Buried alive in snow, man, 24, survives

PORTLAND — Ian Wilson's voice betrayed not a hint of urgency in the telephone message he left his parents Saturday night.

The 24-year-old Portland man said hello and simply asked them to call him, please.

It was only after Steve and Barbara Wilson listened to the rest of their phone messages — all calls from the news media — that they realized their oldest child had barely survived an avalanche while backcountry skiing with friends in Alaska.

"We were really relieved when we talked to him," said Steve Wilson, of Portland. "He seemed very measured in his conversation. Of course, he didn't want to worry us. He's a great kid."

Ian Wilson was buried under 4 feet of snow about 65 miles outside Anchorage for about 40 minutes. When searchers pulled him out, he was blue and unconscious.

But he quickly revived and apparently suffered no injuries.

"Pretty scary," his father said.

Ian Wilson, the grandson of award-winning Northwest poet William Stafford, is an experienced mountaineer who was on the ski team of Portland's Lincoln High School. He works at a wilderness-therapy camp in Idaho and used some time off to meet up with college friends in Alaska.

"He's a levelheaded kid," said Steve Wilson, also a mountaineer. But backcountry skiing — because of the threat of avalanches — "is inherently dangerous."

Ian Wilson and his group climbed a slope that had tracks where others had skied. He and his friends skied down one at a time so that only one would be exposed if an avalanche hit. At the bottom, each skier took cover.

When it was Ian's turn, the avalanche was unleashed.

Ian tried to "ride it out" and managed to ski on top of the moving snow for 700 feet, his father said. But, eventually, the snow covered him.

He said later that he tried to keep his poles up so that his friends could find him.

"At first he was quite concerned," his father said. "But his sense was that he had to remain calm."

Ian Wilson was carrying a beacon, and it enabled his friends to find him quickly.

Still, the story could have ended badly.

"I think he did everything he could," his father said. "But let's face it. The gods were with him on that one."