ANCHORAGE, Alaska (KTUU) – In the hours after a backcountry skier was swept up in an avalanche and tumbled 1,200 feet down the steep slopes of a mountain on the Kenai Peninsula, the Alaska Rescue Coordination Center was scrambling to send help to the injured man.
But what turned out to be a roughly five-hour rescue could have — maybe should have — been a one-hour attempt, according to one of the men in the group that set out that day.
Rafael Pease, a 30-year-old professional snowboarder and filmmaker who splits his home between Alaska and Chile, says that when it comes to life-or-death situations, minutes cannot be spared…