A back country skier who plunged 50 metres into a crevasse near Blackcomb on Friday managed to get out—with the help of search and rescue teams—without a scratch.
Nikolai Popov, from Seattle, was skiing on Decker Mountain, just northeast of Blackcomb, when he fell into a deep crevasse.
"I saw that there was a little crack and started probing with a pole to see where the crevasse is," Popov told CTV News. "Just as I was doing that, the whole thing collapsed under me and I found myself in a very nasty hole, it was quite deep."
Popov said he was lucky that he did not fall all the way down the crevasse.
"The hole itself treated me better than it could have because there were at least another 20 metres down," he said. "I could have gotten stuck there."
Another person who had been skiing ahead of him noticed he had disappeared and called search and rescue. Still, it took two hours before the search and rescue team could hike to the crevasse and pull Popov out of the hole. While rescuers said Popov was lucky that he was not injured, they warn that skiing alone at this time of the year is a bad idea.
"I wouldn't recommend touring alone," said Daren Romano with Whistler Search and Rescue. "Be prepared for self-rescue if you're going with a party. Take some ropes with you."
With files from CTV British Columbia's Nafeesa Karim
