Day three is blue bird. We wake up stoked, have a quick breakfast and are in the heli by 9am. By 9:10 we are on top of some of the burliest terrain I have seen in my life. Unfortunately the evil Shmoo lord has half cooked the snow to a sticky white glue substance. Shmoo sucks, like seriously, it sucks my base down and makess me fall and curse. Luckily Shane Szocs, one of the K2 ski team members, points out a face that looks good and is north facing protecting it from the Shmoo overlord. The copter lets us off on the top of the face which is a two hundred foot high razor ridge about 8 feet wide at the most. The copter has to nose in leaving one ski hanging over a 1800 foot precipiece and the other touching our 8 foot patch of snow. So, on the one hand we have a 200 foot long 40 degree slope highly prone to avalanche due to surface hore, or an 1800 foot sheer drop to the valley bottom. Once you're up there, there is only one way down. Fox has opted to got first and pins a line down the face dropping a rock out cropping half way down, and riding out clean. Szocs is next and sends it over a set of triple drops stomping his clean. Now it's my turn. I have to billy goat around a narrow outcropping to get to my line but realize it is impossible since it now goes up hill. I decide to drop anyway. As I cut across a small dip to line up for the drop below I catch a dreaded fracture line rippling across the face beneath me. f*ck, I have to point it. I straight line for the drop and hit it fine but underestimate the bounciness of the snow, which sends me into a wheelie. Before I know it the slide behind has caught up to and engulfed me. Snow clogs my lungs and a sea of white clouds my vision. I wildly try to swim with one arm and unplug my throat with the other. It's funny I'm not panicing just reacting. Suddenly it's all over. As the snow dust clears I find myself at the bottom waist deep in a pile of debris. I quickly dig myself out and ride over to the crew, who are relieved as I am that I am okay. We spend the rest of the lay back slashing wind rolls, laughing at the evil shmoo, his powers some how diminished. For me, I'm all smiles, after having one of the most humbling experiences of my life.
-Gerhard
