with their root balls thrust 20 to 30 feet up in the air at Mount Shasta’s Panther Meadows had been particularly disturbing. It wasn’t just suffocation that could take you out, it could be massive trauma from all the debris that flows with an avalanche.
Finally, I’m sure there were plenty of times when weak latent layers were lurking under our skis at the top of a slope where we said to hell with digging a pit. Time was ticking, the sun was out, and there was a giant empty playground over the edge. No friends on a powder day! No friends on a corn day! No friends on any day with an epic descent below our feet through enormous untracked bowls! Who has time for a shear pit? Nope not us. See ya!
Fast forward to today, we don’t take nearly as many risks as we used to. Something about growing up, getting wiser, raising a family, and having already had so many good times under our belts while thankfully having successfully negotiated some sketchy terrain.
So now back to contemplating the present situation. Just how was it that this particular avalanche happened, not somewhere out in a remote corner of the backcountry, but in-bounds at Palisades Tahoe, a major ski resort in the industry with one of the best avalanche control programs in the world? Further, of all places, why had G.S. Bowl of KT-22 fame slid? A popular line on such a trademark chair surely would have been well controlled. But again, avalanches aren’t always logical or scientific. Reasoning something out wasn’t going to make what just happened go away.
As many of you know, I’m an ultralight, minimalist traveler; I only take what I need and shed the rest. Do I wear a backpack when skiing lift served terrain? Never. Too uncomfortable and unwieldy. Do I wear a beacon when skiing in-bounds at a major ski resort? No. Do I remove my wrist straps at the top of a run? Nope. Do I unclip my ski leashes from my tele skis at the top of a fully loaded treeless gully when skiing at a resort? Against the rules, and besides, I don’t want to lose a ski!
In true minimalist fashion, I’m now here in the dark and cold, absolutely still, with no backpack on and I’m not wearing a beacon. My skis aren’t anywhere in sight and neither are my poles. The light directly in front of my face is not getting any brighter but just maybe everything else around me is lightening up a bit? Am I hearing some noises? This is quite unsettling to say the least. But, thankfully, the end of the story is near, no matter how this ends up.
Thankfully, I know that what I’m reading must turn out all okay. For how would Jason Parker have been reporting any of this if he had not been saved by the awesome team of rescuers comprised of ski patrol, mountain staff, and all of the other great people that jumped into action, rolled up their sleeves and went to work digging him out?
As I sit here comfortably in full darkness on the couch in my living room under a big cozy blanket reading on my phone about my doppelgänger, Jason Parker, getting buried beneath the snowpack, all I could think about is that it could have been me. My cell phone is a blur of light as my fingers swipe down through the article and my eyes dart from left to right as I quickly consume the story. Aha, yes, the noises I heard earlier were my wife getting up; I can now hear her footsteps coming down the hall. Have I got some news to share! This explains yesterday’s voicemail on her cell phone from the San Francisco press. They were trying to get a hold of me about my day at Palisades. Which day at Palisades and why?! So eerie that there’s another Jason Parker who lives in the Tahoe region, is nearly my same age, and may be found skiing KT-22 mid-week on a powder day.
Thankfully, like any ultralight minimalist would, I had shortened my name to Jay Parker years ago. Also, much more thankfully, I had decided not to ski that day at Palisades. Another bullet dodged, this was maybe a sign to never again extend my name to the full Jason Parker, lest all the years of avalanche debris, past, present and future, finally catch up to me and swallow me whole.
