Jason Parker was snowboarding at Palisades Tahoe on Wednesday when an avalanche erupted on the mountain, burying him underneath feet of snow and killing one man.
It was the first day the KT-22 chairlift was open at the ski resort in Olympic Valley, California, and Parker and his fiancée both had a day off, so, despite the low visibility and strong winds, they decided to hit the slopes.
“It was open, and we took advantage of it,” Parker, who lives just outside downtown Reno, told NBC News.
When they reached the peak of KT-22, Parker and his partner turned right and had a successful trip down the mountain. They then went back up to do it again, but this time, around 9:25 a.m. local time, they went to the left.
Parker, 52, an experienced skier and snowboarder with 35 years under his belt, headed down the mountain first with his partner trailing. Eventually, he said, he felt some “slough come by me,” which was “nothing to worry about.”
“Five seconds later, that’s when the avalanche hit me,” Parker said. “It swept me off my feet, threw me onto my back.”
At first it was slow, he said, describing being in a river while the water is “pulling you down.” He tried to stay above the avalanche, something he had learned from training, he said, until he approached a gulley he had intended to traverse.
“That’s when it accelerated,” he said, recalling how the snow and debris rushed down the steep part of the gulley. He yelled for skiers nearby to “watch me” so they could hopefully find him wherever he ended up.
He was flipped onto his stomach and was heading headfirst down the mountain when, he said, the snowslide started to slow.
“That’s when it just covered me up and there was nothing I could do. It was just, like, entombed me,” he said.
Waiting to be found and accepting his fate
Parker made a “split-second decision” to punch a 6-inch air hole in front of his face so he could breathe and yell for help, but he couldn’t move his body and couldn’t hear anybody around him…
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