There was no way to extract his leg from the snow. When he tried to push himself up, he succeeded only in driving his hands deeper into the snow, and his own body weight pinned his hands under him. He was able to move his face to his left and free his mouth and nose from the snow, but the snow muffled his voice as he called out for Sisson.

The urge to panic came on slowly. He kept trying to move parts of his body without worsening his situation, but every motion only seemed to make things worse. He called again for Sisson, though he knew Sisson was even more likely to struggle through the snow and less likely to be able to free himself than Tom was.

He began a slow rolling, rocking his body from side to side. Gently he made a depression with his right shoulder that gave him a little room to try to extricate his left hand. It took several tries before he felt the snow give for the first time as he pulled his hand up. In a few more tries, he was able to pull it from under his body and the snow.

It was fully numb now, and he put his arm down at his side and grabbed the cloth of his pants with his hand and began another series of rolls to his left until he was able to free his right hand. He was stuck now by only his right leg. He tried moving his right foot back and forth laterally to clear some space around it. Every time he was able to get some space and move the foot farther, the wet snow crumbled and fell around it again.

He began to slowly inch his left leg out to his side, pulling it with his left hand. When he had it at a good angle away from his body, he was able to reach back with his hands and scrape some snow away from around his trapped leg.

When he had dug down only six inches, his body position rendered his efforts mostly useless. He needed to get himself upright in order to get his hands deep enough into the snow to dig himself out. He pushed his hands down as if he were doing a push-up, only to have them break the ice crust again and sink into the snow. He would have to pull himself upright by the strength of his stomach and back alone.