Back to Dry Fork

Morning blower powder, 
Drew Setting up for the shot, 
"A rock and a hard place" 
The cliff 
The pack: Rock 1, pack 0

You know that old saying "between a rock and a hard place"? Well, I've been to that exact place. And it's in the Dry Fork area in the Alta backcountry. Let me explain. Friday, the first bluebird day after Utah's latest storm, I went out shooting with photographer Drew Stoecklein. We were making good powder turns all day and hitting small cliff bands. At about 2 pm, we decided to hit a 40-foot cliff that I'd hit once before. I stood on top, lobbing snowballs to estimate my trajectory. Drew probed the landing. I tightened my spine protector just to be safe and launched off the edge. Usually, I'd hottub the landing and lay it out on my side, but at the last minute, I decided to try to stomp it and land on my feet. It turned out that decision might have saved me. When I hit ground, I heard a solid bang and felt rock beneath me. A shock shot through my heels and into my lower back. I double ejected and ragdolled about 20 feet below. When I looked up at my bombhole, I saw that I'd landed on an extended rock shelf below the cliff. If I'd been one foot in either direction, I would have hit bottomless powder. I ripped my Ogio pack apart, broke the zipper on my Helly Hansen Odin jacket, but miraculously, my Dynastar Big Dumps (which I'm currently testing) were unscratched. 

As Drew and I hiked out of Dry Fork, we talked about the air, and how lucky I was, and of the beer we would be drinking down at the Goldminer's Daughter. It was a successful day of shooting, with a little added spice to it.