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Although it wasn't quite on par with the deaths of sixteen Sherpas earlier on Everest in 2014, it was headline news worldwide in 2003 when seven skiers were killed by an avalanche in the Selkirk Mountains. On January 20, at 10:45 a.m., during an avalanche from Tumbledown Mountain in the Selkirk Range, tonnes of snow carried 13 members of two, guided, back-country skiing groups down the 37-degree incline of a run called La Traviata and buried them. After a frantic hour of digging, there would be six survivors.
As assistant guide at the time, Vancouver Islander Ken Wylie first vividly recalled in Buried (Rocky Mountain Books $25), the doomed adventurers had arrived by helicopter from nearby Revelstoke for extreme skiing under the direction of Ruedi Beglinger, the owner and chief guide of the Selkirk Mountain Experience. He had been running ski tours from his Durrand Glacier Chalet every winter for the past eighteen years.
"Each year I ski over million vertical feet," Beglinger told new arrivals at their indoctrination session. Described as temperamental and autocratic, Beglinger, with "a sharp Swiss accent," also informed his guests they would have to pay for helicopter costs if they had to be evacuated due to injury. Lessons in avalanche preparedness were given. Skiers learned that if a person is buried in snow for 30 minutes, statistically they have only a fifty per cent chance of survival if retrieved.
Ken Wylie was buried for 35 minutes. Now an internationally certified mountain guide and a member of the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations, the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, and the American Mountain Guides Association, Wylie has led expeditions around the world, including New Zealand, Peru, Denali and Joshua Tree. He has also been an educator for organizations including Yamnuska Mountain School, Outward Bound Canada and Outward Bound USA, and has taught leadership, climbing and touring at the University of Calgary, Mount Royal University and Thompson Rivers University. Originally from Alberta, Wylie founded Mountains for Growth in 2013 to help individuals and groups gain personal insight and wisdom through outdoor adventures.
As profiled in the CBC documentary "The Weight We Carry," Wylie has also worked with men who are transitioning out of being homeless, offering journeys of connection and healing to those who have suffered deeply. Buried was re-released in an updated edition in 2020.
BOOKS
Buried (Rocky Mountain Books, 2014)
Buried: Updated Edition (Rocky Mountain Books, 2020)
2020: 9781771603850 • $25
2014: 978-1-77160-027-9 • $25
[BCBW 2020]
As assistant guide at the time, Vancouver Islander Ken Wylie first vividly recalled in Buried (Rocky Mountain Books $25), the doomed adventurers had arrived by helicopter from nearby Revelstoke for extreme skiing under the direction of Ruedi Beglinger, the owner and chief guide of the Selkirk Mountain Experience. He had been running ski tours from his Durrand Glacier Chalet every winter for the past eighteen years.
"Each year I ski over million vertical feet," Beglinger told new arrivals at their indoctrination session. Described as temperamental and autocratic, Beglinger, with "a sharp Swiss accent," also informed his guests they would have to pay for helicopter costs if they had to be evacuated due to injury. Lessons in avalanche preparedness were given. Skiers learned that if a person is buried in snow for 30 minutes, statistically they have only a fifty per cent chance of survival if retrieved.
Ken Wylie was buried for 35 minutes. Now an internationally certified mountain guide and a member of the International Federation of Mountain Guides Associations, the Association of Canadian Mountain Guides, and the American Mountain Guides Association, Wylie has led expeditions around the world, including New Zealand, Peru, Denali and Joshua Tree. He has also been an educator for organizations including Yamnuska Mountain School, Outward Bound Canada and Outward Bound USA, and has taught leadership, climbing and touring at the University of Calgary, Mount Royal University and Thompson Rivers University. Originally from Alberta, Wylie founded Mountains for Growth in 2013 to help individuals and groups gain personal insight and wisdom through outdoor adventures.
As profiled in the CBC documentary "The Weight We Carry," Wylie has also worked with men who are transitioning out of being homeless, offering journeys of connection and healing to those who have suffered deeply. Buried was re-released in an updated edition in 2020.
BOOKS
Buried (Rocky Mountain Books, 2014)
Buried: Updated Edition (Rocky Mountain Books, 2020)
2020: 9781771603850 • $25
2014: 978-1-77160-027-9 • $25
[BCBW 2020]
