Photo: @peakrankings
Big Couloir at Montana’s Big Sky Resort is one of the gnarliest inbounds runs you’re going to find. It’s steep. Like first big drop on a roller coaster steep. And then you have to control all that speed through tight canyon walls. Sometimes, things go amiss.
One snowboarder who attempted to send it down the notorious couloir, which has some pretty strict barriers to even access, probably wishes he’d just ridden one of those roller coasters and puked his corn dog on some innocent passerby instead. A clip made its way onto social media this past week showing the unidentified rider morphing into a real-life rag doll on his way down the triple-black run that hits a sustained pitch of 50 degrees and covers 1,400 vertical feet. If you’re keeping track, that means a slip up anywhere near the peak can, and likely will, cover more than three football fields from top to bottom. Throw in the possibility of slamming into rocks on your way down and snowboarders and skiers are lucky if a “bad” run down Big Couloir only results in a broken limb (or four).
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“We should call ski patrol,” one of the onlookers says after they realize the snowboarder is sitting upright, life still intact.
The monotone reaction is kind of funny, but ironically, ski patrol already knew exactly what had just happened. One of the things about Big Couloir that really drives in how heavy it is is that anybody hoping to take their swing has to check in with ski patrol beforehand. Each run that’s permitted is then spaced out at a pace of 15 minutes by signing out at the bottom. This means, at most, only four people every hour are sending it down Big Couloir every hour. And Big Sky dedicates ski patrol at the top of the hill just to guard entry. They take the place seriously.
Now somebody needs to go get the dude’s goggles.
