“All of a sudden everything starts to let go, the ledge and everything,” says Michael Walsh. “By this time I, you know, had lost my sight of Matt. And the cloud of snow was so big I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.”
Michael Walsh and his younger brother Matt thought they had found the perfect spot for backcountry snowboarding in Wyoming. The mountain bowl had an overhanging snowdrift and deep powder. They parked Michael’s truck and climbed to the steepest point.
“It’s kind of just a cliff basically, a snow cliff that builds up with all the wind,” says Michael. “And as it blows, it just kind of curls and curls and curls and just builds up a big ledge. Well, we were sitting right on the edge of it. The original plan was we were both going to go down at the same time, I don’t know why I changed the plan. He was already strapped in and I had one binding strapped in at this time. And I looked over at him and said, ‘Hey Matt, What are you waiting for?’”