http://www.wta.org/trail-news/signpost/hiker-survives-avalanche-on-...
This is what it looked like at 4500' closer to Seattle on Sunday 4/12/10, 3 days after the storm, on a safe ridge route.  The avalanche danger was very high Friday, when a skier was hurt in an avalanche near Snoqualmie Pass.  Saturday, danger still high, a solo hiker was caught by the tail end of a long slide in a notorious avalanche chute on Granite Mountain and buried 3-5' deep in heavy wet snow, which is like cement.  He shouldn't have been able to move a finger and should have been dead within 10 minutes.
Unbelievably, he somehow managed to reach his cell phone and call for a rescue!  More unbelievably, it was successful!  He had an air pocket.  Possibly the searchers got a GPS fix from his transmission.   This NEVER happens (I checked the dateline, April 11, not April 1).
And guess who found him:
"The subject was buried 3-5 feet deep in wet heavy snow. Fortunately he was at the very
toe of the slide, and an avy dog hit on him almost immediately (his voice was also audible topside).
This man was extraordinary lucky - beyond virtually any measure chance - to have ended up in an air pocket not only big enough to sustain him for 3-4 hours, but with enough freedom of movement to get to his cell phone and call."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011578399_hiker11m...