In previous posts, I have written a little about avalanches and the effect they have on skiers in the mountains. A personal friend of mine wrote a short story about one of his experiences with an avalanche in Verbier, Switzerland in 1999. I wanted to publish this story as I felt it really made you feel close to understanding the situation that is presented when encountered with this force of nature.
This story is written by Scott Hammond who now lives in Norway and runs White Mountain Sports, a ski school, ski shop and luxury self catering accommodation in Kvitfjell, near Lillehammer.
The winter of 1999 was an amazing winter season in Verbier, as it was in most of the Alps. ‘The Big Winter of 1998/99’. As far as I remember it all started around January 26th. It started to snow and from then on, it was powder skiing every day. It snowed heavily for five days and then cleared up again. It snowed pretty much solidly for five weeks with a four day window of sunshine after 3 weeks of heavy snow and then back to more snow, for a further 2 weeks.
On Feb 1st 1999, my brother and I woke up to a blue bird powder day. With a small group of friends (5 of us in total) we headed straight to an off piste run called Col Des Mouches. We were one of the first across the famous Tortin face and in to the huge bowl. Col Des Mouches is not particularly steep, but known for slides coming from the steep coloiurs or gullies above. We made our way safely across the bowl, keeping an eye on “Banana Coloiur” above us, a well known avalanche hot spot. One of the girls, Ross, who we were skiing with fell and lost a ski. There was a meter plus of snow and we were several hundred meters below her. For us to climb back up to her would have taken along time. The other girl, Suzie was together with her.
We decided to ski down the long run in untracked powder and come back around to help them. On the way down I made a friend aware of a bowl to our left. If there were a slide when he skied into it, with this much snow, he would not get out very easily, so it was best avoided. The bowl was approximately thirty meters across and eight meters deep. We skied around it and descended to the bottom, which turned out to be an amazing run. At the bottom we met an old ski buddy and my brother stopped for a chat. I decided to head back up and help Ross look for her ski. The Tortin lift took five minutes for the ride up and then it was a five minute traverse back across to Col Des Mouches and then a small decent. This meant I was away from the girls for about twenty five minutes.
Arriving back in Col Des Mouches, while traversing over to where the girls were, I noticed that there were some people skiing away fast. One particular guy was screaming “let’s get the hell outta here”. I did not think much of it. I continued across and over the ridge. I came over the crest of the ridge to see my ski tips sticking out one meter over a fracture in the snow of around one meter deep. The fracture line spread out some five hundred meters across. I looked down and saw the final movements of a massive amount of snow sliding down hill. A huge snow cloud was starting to rise and Ross and Suzie were nowhere to be seen. I knew where they were when we left them, but I could not see them. I backed out of the slide area as it was still on its way down and skied out into the middle of the now tracked out bowl which was at a much lower angle. The bowl we had skied was somewhat steeper but not overly. I estimate around 28 degrees.
After skiing down a few hundred meters to where the avalanche debris has gathered, I traversed back into the middle of the now stationary slide. I found one guy half buried and pulling himself out. Another was lying on the snow but I could see he was moving, alive and in no real discomfort. Another was walking around after getting out of the snow. He was disorientated and panicking. I called out to him.
“What happened?”
“Avalanche”
“Anyone buried? How many of you were there?”
“6” I could only see 3
“What are you doing?”
“Looking for my skis” This shocked me but I new, he was in shock.
“Have you seen 2 girls?”
“Yes, we passed them, they were over there but moving down”
“Do you have beacons?”
“Yes”
“Turn them to receive!”
He looked at his beacon with no idea what to do. He was very confused and in shock, but I am sure that he had never used it before.
It only occurred to me later in the day that I was the first and only one on the scene. I pulled out my beacon and turned it to receive and picked up several signals. I was hoping that they were not the two guys closest to me, which they were. I went over and turned their beacons to receive. I started to search and found two other signals and started moving upwards. My brother then arrived and started to panic. One of the missing girls was his girlfriend. He had his beacon on ‘send’ which was making it impossible to search, as we were too close to each other. He had no idea what to do and started to cry and panic. He could not function, so I turned his off and told him that someone had seen the girls descending. It would be best if he went down to look for them at the lift station, and to report if they were not there. If they had one pair of skis he should be able to catch up with them and if they had found the skis, someone may have seen them at the bottom.
