Last ski run a real adventure

While checking out the last of this year's skiing opportunities, two young men found themselves traveling on a slippery slope on the last day of Big Mountain's ski season.

Daniel Baerveldt, 16, and Justin Novak, 19, both of Kalispell, were taking advantage of the late afternoon hours of March 27 by skiing the east rim of the mountain.

Ensnared in thick fog, the two came to a stop at the top of a pair of runs split by a bank of cliffs.

Familiar with the runs and wanting to keep to the left, Novak began cautiously skiing ahead to scout out the route when the snow suddenly gave way beneath his skis and he began sliding toward the edge of a cliff. Veering left on his back, at the last moment he was able to grab a tree and cling to it to avoid plunging over the edge.

Meanwhile, not realizing there was any danger, Baerveldt skied on. But when he spotted Novak hanging on to the tree he froze right there on a small ledge, according to his mom, Kathy, while retelling her son's close call.

"At that point, they both tried to climb up but the snow kept giving way beneath them," she said. "No matter how they tried maneuvering, they couldn't gain on the slope. Her son then removed his skis only to have one of them slide over the cliff's edge.

The two knew there was a terrible chance they would slip off the edge too, so they decided it was safer to stay put.

Baerveldt had a cell phone with him and used it to call information to get the number to Big Mountain's Ski Patrol.

Eric Sjoden answered the call. The skiers were able to pinpoint their exact location and within a half hour Sjoden arrived at the top of the run with Kellsey Paul and Katie Boyd.

The ski patrol team lowered a rope to the stranded skiers. Wrapping the rope around their waists, they were hauled back up one at a time.

Worn out and soaking wet, Baerveldt and Novak returned to their car in the parking lot where Baerveldt phoned his mom. "He told me they'd 'got stuck' on the east rim and had to be rescued, but that they were fine," Kathy said.

Then he told his mom that he'd had to call information to get the ski patrol's number, which in other circumstances he knew his folks would consider an unreasonable expense.

Not surprisingly, his parents, Kathy and John, couldn't be less concerned about the call or the lost ski and were just thankful to the ski patrol team for its quick response time and life-saving skills, and that everything turned out all right.

"These kids could have been killed," Kathy acknowledged. "It's amazing to me that even somebody who knows the runs so well can still get into trouble so easily."

In retrospect, the skiers and parents have hammered out a prevention plan for next season.

First, they decided never to ski the east rim when it's foggy. And even if the runs are marked and groomed, never ski beyond your comfort zone.