Anchorage backcountry skier survives avalanche
ANCHORAGE - An avalanche swept a man 1,500 feet down a mountainside before spitting him out and freeing him.
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Rory Stark, 36, of Anchorage, was airlifted to a hospital for treatment of a compound leg fracture.
Alaska State Trooper spokeswoman Megan Peters said the man rode the avalanche Saturday from just below the ridgeline of Silvertip almost all the way to Sixmile Creek.
At one point, the avalanche stopped and buried Stark under snow, Peters said. Then it regained its momentum and as it roared down the slope, Stark was tossed free.
"He told the trooper that when it stopped it was almost like concrete, and he was under the snow and couldn't breathe," Peters said. "Then it kept going and it spit him out on top. So he was very lucky."
Stark, an outdoorsman who was a co-winner of the 2005 Alaska Wilderness Classic, was backcountry skiing with friends in Chugach National Forest.
The skiers recognized the potential for an avalanche as they began to ski down Silvertip and decided that they would descend one at a time, Peters said. The first skier made it unscathed, but Stark triggered the slide.
The avalanche deposited him in terrain difficult to reach, Peters said.
Troopers on snowmachine were able to get only within 400 feet of Stark, who was on the other side of a steep gully.
The Rescue Coordination Center then sent a helicopter that took Stark to Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage.
In a recorded avalanche report Sunday morning, Lisa Portune from the Chugach National Forest Avalanche Information Center, said the avalanche started small but got bigger and bigger, ultimately taking out the entire drainage area.