Postcard from Switzerland: how I survived an avalanche – 03/04/2024 – Sport

I’ve been skiing since I was seven, but in recent years, as I’ve ventured further from the slopes, large boxes of mountaineering equipment have infiltrated the cupboards of our bedroom at home in London. Each contains shovels, avalanche probes, ropes, boots, survival shelters, and so on. All of the emergency equipment remained sealed in its packaging, despite being taken on several trips, until one day late last winter when I gratefully opened every last piece.

With three friends, I was on a week-long ski trip in Switzerland. We started in Grindelwald, ascending by cogwheel train to Jungfraujoch, the highest station in Europe, then headed south to the vast expanse of the Aletsch glacier, where we stayed in a series of mountain refuges.

On Saturday morning we woke up at the Konkordia Refuge, had breakfast and the refuge keepers wished us luck as we set off again across the glacier, strapped in single file. We were heading to the Hollandia Refuge, although we never got there.

The weather forecast was reasonable, but four hours later visibility worsened, intermittent snow began to fall heavier, and a strong wind spread it around us. Soon the snow was falling faster than I had ever seen in 40 years of skiing.

We skied in tethered pairs to avoid any chance of falling into crevasses; our progress was painfully slow. Suddenly, one of my skis sank about three feet into the rapidly accumulating snow. As I tried to pull my boot up, my ski came loose and the leash snapped. I could feel my friend Nick’s impatience at the front of the rope as I dug around trying to retrieve my ski. But as I did so, I heard a muffled scream coming from behind.

It took me a second to process the words: “Oh my God, he said avalanche!” The thing I feared all my life in the mountains.

Then a bang and a hiss. A wall of white engulfed me, a wave of freezing cold.
“Try to stay on top and swim”, that’s what they say. Which sounds simple, but not when you’re spinning with a ski still attached. “Try to create breathing space with your hands over your mouth,” they say. But I was panting with terror, the powdery snow quickly filled my mouth and I began to choke.

“That’s it,” I thought. I was filled with rage for having disappointed my daughters and my wife. Dad isn’t so good on the mountain after all.

In a matter of seconds, it was over. I came to, looked down and saw my legs covered in snow, but fortunately the rest of my body was not buried. Nick shouted, “We were hit by an avalanche. Is everyone okay?”

Every few seconds you could hear the rumble of another avalanche breaking loose somewhere above us.

Surprisingly, the four of us ended up on the surface. I spotted my helmet a few meters away; one pole was right behind me, though there was no sign of the other, and no chance of getting the ski now.

We knew that more avalanches were likely and that we had to urgently get to flatter ground. I rested my free foot on Nick’s ski and, like a three-legged race, we descended awkwardly. We reached a plateau, but were still close to the slope. Every few seconds we could hear the rumble of another avalanche breaking loose somewhere above us. At that moment, there was a brief pause and a swallow appeared. We stopped and all looked up as she circled repeatedly around us, seeming to guide us to safer ground.

We followed it another 200 meters west. It was already 5pm, the storm continued to intensify, and we were cold and wet from the avalanche. Continuing the 10km down the valley to the nearest village, Blatten, seemed too risky, as did trying to climb up to the shelter, so we decided to build a “shovel-up”, a sort of basic igloo, and shelter there until help arrived. Nick said he had built one before, although never “in a dangerous situation”.

We put our four backpacks in a pile and started dumping snow on them. After an hour we had a huge meringue-like mound that we compacted with our skis. We then began to dig a hole inside it, removing the backpacks to form a cave that we then enlarged and shaped with shovels. Finally, it was big enough for all of us to take shelter inside.

Then began 15 very uncomfortable hours. We opened all the survival blankets to try to make the cave floor a little less cold. We called mountain rescue. There was the option of sending guards and dogs, but being so high up, in a worsening storm, with temperatures dropping and darkness imminent, they would be putting their own safety at risk. We decided to hunker down for the night and wait out the storm.

As the air inside the cave began to warm, chunks of ice periodically fell from the ceiling. I started to worry that we would all suffocate, so we created an air hole using our skis. It was a difficult balancing act – too much ventilation and our damp bodies started to feel cold; not enough and thoughts of suffocation occupied our minds. I kept a shovel very close, so paranoid was I that the roof would collapse at any minute.

We tried lying down and resting, but I noticed that every time I did, I started to shake. One friend told jokes to keep his spirits up, another even managed to sleep, his snores strangely comforting as we waited the hours to pass.

Finally, we noticed the first light of dawn. Looking outside, we saw that the fresh snow had risen to the roof of our 6-foot-high shelter, but the storm had passed. We called mountain rescue again and 10 minutes later we could hear the distant but unmistakable sound of helicopter blades approaching. I felt an overwhelming relief.

The rescuers praised us for being well prepared in terms of survival bags and blankets, and I noticed one of them nodding approval as he looked inside our shelter. No climber wants to be rescued, but these comments were somehow a great comfort as we descended back down the valley in the helicopter, reflecting on our escape. Looking back, we all wonder if the swallow that appeared in the middle of the storm was some sort of guardian angel.