Tucks Accident

[eatskisleep]

Hillman’s is usually a better option to avoid the circus show. Safer IMO and a Longer run too.

 

[Smellytele]

There are a couple of standng rules that anyone knows when skiing Tucks in the spring.
- NEVER ski near or below the water fall. The snow is undermined and there is real danger. Even that guy who looks like he is coming to the snow boarders rescue is risking his life. There could have been a collape and he would be gone.
- If you are going to hang at Lunch Rocks, pick a big enough boulder to stay behind to protect you from any falling ice.
- Stay away from the big line of people going up. Some moron is going to slip and fall and take you out.

By the way I think there are probably slighly more morons now. But not much more. Having to hike up to the base and then up the headwall weeds out the lazy morons.

I have been that moron and slipped (actually foot hole gave out) going up the lip and knocked down the guy behind me who in turn took out 15 to 20 others. I got back up and continued on.

 

[BodeMiller1]

I was there at the time. I originally posted this on SnowJournal, but figured it might be of interest here.

...When I got the bottom, another person was right above the Headwall cliff a few people had jumped. He was a snowboarder and seemed unconfident. It looked like he wanted to get out. He then slipped down further right to the rocky lip at the edge of the cliff. He took a long time to assess and he really seemed to wish he could climb out, but it would have been extremely difficult with the snowboard and not falling off the cliff anyways. Everyone shouted "noooo" to try to disuade him. The scene played out for at least 10-15 minutes. I hoped he would wait for someone to come rope him out. My heart lurched when instead of dropping to viewer's left where the other people had jumped, he continued to viewer's right where he could get a little lower, but was right over one of the two waterfalls. He was out of room to maneuver and to everyone's horror, he was soon in the air with very little speed where he fell 20 feet, starting a little bit to the side of the waterfall, but essentially falling straight down, swallowed right into the hole/crevasse the waterfall was going into at a high speed. Everyone became hushed. I was in a bit of a shock. I thought he most likely would be suffering an agonizing death in cold water perhaps 50 feet below the surface. After a very two or three minutes, incredibly the tip of his snowboard emerged from the hole! What a huge relief! There was still uncertainty as to whether or not he was stuck, but after about 5 minutes he managed to pull himself out. Fortunately he had an ice ax. It was hard to avert my eyes, but it is something I never hope to see again and it definitely affected me for a while afterwards...

...All in all I was really glad to come back to Tuckermans after a while, but witnessing the near death experience definitely changed the tone of the rest of the day. Right after the incident, another guy on skis came down to the same place, but the crowd tried hard to convince him to not do it and he finally backed out.

Thank You.

 

[KustyTheKlown]

I'm old and lazy so I ride lifts these days but if I ever got back into skiing bc there's a whole world of stuff that I would get on that's not tucks

i'd be lying if i said i have done most of this. honestly I've hardly done any of it. for me it mostly comes down to opportunity cost in that i have to drive so far to ski that i am not going to spend so much time hiking and skinning. i would be way more into it if i lived closer. but i love thumbing thru my copy of this book, and there is indeed much more to backcountry in new england than tuckerman - https://www.amazon.com/Best-Backcou...cphy=9003562&hvtargid=pla-1245982049680&psc=1

 

[BodeMiller1]

^^^
Same here, I hiked Mt Washington more times than I can count. Hiked up and watched people ski the Tucks many times. Never skied it. I'd be too tired after the hike (with 40 lbs. of ski stuff). It's a risk reward thing. If I catch an edge and go into the woods some where there's a good chance someone will see me and I'll be okay. If I fall through a crevice in the bowl it doesn't matter, good chance I'm done. Broken bones, cold water, I'd have weed on me, butt can you get it lit? Don't want to be eating just under 3/4 oz and hoping it kicks in to help with the pain.

The guy who went down the hole should be comended it would have been easy to panic...

