The most exciting experience I have had snowboarding took place in Vail, Colorado. More specifically, the Outer Mongolia Bowl on the backside of the mountain. The night of our arrival Vail had received about 8-10 inches of snow, which was of course only a drop in the bucket for the yearly snowfall. While many trails are groomed carefully the back bowls ten to be inconsistent. I often find the trails themselves too simple so I ventured into an area that was yet to be used; I of course failed to consider that the area may be unexplored for a reason. The group I was with only had two snowboarders, one being myself and the other was my friend Sean. I knew that Sean could hold his own so I had him follow me as I descended the mountain to journey through the forest that was essentially pure powder. The second I entered my board began to sink, however, I was still moving so I figured it would be fine. After about 10-20 seconds I looked back and was unable to see Sean, I immediately stopped to try and find him. It did not take long for me to see that he had fallen and was sitting in deep powder, which if I'm being honest, was pretty funny. After confirming he was following me I tried to continue down the path but soon realized I too was unable to move. I realized that the only thing that had allowed me to move through the powder before was my initial momentum. I tried to jump my snowboard up through the powder but ended up sinking further in. I realized that I was not going to be able to move so I sat down to remove my board. As I sat down I realized just how much powder I was in, the snow was almost up to my shoulders. This discovery was certainly surprising but I wasn't worried as I knew I could climb out. As I attempted to undo my bindings I became unsettled as it was hard to move and I was not making much progress. After I removed my feet from my snowboard I tried to move out of my position which proved to be difficult as well as unsuccessful. It seemed as if the snow was quicksand, the more I moved the more I began to drown in overwhelming snow. At this point I was definitely concerned about whether or not I was going to find my way out of the gap in the snow that was only growing deeper. The hole I was in may have only been about 6-7 feet deep but in the midst of rising panic it seemed as if it was 100 feet deep. I knew I had to calm down and just think so I sat completely still in the snow for about 30 seconds until I came up with an idea that seemed unlikely to work but it was all I had. I began to use my snowboard to pull myself out by driving it into the snow above me and pulling myself up. As I climbed closer to the top I was able to look back and see Sean was following my lead. This process turned out to be surprisingly effective as I repeated the rotation of climbing/swimming through multiple feet of heavy snow. Once I found my way back to the top I knew there was no way the snow could handle the pressure of me standing on my board so I decided to use my board as a sled to make my way out. Eventually I was able to sit on my board and slid out,  while it was far from my original intentions it turned out to be surprisingly enjoyable and I was able to enjoy the powder like I originally hoped to.