Beyond the Abyss/Back from the Abyss
It happened in a flash. One minute I was on top of the world, mesmerised by the stunning, majestic terrain of Mont Blanc, the huge, tumbling glacial ice and the thick, untracked snow; then the next, I was flying through the air, in an arc, disappearing into the bowels of Western Europe’s highest mountain.
In retrospect I should have trusted my instincts. As the wind whistled through the Aiguille de Midi tunnel on the Piton Nord, 3804 metres above sea level, at the start of the Vallee Blanche descent, the first assault of a vicious bug gripped my stomach. Tying skis onto my rucksack and lugging it onto my shoulders seemed unusually taxing. Roped up, I shuffled down the infamous “arête” a narrow ridge with fixed ropes, feeling the cold and not really paying attention.
Once off the ridge the magic of Mont Blanc’s rocky spires, tunnels of ice, and pastures of gently undulating white beckoned. While somewhat jelly-legged, the sky was blue and the snow was good as we headed off, taking a variant of the classic route between Envers du Plan and Petit Plan.
We had fresh tracks since our arrival in Chamonix two days ago. Soft, dry snow had bucketed down and we had gobbled as much of it as our legs could take. We hadn’t even been allowed to take photos for fear of other hounds getting our powder! The day before in Courmayeur we’d done a couple of Toula Glaciers opting, the second time around, for the couloir option instead of the rickety twisted steel steps that stop a little short of the rocks it is built to avoid. Tucked neatly behind Gilbert our guide I didn’t see Seb’s fall until he was on top of me, his ski just missing my face. The full impact of his weight sent me crashing down with him. Fortunately we’d stopped a short way down in some small rock crevice. But that left me pretty shaken.
On the day of the Vallee Blanche snow glistened like phosphorescence (or in retrospect like Hansel’s pebbles that led directly to the wicked witch) and we joyously swished through the powder following carefully as Gilbert negotiated his way around and through the crevassed terrain. Occasionally we went in single file to put less pressure on the snow around the huge dribbling pillars of glacial ice on its journey to the valley below.
After about half an hour we came across a choke point at some complex crevasses. There was a schuss up a firm small wall with a large crevasse the other side.
Gilbert was leading with Gavin Foster of Ski Weekend bringing up the rear. Following Gilbert I just over cooked the speed on the schuss, didn’t make the sharp right hand turn, and popped, like a champagne cork over the ridge falling into the crevasse on the other side.
I landed on a snow bridge; part of the crevasse basin that then disappeared into a big black hole. I was dangling precariously on the lip of a hole that probably came out in Australia. Apparently the snow was hiding a huge snow bridge and I was at the downhill end where the bridge finished and the crevasse continued.
I’d landed on my right arm, lost a ski and from the waist down was hanging in the hole. “Don’t move”, Gilbert yelled with an unfamiliar tone that indicated the seriousness of the situation. I looked up and he was a spec above me. I lay frozen in a mix state of fear and optimism, never thinking for a moment that my number was up.
I’d lost a ski and felt a strange sensation of the ski less leg swirling about in the void, my upper body squashed flat by my fall onto the snow bridge.
The night before we’d had grisly conversations about the depth of crevasses on Mont Blanc and how many people actually fall in – sometimes two a day with falls of over 90 metres. Then we’d moved on to how one’s body heat melts the ice surrounding you and closes up above leaving the victim well and truly buried in a column of ice. Then there was the debate about the “cup of soup”. If rescuers can’t get there in time or can’t drill through the ice to release the victim the last resort is to lower a cup of hot soup, with a deadly portion of cyanide or some equally fatal ingredient, a sign that death isn’t far away.
So there I lay with these glum thoughts, terrified that my body was overheating and starting to melt the snow bridge that separated me from the great abyss. Up above I could hear voices, not the words, but I could feel the business-like tone.
“Could I reach the karabiner on my harness?” Gilbert yelled. I could but would my fingers work to open it and I’d have to prize out my arm that currently lay under my upper torso and would that effort be enough to collapse my small unstable nest of snow?
This option was ruled out. “I’m coming to get you,” said Gilbert. Phew, I thought that means he can. I waited face down in my bed of snow. After what seem like ages but would only have been minutes, Gilbert lowered himself down on a rope. Grabbing onto me he managed to dig for the karabiner and fasten the rope. I finally took in some air. Gradually I was belayed back up trying to climb with the ski less leg and the one still attached to a ski. Only when I reached the top, clambered over the lip and safe ground was within reach did I look back and see how lucky I’d been. A bold gleaming serac, turquoise ice with the scars of its journey bordered the hole, and just above was my snow bridge.
But the rescue wasn’t over. My ski had landed and wedged on another snow bridge five metres down into the crevasse, in what seemed like an unreachable position. Making a second belay Gilbert with skis on descended into the crevasse and with some clever foot work involving a spread eagle position to balance he was able to grab the ski and climb back onto the initial snow bridge which although fragile supported his weight. Heroically he traversed back out to rejoin our group.
Once back on terra firma there was the grisly business of skiing on. My friends and fellow skiers were visually quite shaken up. For me face down in the snow I’d been unable to see how close my escape actually was. Due to the precarious nature of snow and the fragile snow bridge they had not been allowed close enough to see the rescue, but it was enough to know that it could have gone either way to draw home the dangers of our beloved sport. Making light of it, we set off. “Remember you are a good skier, there’s nothing here that you can’t ski,” said Gavin. He had read the situation better than I, because as soon as I set off I was quite overwhelmed by some serious psychological stuff. A narrow, steeper section we skied that normally wouldn’t have phased me seemed full of dragons and gremlins and somehow my brain was not transmitted its usual instructions to my legs.
We stopped for a hot chocolate at the one refuge on the route, which helped to dissipate the emotional hangover.
The rest of the run was easy and smooth but once settled in the closest bar the true benefits of Genepi finally came to light.