 

[Blanton]

Amazing what beginners can do with the heel side edge of a snowboard

 

[Kingslug20]

Maybe due to social media people don't realize how difficult and dangerous tux is.
Looks like a fun party!
I hiked it with the late great Andy Z...
We climbed up and over to ski a chute...got lost and got back 9:00 pm...I will never forget that trip.
I might be interested in Hillmans....

 

[KustyTheKlown]

Amazing what beginners can do with the heel side edge of a snowboard

lol one of my buddies is a snowboarder. he's gotten pretty good, but for a while he was solidly intermediate and would travel with me and a few buddies who like to ski some spicy stuff. snowboard homey would always be down to follow, he would just often ending up doing dumb heel side shit, and often going down steep/rocky areas on his butt. i immediately sent him this video yesterday and said 'basically you 10 years ago'.

 

[Hawk]

I have been that moron and slipped (actually foot hole gave out) going up the lip and knocked down the guy behind me who in turn took out 15 to 20 others. I got back up and continued on.

Sorry Smelly I guess anybody can have a bad day.

 

[urungus]

Here is some footage of the inside of the hole:

OUT OF on Instagram: "The POV footage from the snowboarder who fell into the waterfall on Tuckerman’s 👀 I don’t know how he made it out of that hole. He was not recording at the time of the fall, but here is his view from the hole. From the rider

4,087 likes, 115 comments - outofcollective on April 17, 2023: "The POV footage from the snowboarder who fell into the waterfall on Tuckerman’s 👀 I don’t ..."

www.instagram.com

 

[jimmywilson69]

I don't get the impression that dude feels lucky to be alive. I hope I'm wrong, but to survive a fall like that into a deep crevasse with running water in it is nothing short of a miracle.

 

[djd66]

There are some serious fucking idiots on this earth. You want to be reckless and kill you self, go for it. My issue is S&R having to rescue idiots.

 

[Conrad]

The first time I did tucks it was 30 years ago and I had no right being there either nor did a lot of others there. It was really no different. There has been idiots doing it for a long time.

I agree, while I haven't been up there enough to really make a a good judgement, it seemed to me that other than the one guy that went spectacularly wrong, there was distinctly less people wiping out and crashing all over the place than some of my previous trips 8-12 years ago roughly. The people that were wiping out on Saturday were able to recover quickly. In a previous trip years ago, I just remember there being several snowboarders doing somersaults all the way down the head wall and multiple people getting stretchered out. Even one heli evac. I heard one person got hurt on Saturday, but I was hiking up and did not witness it.

 

[BodeMiller1]

Tucks is very steep and so the sun goes down faster. When the "snow" is in the shade it freezes solid, so solid you cannot get an edge to hold. You this at all ski areas, butt on the NE side of Washington it sneaks up on you.

 

[t-to-b]

I've been snowboarding Tux's pretty much annually for the last 12 years or so. This scene is pretty standard in the spring and it can be pretty scary. Heck one of the first years I went up there I saw 3 guys hike and ski the lip butt naked.
A lot of people treat Tux's like they're skiing Wildcat instead of a true backcountry zone. The weather and snow bring out the most overconfident skiers/riders who think they can send anything. And this past Saturday was probably the perfect storm for Tux. Probably the best weather and conditions on a Saturday since before covid. So you had EVERYONE there trying to get after it. This crash was peak stupidity though and we're lucky the photos and videos aren't of someone's last moments.

 

[oldfartrider]

I’ve snowboarded gulf of slides and hillmans. I used crampons and an ice ax to climb and they were a huge help. This was 30 years ago at this point I’m not sure if I’ll ever go back there. I’ve never actually never been in the bowl.

 

[2Planker]

Scooped up another dumb ass rookie this weekend.....
Seems to be a plethora of stupidity in Tucks lately....
Someone will get hurt ssoner or later

 

[ThatGuy]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1647622539873492992

 

[urungus]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1647622539873492992

LOL at the guy in the red shirt at the end

 

[jimmywilson69]

jesus... Hey lets send the waterfall where the guy almost died yesterday...