After Being Struck By an Avalanche, Koch Hopes to Be Back Boarding Next Winter

Being hit full force by an avalanche, feeling first the ligaments in the right knee tear, followed by those in the left knee might deter some people from venturing back into the mountains, but not Stephen Koch. Koch, a pioneer of first snowboarding descents, can't wait to get back where he belongs.

"What I do can be dangerous and this is one of those things that can happen," Koch said from his Jackson, Wyoming, home.

It was 3am on April 22 when Stephen Koch, a member of The North Face Climbing and Snowboarding Team, left the parking lot of Taggart Lake, prepped for a climb and first snowboard descent of an unnamed route on Mt. Owen, part of the Teton Mountain Range in Wyoming. He usually goes these alone, not having to worry about other people lets him use his energy to focus on himself — his own survival.

At 10:50am, he was nearing the top of the Koven Col., a good vantage point on the ridge, he says, to check out the situation, scope his route, assess the dangers. He didn't quite make it to the top.

"When I first got hit, I thought 'this could be it'..."

The first avalanche was far to his right and didn't even enter the couloir he was in. "When the second one came I initially thought it would go the same as the first one," Koch says. No such luck. The "wet cement" came rushing over the ledge just above him, grabbed him and, as he remembers, "when I first got hit I thought, this could be it.

"I saw it when it came over the lip. It shot out and got airborne and hit me in mid-air. I was immediately on my back and sliding and tumbling," Koch recalls. "I was amazed I was taken out so quickly. It was a shock how fast it happened and how cleanly it took me down," Koch recalls. "I thought I could at least put up a fight." His backpack, complete with snowboard attachment was ripped from his back.

Though he says the tumble lasted 15 to 20 seconds, it was long enough (2200 feet) for him to "distinctly remember" the ligaments in his left knee being torn, quickly followed by those in his right knee. When he did come to rest, aside from the bruises and scratches to his face, the compression fractures of his back and injuries to his ribs, he also bruised his liver and lungs making it "very difficult to breath."

"Getting plenty sunburned on my freshly scratched face..."

After quickly moving from this path, for fear of another avalanche, Koch made it to a "safe spot." And for three-and-a-half hours he lay bruised and battered in a snowfield, in full sunshine.

"It was hot, I was enjoying it and getting plenty sunburned on my freshly scratched face," he says. But, as the day passed he "experienced the shade" and rapidly decreasing temperatures. It was time to start moving. Slowly, he began to inch his way down, only to be exhausted within minutes.

"I was procrastinating getting down. I was hurting and enjoying the sun and I didn't want to try anything, " he said. Ultimately, it wasn't training or experience that led to his game plan, it was instinct — "common sense."

photo: Wade McKoy

"I just had to protect my leg." he said. "At the time my left leg was the good one." After fruitless attempts to stabilize the right leg with his remaining ice axe and power straps, Koch pulled his power strap out of his boot and attached it to the second buckle of the boot. With the length of the strap extending to his upper thigh, he then held the leg up and began to slide down the glissade on his left side.

"It's not as easy as it seems," he said. "You go ten feet, make a big snow pile and have to move and start over." This worked as long as there was a slope, but when it flattened out, he rolled onto his back and used his elbows and left heel to push himself crab-like through the wet snow.

"At the time, my left leg was the good one..."

By late afternoon, soaked to the bone, Koch made it back to where he had left a stuff sack earlier that day. In it were two "shake and warm" heaters, a Snickers bar, goggles and a head band. "I was definitely thinking about warm clothes," he said. He briefly entertained the idea of trying to make it further down, but it became steeper and his body couldn't take another fall; he bivied here, sitting on his harness in the snow on the downhill side of a rock.

"I had a pretty good idea they would come the next day," he said. And they did after a friend called the rescue rangers, reporting that Koch had not yet returned. When they found his car was still parked in the lot, they sent in the helicopter.

Now, Koch's focus is on his recovery. Having already accomplished first snowboard descents of Mount Kilimanjaro, Mt. Hood's North Face (first in any discipline), Grand Teton's Black Ice Couloir and Denali's Messner Couloir, he has also snowboarded Mounts Elbrus and and Aconcagua. Determination is obviously a Koch strong point and he doesn't sound at all unsure when he says, "I'm shooting for early next winter to be out snowboarding again."

And as for a return to Mt. Owen, as yet untracked by a snowboard, "Oh sure, I'd love to," Koch says, "it's been my wish for a long time." That said, you can bet Owen won't remain untracked for long.

— Sarah Love, Mountain Zone Staff