"They don't mark cliffs in Europe" – American skier accidentally plunges 50ft

Smiling skier lying in snow after falling
(Image credit: Getty)

A skier from Washington, USA, has shared a video of himself accidentally plunging 50ft off a cliff at an unnamed European ski resort. The man captured the whole incident with his selfie stick, and the resulting clip (which you can watch below) shows him coming perilously close to landing on bare rock.

"This is what accidentally falling off a 50 foot cliff looks like," said skier Reid O'Brien, who uploaded the video on TikTok. "My friend sent me this and goes 'apparently they don't mark cliffs in Europe'."

@icouldskithat

♬ original sound - Reid O’Brien

Amazingly, O'Brien's friend seems to have escaped injury – and he's not the only one. As Powder writer Matt Lorelli recalls, in January 2017, a 25-year-old named Devin Stratton was unhurt after accidentally plunged off a 150ft cliff while skiing down the back side of Mount Timpanogos in Utah.

"I immediately thought about my cousin who was [left a] quadriplegic from a car accident and thought, 'I'm gonna be paralyzed,'" Stratton told the Washington Post. "And then when I saw how big the cliff was when I was going over the edge, I thought I was dead for sure."

Amazingly, the only thing bruised was Stratton's pride, although it did take him and a friend five hours to track down his missing ski after the fall.

Cat Ellis
Editor

Cat is the editor of Advnture, She’s been a journalist for 15 years, and was fitness and wellbeing editor on TechRadar before joining the Advnture team in 2022. She’s a UK Athletics qualified run leader, and in her spare time enjoys nothing more than lacing up her shoes and hitting the roads and trails (the muddier, the better), usually wearing at least two sports watches.