Nick McNutt had already finished the big line. The hard part of the day was supposed to be over. Above a frozen lake near Pemberton, British Columbia, the crew had regrouped after a successful morning. McNutt spotted a short stack of powder pillows above the lake and climbed back up for one more sequence. The first run was clean. On the second, he landed, turned and kept moving toward the exit. Behind him, a large chunk of snow broke from one of the pillows. He could not see it because it dropped through a blind rollover into the same gully he was about to use. By the time McNutt reached the exit, the debris was already funnelling into him. It hit hard, drove him through trees and buried him on the lake under more than a metre of packed snow. This is the part that matters to skiers. A line can look playful at the top and still become serious where the terrain narrows. Gullies collect whatever is moving above them. A blind rollover can hide that movement completely. McNutt was not simply fighting for balance. He was skiing into an exit that had changed before he could see it. His partners arrived almost immediately and switched their avalanche beacons to search. Nothing. McNutt’s beacon had been checked in transmit mode that morning, but after the crash it was no longer sending a signal. Christina Lustenberger called for a probe line, a slow, methodical search across the debris. Then cinematographer Ben Dann pushed a probe into the snow near the lake. One strike felt different. Ian McIntosh checked it. They had found him. The team started shovelling through hard, chunky snow. They reached McNutt’s back, then his airway. He had been buried for a little over five minutes. He came out with a badly broken arm, chest injuries and blood in his mouth. The crew wrapped him in spare jackets and kept him warm until a rescue helicopter arrived. He later needed reconstructive surgery on the arm. I researched and assembled this footage because the crash itself is only half the story. The other half is six people losing the rescue tool they expected to rely on, then falling back on training, probes, shovels and a single lucky strike. Months later, after the longest stretch off skis since he was a little kid, McNutt went back into the backcountry with McIntosh. Under his coat was a different beacon.