Seattle skier unharmed after falling about 160 feet into crevasse

WHISTLER/BLACKCOMB, BRITISH COLUMBIA – A Seattle skier miraculously escaped without injury after falling about 160 feet into a crevasse in Canada's Decker Mountain Sunday, Q13 Fox reports.

Nikolai Popov was rescued after spending two hours in a 50-meter deep hole in a remote skiing area. He said the massive hole seemed small at first.

"I saw that there was a little crack and I started probing with a pole to see where the crevasse is," Popov told Q13 Fox. "And just as I was doing that, the whole thing collapsed under me and I found myself in a very nasty hole, actually it was quite deep."

Luckily, another skier was skiing nearby and noticed Popov had disappeared. Since neither had a cell phone, it took search and rescue teams about two hours to arrive.

"Falling into a crevasse can be cold,” Popov told Q13 Fox. “But it was warm enough. I knew that this guy would call search and rescue."

The search and rescue team landed a helicopter a safe distance away, and hiked to the hole where Popov was stranded. They used a rope-and-pulley system to hoist Popov out of the hole.

Popov told Q13 Fox the incident could have actually been much worse.

"The hole itself treated me better than it could have because there was another 20 meters down," he said. "I could have gotten stuck there."

Rescuers say Popov is lucky he escaped unharmed, and urged fellow skiers to take precautions if they plan to ski in remote areas alone.

"I wouldn't recommend touring alone, be prepared for self-rescue if you're going with a party," Daren Romano of Whistler Search and Rescue told Q13 Fox. "Take some ropes with you."

Click for more on this story from Q13 Fox.