“Avalanche!”

Paul Goulet only had a split-second to turn around and brace for the impact before a first wall of snow hit him.

“We didn’t see it coming,” the Ottawa man told the Star today.

“Everybody always talks about how loud it is – it was completely silent.”

Goulet, 44, and six friends were backcountry skiing at Log Cabin Mountain, 180 kilometres south of Whitehorse near the B.C.-Alaska border, on Wednesday morning when two avalanches struck. The mountain, located in the White Pass, is a popular backcountry skiing site.

It was about 9:16 a.m.

Two skiers from his group had already reached the summit. Goulet and Gaétan Martel were about 150 metres behind.

Goulet was looking down the mountain, when he heard a friend screaming at him.

Both men were caught in the avalanche.

Goulet was half-buried in the snow but managed to keep his head up.

That’s when the second snowslide struck.

It pushed the two men further down the slope, over a ridge.

The ridge itself wasn’t very sharp, but for his friends watching helplessly, it didn’t look good.

“Dude, I thought we watched you die,” one of Goulet’s friend later told him.

The snow was wet and heavy. The men had slid down over 200 metres.

Goulet and Martel, buried up to their waist, started to dig themselves out with the help of a third friend.

Both hurt their knees and Goulet broke his right leg after his ski became twisted in the avalanche.

Somebody suggested calling in a helicopter.

But Goulet, a father of three energetic young children, opted for a far more simple solution: he slid down the mountain on his stomach.

At the bottom, a snowmobiler brought him to an ambulance that had arrived.

Both men later went to Whitehorse General Hospital.

An experienced backcountry skier, Goulet didn’t panic when the avalanches struck him.

“At no time I was thinking, ‘this is it,’” he said.

“I told myself, ‘I need to keep riding this thing down and stay at the top.’”

Both men are lucky to be alive, he declared.

Still, he thinks his friends were more shaken up that he was.

Some of them didn’t see him for almost 20 minutes.

Had the second, more powerful avalanche struck first, it would have been a different story.

“(The first avalanche) gave me almost just time to get a feel what to do in it,” Goulet said.

“I kept pulling myself up to the top – you can see the light when you’re in the snow.”

The avalanche was quite large, James Floyer, an Avalanche Canada forecaster, told the Star Wednesday.

It was ranked 2.5 on a scale of five.

A level-two avalanche is strong enough to bury or kill a person. A level-three can damage or destroy a pickup truck.

Having seen photos of the avalanche, Floyer said, he would have rounded it up to a level three if the organization did not use decimals.

The avalanche was half a metre deep, 450 m long and 200 m wide.

Avalanche Canada is reminding backcountry skiers to be cautious.

Similar conditions are to be expected in the area in south Yukon and northern B.C.

“We had about 15 cm of snow that turned into rain,” Floyer said.

That made for a moist snowpack.

The warm weather made for unstable layers at Log Cabin mountain.

Every backcountry skier should have the appropriate training and an avalanche kit, Floyer said.

That includes a shovel, a transceiver-receiver beacon and a pole to locate people buried under the snow.

For backcountry skiers, Goulet stresses the importance of always being prepared, no matter what.

“Even in places where it’s not supposed to happen, it can happen,” he said.

All were experienced skiers and had an avalanche kit. All the skiers were in their 40s and 50s, and they didn’t attempt any major descent, he pointed out.

Next time he’ll be going skiing, Goulet said, everybody in his group will likely have self-inflatable backpacks.

Avalanche airbags, as they’re known, help skiers stay on top of the snowpack.

Floyer notes that avalanche air bags should only be used on top of the classic gear and appropriate training.

The airbags are no magic bullet, he said.

Goulet and his friends were supposed to ski today and tomorrow before heading to Calgary tomorrow afternoon.

But everybody is happy to sit back and relax, he said.

Last night, once the two were out of the hospital, the group headed to the bar next to their hotel for a well-deserved karaoke night.

Goulet insists he doesn’t usually sing at karaoke nights, but last night was “special”.

“We went for a little celebration of life,” said Goulet, chuckling.