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Norwegian skier Hedvig Wessel has had a helluva career. She’s a two-time Olympian and a three-time Freeride World Tour Champion. But one thing she hasn’t done during her run? Deploy an airbag during an avalanche. It’s not something most of us want to do, either. The violence of being caught in a slide, in steep terrain, is real.
Hedvig got to feel that violence recently in Alaska, where a sluff slide caught up to her during a run she was filming. She was wearing a 360-degree camera and the sluff sent her for a tumble, and she released her airbag to stay on top.
“On this run, I knew I had to ski fast, to ski in front of my sluff,” she wrote. “I also had to work from left to right, to minimize the chances of the sluff reaching me. At the end of the line it got narrower, meaning not a lot of space to let the sluff go on my side. And that was where the sluff got me. After a few seconds tumbling down, and when I didn’t see any blue sky – I pulled my airbag. For me it came as an instinct, and it felt natural and easy. I was trying to swim upward to get air, and luckily the sluff didn’t cover me.”
She did, however lose her gear, which is of little consequence in the big picture.
“Looking back, I’m grateful for this experience, and everything I learned from it. I’m grateful to come out of this with no injuries….be safe out there and make good decisions.”
Hedvig and fellow pro skier Lexi Dupont organize the Sister Summit, a film competition featuring all-female competitors.
