Last season, I was sniffing out a line off the Cirque at Snowbird, traversing along the scalloped entrances to a series of chutes when a moment of inattention left me high-sided with tips snagged uphill on a rock, tails downhill, and me stuck and teetering above some rocky hazards. I’ve had enough spicy situations that I’ve learned the importance of keeping your kit together, and I rotated my upper body to compensate for the cattywampus balance, shifted weight to my uphill ski, and very carefully unstuck the tip of my downhill ski.

Five seconds later, all was good and I dropped in like nothing had happened. But it just as easily could have gone the other way: A little bit more rotation up the hill, a bit more downhill swivel with the tails, and I would have been tumbling backwards over rocks. Thing is, situations can go south fast when you’re on a pair of slippery planks in high angled terrain — a lesson that Stefan Ager learned when his helmet cam captured this gnarly tomahawk in extremely high risk terrain. Ager survived the fall, but it must have been a terrifying few seconds. And all it took was the slightest lack of focus. So, be careful out there, peoples.