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The skier silently slices his way through the deep soft powder, cutting across the top of Arapahoe Basin's summit. He tucks into a ball and rushes headlong down the mountain. Gathering more speed as the steepness increases and prepares him for the transition as he reaches the steep upgrade that leads along the massive headwall and up to the entrance to Lover’s Leap and the Palavachini. Gathering speed he crosses the Pali and begins his decent down the front-side of the mountain. He is deep into the trees and there is deafening silence except for the whooshing of the snow and occasional clacking of his skis. The bright orange Avalanche Danger signs and ropes closing off the trail become visible and he slides to a halt alongside them. Checking back over his shoulder for a patrolman he reaches down, lifts the rope and slips under.
Tom Dillion looks down the trail and sees the skier cut the out of bounds markers. He quickly sets his sights down the trail and lets his skis run downhill and gathers momentum as he rushes headlong toward the figure.
“Hey! Hey! That trail is closed! What the hell do you think you’re up to?” Tom slides to a halt, his skis sliding against the pile of snow gathering against the edges. “You shouldn’t have been in there, the patrol closed it for a reason,” Tom’s indignation at the audacity of the errant skier is apparent in his tone.
“I was going down a ways and going to cut across through the trees back to the Pali.”
“That’s no excuse to cut a closed trail. Wait, Wait I recognize you, Joe the mountain owner warned you off the trail yesterday. You’ve got to get out of there before something bad happens. It’s not worth it, trust me, I was in a slide once and you have no control over nature. It will take you and the entire mountainside along with the trees down. You need to get out of there and you need to do it now.”
The skier mumbles something unintelligible, slides under the ropes and slowly starts away. Tom turns and heads back down the hill, not looking back. Seeing Tom disappear the skier turns ducks back under the Out of Bounds rope and signs and skied off down the hill. He cut across an open snowfield and turns quickly along the trees of Lover’s Leap. Silently above him a large fracture appeares in the hillside several hundred yards back. An enormous slab breaks free and a wall of snow starts moving toward the unaware figure. Laughing out loud over his stroke of good fortune and newfound powder stash, he slips silently in and out of the Aspen trees as if they were racing gates. Carrying more speed than would be safe in the thickening pines he careens haphazardly back out into the open field. Suddenly he feels a wet stinging on the back of his neck and sees the snow rising up around his legs and thighs. Too late, he realizes he is in a massive avalanche and is overcome by the large wall of snow boulders and slabs. Both of his legs snap and he is tossed dangerously down the grade. The safety avalanche airbag inflates and he rises to the top of the snow as it carries him careening down the slope. It begins to settle and harden like cement around him. He has fallen hundreds of feet and can hardly see the ribbon of macadam that is Route Six as it heads up to A-Basin’s parking lot and up and over the Divide. Slowly agonizingly he claws, scratches and pulls his way along the trail until he is fifty feet from the roadside. Looking down the road he sees a car driving up the hill. He lets out a guttural scream and in desperation raises his arm in an attempt to signal for help. The car drives by unaware of the urgent need of the skier.
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