In the quarter-century Dave and June Boon have lived in Colorado, they have spent countless days backcountry skiing. The Boons’ first encounter with an avalanche, however, didn’t come until Saturday morning, when a slide ripped down Berthoud Pass and swept their Honda Accord and another vehicle off of Hwy. 40.
“It’s ironic that our first experience in one was when we were in our car,” June Boon, 52, said from their Fort Collins home, where the couple was resting Sunday with only minor injuries. “We were extremely lucky. We’re living right.”
Dave Boon, 54, who used to surf when he lived in Florida, likened the experience to be sucked up in a big wave.
“The way it just tumbles you and you have no control … and not knowing which way is up. It’s remarkable,” he said. “We’re incredibly grateful to be alive.”
Eight people were rescued from the two vehicles and taken to St. Anthony’s Hospital. Seven were treated and released Saturday.
Members of Oakwood Road Church in Ames, Iowa, who were on a ski trip were among those swept away by the avalanche, including Darren Johnson, his father, Don Johnson told the Associated Press.
He told the AP that his son was treated at a hospital and released, while a passenger in his car, Peter Olsen of Nevada and a sophomore at Iowa State University, was treated for a broken rib. Officials said Olsen was the only one still hospitalized Sunday.
The Boons, who own a cabin in Winter Park, were headed up for a weekend of skiing. June Boon said the couple normally leaves for the cabin on Friday nights, but were delayed because they had planned to go up with someone who didn’t get off work until 9 p.m. Friday, and later cancelled.
After stopping to make a pit stop in Idaho Springs at about 10 a.m., the Boons buckled up and set out for the drive over 11,315-foot Berthoud Pass with Dave behind the wheel, June in the passenger seat and Gary Martinez, the teen-aged son of friends, in the back.
When they rounded the curve near the Henderson Mine, Boone said he was relieved to see open road in front of him after being caught in heavy traffic.
“We were doing 40 to 45 mph and all of the sudden we saw a puff (of snow) on the left, it was more of a blast, and it kind of pushed the car into the guardrail,” he said. “And then, it was like freight train hit us.”
A state patrol spokesman said the slide, which roared down Stanley Mountain at about 10:30 a.m., was about 300 feet wide and 15 feet deep.
The category 4 avalanche – on a scale of 1 to 5 – blasted out the driver’s side window of Boon’s Honda, launched the car up and over the guard rail and rolled it “three and a half or four and a half times.”
Amidst blasts of snow and shattered glass, the car was was carried what Dave Boon estimated to be about 150 feet down the mountain where it landed on its top, struck a tree and started spinning like a top, Dave Boon said.
When it finally came to a stop, the passengers were upside down, disoriented and in the dark. The only sound, he said, was that of snow pouring in through broken windows.
Dave Boon asked if everyone was OK.
June and Gary both answered ‘Yes.’
“Make air space,” June said, recalling advice from avalanche training courses the couple took when they used to backcountry ski on Cameron Pass.
Dave Boon started digging at the snow, unaware of their fate.
“When we were tumbling lights were out. It was snow and darkness,” he said. “I had no idea how deep we were buried. I knew we were in a major avalanche.”
He pushed his hand through the snow pouring in his window and saw daylight. After frantically digging for anywhere from two to five minutes, he was free.
Once he emerged from the slide debris, all that was visible in the snow, Dave Boon said, was the car’s undercarriage and wheels.
Larger objects – chunks of snow, cars, snowmobiles, even people – tend to rise to the surface of a moving stream of avalanche debris. Avalanche experts term it the “Brazil-nut effect,” after the phenomenon that larger nuts tend to wind up on top of a bowl of mixed nuts when it is shaken.
Dave Boon crawled back in and helped Martinez out of the car. June was trapped by her seatbelt.
He dug snow from around her face, and then screamed to witnesses who had stopped on the highway for someone to bring him a knife. Once he cut the belt, he dug June free from the snow and pulled her through the driver’s side window.
Boon estimated it was 10 minutes before he was able to free his wife.
They were transported to St. Anthony Hospital in Denver, though their injuries were limited to small cuts from broken glass and pain from the force of the accident.
“It’s just remarkable to walk away,” Dave Boon said. “As we were walking out, people were trying to take care of us … but we were like, ‘No, go get that other car.”‘
Boon said he has seen avalanches from a distance while backcountry skiing, but didn’t appreciate the sheer force until Saturday.
“The power is so massive,” he said. “To be able to pick a car up off the ground and pitch it over a four-foot guardrail is just amazing.”
Now, he said, they’d like to recover personal items that were in the car. And they’d like to know whether the vehicle was pulled from the mountainside, or was reburied when highway crews blasted the slide path again Sunday.
June Boon said the incident won’t stop the couple from driving over Berthoud Pass to get to their mountain retreat.
It just might be a while, she said: “Our other car is in the shop.”
