Extreme skier Ian McIntosh not daunted by 500m fall

Extreme skier Ian McIntosh, who survived a spectacular tumble down a steep Alaska mountain, says the fall has not killed his love of the sport.

McIntosh, who was raised in Invermere and now calls Whistler home, was being filmed by action sports media company Teton Gravity Research for the movie Paradise Waits in Alaska's Neacola Mountains when he ran into trouble.

Every moment of McIntosh's 500-metre fall was captured on camera as he tumbled head over skis down the steep mountain last April.

"For me this line was a pretty standard line. You know I ski stuff like this all the time. I wasn't particularly super nervous. I just dropped in. It was same old."

But he said the April light "was tricky and it played a lot of tricks with my eyes" when "I lost my line and and it put me into a five-foot trench."

'The ride of my life'

McIntosh lost control and began cartwheeling down the near vertical slope.

"I equate it to a big wave surfer getting pounded by a 50-foot wave," McIntosh told the CBC.

"I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was in a washing machine and I knew I was going for the ride of my life."

"On a mountain that steep, there's no stopping," he said. "It was like being hit by linebackers."

Miraculously, McIntosh survived the fall with no injuries. He plans to be skiing again this weekend at Whistler Blackcomb.

"I've been skiing gnarly lines for ten years as a professional and much longer than that as an amateur and I've never had so much media attention as I did for this big crash," he told CBC.

"I'm just stoked to bring more attention to my sport... and show people what I do."

Falling 500m down a mountain

9 years ago

Duration 4:00

Canadian professional skier Ian McIntosh talks about cartwheeling down a nearly vertical mountain in Alaska