The confused guy had turned his beacon to receive and it was now making a loud noise which I knew meant that the buried victim was close. I was now picking up a faint signal as well and confused guys beacon was making a loud beeping sound. He was some 50m higher than me. I made my way up and my signal got stronger. He was still unaware of what to do, so I headed towards him to turn his beacon off. This was all a blur to me, but I assume that it was now five minutes or so after my arrival on the scene. A mountain guide had now arrived as news and the size of the slide had gotten to the piste patrol. He asked me what I knew and I told him what I had done. I told him I had a signal. He told me to keep on that one and he went off in a different direction to search. When I got to the confused guy, looking at his beacon, he had it set on forty meters. Mine was quieter but finding a signal as I had been winding the distance down as I got closer to the source.
By now, people were arriving from everywhere and more and more beeps were being recorded by the receivers. Another guide had arrived and started to direct from above, stopping people far enough away and asking them to turn their beacons to ‘send’ so it did not to interfere with my search. I had turned off confused guys beacon and found that I was only eight meters away. I climbed up and to the left and pin pointed the signal to within one meter. At this point, I got my probe and shovel from my bag and handed them to some other skiers that had now arrived. We were now at around the ten minute mark, I think.
I found the exact point and asked whoever had my probe to start probing. He started to probe about thirty centimetres under the snow just pushing in and pulling out again. I took the probe from him and shoved it into the snow, hitting hard all the way down and kept going until it stopped. I probed a few more times and was confident that I had located the victim. I started to dig with my hands and someone else was using my shovel. More shovels arrived and after what seemed to be forever, we had a two meter hole. I had no idea how long it had taken at this point as we were digging furiously for some time.
I found the top of the victims head and I quickly dug around his face. I cleared the snow from his back and lifted his head slowly to get his face out of the snow. I then shoved my fingers up in his mouth to clear the snow which was jammed in tight and put my fingers in his nose to clear his nostrils and airways. He had snow jammed into every orifice. On clearing the snow from his mouth, there was a huge gasp for air but I could feel there was a lot more snow to be cleared from his airways. At this point, he bit down hard on my fingers. Then I knew for sure that he was alive. I wanted to punch him in the back of the head as it hurt so much, but I thought that he had been through enough that day!
By now there were pisteurs, guides and skiers all over the slide searching for more victims. I could hear the sound of helicopters in the distance. I later found out that the guy I dug out was called Mark. By the time we had him clear, there were dogs, guides and skiers in what seemed to be in the 100’s. Mark was taken to the one of the waiting helicopters and flown to Sion hospital. The guide that was first on the scene then came to me and told me that I had done well and asked me if I could assist him on searching the avalanche path to the valley, to check for further victims. We descended and crossed the path of the huge slide. Thankfully, we did not pick anymore signals.
I skied down to the bottom and arrived at Tortin lift station. Helicopters were picking anyone who had a beacon, probe and shovel and flying them up to the slide. My probe and shovel were still up at the avalanche site which I never got back, though the ski resort did buy me new ones. Some friends started to ask what had happened to which I told them as much as I could remember as they were preparing to go back up. I then lost all control and collapsed. I had to be helped to get my skis off. I was shaking and unable to stand up. I was helped inside the restaurant. Someone went to get me a large beer. In the restaurant, I found my brother and the girls. I sat there a cried for some time. The girls had been standing there when it cracked a meter in front of them. They were not buried though Ross lost her skis. I still do not know how I did not see them walking down. The avalanche was huge. Some five hundred meters wide, two kilometres long and over one meter deep.
The official report on the avalanche was later put down to a rapid local temperature change and not human triggered. Our good friend “John Boy” died on his 50th birthday under six meters of snow in the small bowl, I told my friend not to ski into. Another skier was in hospital for 2 weeks suffering from related injuries and hypothermia. Mark was taken to hospital and was released later that day. I spent the next few days with heavily bruised hands from digging through hard pack snow with my bare hands, as well as being bitten. I broke down in tears at work on several occasions that week.