January 1-3, 2022: Don't Ski on Thin Ice

One of many trip reports under the SilGro home page for Alan Silverstein and Cathie Grow.
Email me at ajs@frii.com.
Last update: March 24, 2024
(Previous trip report: 2011_1130-1217_PanamaCanalCruise.htm)

(The first HTML trip report I wrote in 10 years!)

Herewith is the story of my stupid mistake and recovery on New Years Day, 2022, while out cross-country (XC) skiing around the neighborhood in Fort Collins, Colorado.

In short: I found myself waist-deep in icy water, wearing long skis, at the edge of a pond in the park three blocks east of home, after sunset, with no one in earshot, and had to save myself from hypothermia that could have been fatal. The air temp was about 10 degrees.

This story is presented for whatever it's worth -- entertainment, education; and for me, a confessional and a reminder, "don't be stupid like that again."

So after an extremely dry and warm fall, we got 7" of snow starting Friday morning. Mid-Saturday (Jan 1), a great workout for me as the skies cleared, shoveling snow for two hours for ourselves and various neighbors, followed by R&R for 2.5 hours, feeling surprisingly good after the exercise. Since I was invited to XC ski next Wednesday in the national park, and hadn't been on the skis since last March at the cabin, I decided to take them for a spin around the neighborhood while conditions permitted, which is rare -- it must be deep and cold enough. I wanted to check out the gear, warm up my body, etc.

It was a cold but pretty evening!

And touring around felt surprisingly good, too... "I remember how to do this."

I made a clockwise loop, with a snack and skis-off break watching the sunset at the gazebo just west of the English Ranch pond. I had one mental note: Add a belt back to my ski pants, otherwise they're kind of loose. (This turned out to matter later.)

"I wonder why no one is playing in the park?" Well, it was about 10 degrees out!

Although one entertaining family went by as I watched!

I decided to loop around the pond and then head home without going farther. Heck, I might as well check out going around the edge of the pond itself... That would be fun. (Bad idea.) Huh, doesn't look very frozen, well, it's been warm recently, so be careful. Tentative steps sliding from snow onto ice... Appears solid, with skis spreading my weight. If I do break through, it'll just be a foot deep, no biggie, right? (Bad assumption!) I wonder if I'll notice ice cracking first, or not?

So I proceeded just a bit more ahead. It seemed solid but kind of wet. OK, I'm staying close to shore anyway. Uh, the thick cattails around the edge are forcing me farther out before I get to the next shoreline access. Maybe I should step-turn back (a 180 degree rotation, one ski at a time). Hmm, the tracks behind me are kind of damp. Doing a step-turn here could be awkward, or even break through. I guess I'll push on the short distance around... (Really bad decision! I got complacent.)

This Strava app map partial screenshot shows where the incident occurred.

Crunch! No warning, the ice gives way and my skis drop to the bottom of the pond. Oh, dammit, it's up to my waist! (And I was very lucky it wasn't deeper.) There goes my wallet! I had to try to keep my daypack out of it (mostly succeeded).

My immediate thoughts were: This is deeper than I expected! And this is serious, hypothermia could set in quickly, I must get out of here fast. Should I call for help on my cellphone, which is in my shirt pocket? No, that's a time-wasting distraction. Can I yell for help? No one is in earshot, and they couldn't help me fast anyway. How cold do I feel? Surprisingly little thermal shock, my clothing is protecting me, although my thick gloves are soaked. Should I pop and abandon my skis? No, reaching down that far is a bad move.

Can I climb forward onto the next patch of ice? I tried it, almost made it, but it collapsed under me. Crap! Well at least I'm no worse off, try again. Grab onto flimsy cattail reeds to my left while I'm at it. Not sure how many tries it took, but I was able to get forward and out and lay sideways on ice that didn't break through. My skis were still on my feet, although covered with seaweed, err, cattail strands.

Next: Get gloved hands out of pole loops. Disconnect skis. Well now I'm probably gonna be OK, but I must get out of here and warm ASAP! Start crawling uphill through 15' or so of dead cattails, feet down in the water, but hauling my skis and poles with me. Slow going and smells awful of course.

Finally out of the pond onto a snowy slope. Do I call someone on the phone now? Head directly to a nearby house and pound on their door? (In hindsight that would have been very awkward as I stripped naked in their living room!) Assessing... I'm not feeling too cold anywhere, maybe it's best to just head home ASAP, while moving fast to keep warm, and pay attention, I can't relax yet.

I tried walking, carrying skis and poles, toward the nearest concrete bike path... And my beltless ski pants fell down below my knees! They probably held 10 lbs of water. Dammit, I must take the time to unclip my waist strap, unzip my coat, undo and pull up my pants, and reassemble. Then I made it another 40' or so to the path, and they fell down again! Totally soaked and heavy. Stop and reassemble again -- fully aware that every second counts.

What about my wallet? It can wait. How wet is my pack? Not presently relevant, it can wait.

Chip ice off the ski bindings and finally clip in, ready to move. Well, one ski pole basket is broken off and hanging down by some reinforcing gorilla tape anyway, it's useless, so stick the bad pole in my other hand along with the good pole, and use my free hand to hold my pants up! Trek home in twilight ASAP... Monitor status. (Map measuring later says it was a bit over 0.4 mi away.)

I felt wet from the waist down, and heavy, but surprisingly, only cold in my gloved fingers. Stop and switch to dry (I hope) but lighter gloves in my pack? No, that takes time, keep going as fast as possible. I just breathed onto my fingers and flexed them to stay warm.

Just a few minutes later, at the side gate home, I finally started to shiver a little, but had made it. I figured out afterward that I was only away from home 1:15 total, and probably only out wet for 20-25 minutes from when I landed in the pond. I popped the skis and observed that the broken pole basket was completely gone, oh well. Get into the house!

I dumped everything, stripped naked, cleaned up. Didn't think I needed a hot shower, although in hindsight it wouldn't have hurt -- the hot tub was still covered with snow. Not shivering, but I started to cough a lot, I really burned my lungs worse than ever, breathing hard in cold, dry air. (Continued through the next day, but slowly improved.) I dressed really warm, made hot tea, then spent most of the next hour hanging up or spreading out everything for recovery... And almost nothing ended up trashed!

The next morning I took a short stroll a block away, and found the lost ski pole basket. I was able to repair the pole later. (Although it turned out to be pointless, it broke again some time later far from a trailhead, which was annoying.)

And two days after my first outing, with all my gear dried or repaired, I skied over to the park again to review the scene of the incident, around sunset again.

Don't do this, it's really stupid!

And if you do that, don't keep going!

Two days later I could still see (in a fuzzy zoom photo) where the incident occurred; beyond the orange cone, to the right. Yeah, I don't know why the cone was there, I'd already decided the first time "not to be stupid" and try to retrieve it! "Too far from shore..."

Reflections: Obviously I made a stupid mistake that was easy to avoid. I kind of suckered myself into it with complacency ("so far, so good") and the false idea that if I did break through, it wouldn't be deep enough to be a problem, I'd just get my boots wet. By the time I realized the cattails were pushing me into deeper water, I was already uncomfortable turning around, and so far the ice had seemed just solid enough to keep crossing with skis on.

If the water at that spot had been much deeper, it would have been harder to recover from it...

If I'd gone out just a little ways, where it really was only a foot deep, and then turned around, that would have been OK too.

I intend to remember this as a "warning shot" for future situations in which I talk myself into adding just a bit more risk, and underestimating that risk. It's bad enough that to have fun in life some exposure is unavoidable, but there's no reason to let your sense of adventure put you into a really dumb situation, when you already have some intuition about it being questionable.