By Rocket Reaves

March 1, 1999

Rocket Science The ride of his life. [Capturing an avalanche on film is pretty rare, but photographer Gordon Eshom did just that last season at Tyax Lodge Heli in British Columbia while shooting with Craig Kelly, Tex Devenport, and Rocket Reaves. That's Rocket being taken for a ride in a sizable slide, and what follows is his account of the experience.] Craig Kelly and I had been riding all morning. The snow was pretty unpredictable that day, and we'd been dodging small fracture slides here and there. I'd scoped out this line from across the valley; it looked pretty cool, so we flew over to check it out. Once we got there, we found out it had a really weird entrance, and we needed to climb down to get into it. So Craig and I worked our way into this reverse-cornice thing and began probing around to see what the hell we were standing on. It turned out to be rock. There was another problem, though-a huge wall of snow in front of us. We couldn't see the line we planned to ride at all. Craig began cutting out a big notch in the snow so we could see the entrance to the line. To be honest, both of us had weird feelings about this one, and we contemplated climbing back out. That would've been pretty hard, though, and by that time Craig had confirmed that we were in the right spot. He also confirmed that I was going first since I'd spotted the line to begin with. As I climbed into the starting notch, I was thinking, I don't like this one bit. I remember telling Craig I was going to haul ass over to the spine on my right. I would be safe there, and I could probably see if something was going to slide. Finally, everything was set. I dropped in and headed for the safety of the spine. I think I almost made it over there, but it's hard to tell. Just then, the carpet was pulled out from under me. I remember being forced to the left, where I definitely did not want to be; I feared the massive cornice looming on the left would crush me. There was nothing I could do except fight to stay to the right. I began trying to dig my edge into the snow, and kept swimming in a desperate attempt to stay right. The snow was really heavy, and it bashed my face into the ground between my legs. I felt rocks smashing my ass from behind, and saw nothing but white as I fought like hell. I thought I was history. I remember wondering when the cornice was going to roll me over. It never did, and I eventually got tossed out of the slide on the right side. I was so stoked when I was finally spit out and cartwheeled a couple of times. I rode over to a safe zone, called Craig and Gordon to tell them I was all right, then I lay there in the snow for a while, shaking uncontrollably and contemplating life. Craig was on it. He made it down in a hurry to start digging if needed. "Man, am I glad to see you!" I remember him saying. We decided to take a mellow free run to the lodge, just to get back on the horse. Above all, this was a perfect example of ignoring your gut feeling. Take it from me, when you hear that little voice in your head, listen to it!-Rocket Reaves