Tree Wells     New for 2020

The club’s Safety page includes a discussion of the dangers of tree wells <Deep Snow and Tree Well Safety>.  Let me add my own experience in a tree well to further emphasize why care is needed when skiing near trees.

I was skiing with my son, his middle school friend and the friend’s father at Willamette Pass, Oregon.  It was a day after a storm that had produced a huge dump of powder.  Needless to say, we had a great day!  And, since Willamette Pass is small and kind of remote, it doesn’t draw large crowds and we skied powder the whole day.

We were on the run farthest away from the lift, headed for the lodge at the end of the day.  The light was fading, and I was bringing up the rear.  We were the last group on the hill.  To get to the lodge, we had to cut through a patch of trees near the bottom of the run.  Everyone had entered the path through the trees, and I saw some untracked powder off to the side and thought I’d get a couple more powder turns in before the end of the day. 

However, the powder was near a mid-sized evergreen tree, and as I passed the tree, the snow gave way below me.  I went into a void that consisted primarily of flimsy tree branches, many of which seemed to be dead, below the branches with needles at snow level and above.  I now know that this is a common scenario for tree wells, with the evergreen branches shedding new snow off to the side, and not letting it fill in among the lower branches.

I was very fortunate that I went into the void skis first.  Had I fallen in head first, I would have been in very serious trouble.  It would have been impossible to release my bindings had I been hanging upside down!  As it was, I was still in trouble.  We were the last party on that run, the rest of my party had already gone ahead of me, I was in up to my head and every time I moved at all I slipped farther down.  There was simply nothing much holding me up!

There was no way I could climb up with my skis on, but every time I tried to bend down to release my bindings, I sank lower.  I somehow managed to wedge my skis against the tree trunk and the firmer snow away from the tree so I stopped sinking, and after a number of tries, I finally managed to release one ski, then the other.  One at a time I pitched each ski out of the hole, and then I was finally able to climb up the tree trunk and then flop out of the hole and ‘swim’ onto somewhat firmer snow (it was powder, after all).  I was exhausted, and it was getting dark.  It really had been a serious situation!

It seems that evergreen trees are the worst culprits for creating tree wells, particularly those with branches at snow level that shelter the lower branches and prevent snow from filling the void.  Larger trees with bare trunks usually have enough open space between the snow surface and the lowest branches that the show blows in and does not create as much of a void.  There might be a hollow cone around the tree trunk formed by wind and blowing snow, but while going into such a hollow would not be good, these are more visible and blown snow tends to be firmer, making it easier to get out.  Deciduous trees like aspens which lose their leaves in winter are less likely to form wells, as there is nothing to prevent snow from filling in around the trunk.

So, beware of skiing close to trees with needled branches at surface level!  Don’t ski alone!  Have a means of alerting others to your location (whistle, cell phone if it works there, etc.)  And, while you may not have a choice, try not to fall toward a tree!  You really do not want to go into a tree well head first.  Even if you don’t smother, you will be down below the surface of the snow hanging by your skis, allowing blood to rush to your head with eventual black out, and any shouting will be muffled.

This is serious and many people have died in tree wells.  Don’t be one of them!