Report from Jake Morgan on
Planetfear
Last Sunday 10th January I set off an area
of windslab the size of a football pitch and got carried down a slope
for about 100m and then a further 100m down a gully in avalanche debris
and was lucky not to be buried.
The
weekend had started well with a day out ski touring in the Howgills. We
started from Sedbergh and skied some excellent easy angled gullies on
the western side of the fells. There were strong easterlies blowing all
day and the tops were icy and scoured. On this day I had accidentally
left my avalanche transceiver in the car thinking that it was
unnecessary, after all we were skiing in the Howgills (!).
The
next morning, after a bit of deliberation, we set off skinning up the
bridleway from Thirlmere, to see if the wind had left us anything to
ski. The weather had warmed considerably and there was a melt going on
in the valley. I was pretty non-enthusiastic about skiing. I was
pessimistic about the chances of finding anything worth the long
walk/skin.
As we gained height the powerful easterly that
threatened to blow us off our feet did nothing to change my mood. Nor
did the icy landscape with grass tufts showing through. Why hadn't I
gone ice climbing?
Anyone who has done even a small amount
of avalanche training is probably already thinking that these don't
look like safe conditions - A bit of a thaw and lots of wind blown snow =
lots of unstable windslab.
Skinning into the wind above Thirlmere (Photo by Anthony Emmet)
As
we got higher it looked as though we might get some snow on the south
facing slopes across to our left. We crossed the bottom of the valley
and zig-zagged our way up the hillside, to our right was a large steep
sided gully with clearly a large amount of windslab on its right hand
side. This was formed in a process known as cross-loading where the snow
that is blown across the hillside deposits in the lee side of gullies.
The plan was to traverse well above the top of the gully on easy angled
ground and ski down to the right of it on the south facing slope.
Andy
Benson, Ant Emmet and I skinned faster than my partner Lucy and Ruth
Bowman and another Lucy. We arrived at the top while they were part way
up. The top was covered in large sastrugi formations formed by the
howling wind.
We de-skinned and set off down. The light
was completely flat and the angle below us was hard to see. Andy set off
first as always and was soon out of sight. In the poor visibility I,
followed closely by Ant, went too far left and I suddenly realised that I
was on the steeply angled windslab I had made a mental note to avoid. I
turned quickly to the left to head towards steeper ground. I heard a
shout from Ant behind me. He later said that he had shouted because of
the crack that had opened above me. My legs were swept from under me and
all of a sudden the valley bottom was rushing up towards me. Oh shit
I'm in an avalanche. My skis released straight away and my first thought
was to get into the kayaking defensive swimming position, with legs
downhill and slightly bent ready for impact. The impact in the bottom of
the gully was going to hurt. This first stage probably lasted not much
more than a second or two, the slope started at about 35 degrees and
steepened into the gully bottom. It almost felt like freefall.
The
enormous impact I had expected did not come. I had a relatively soft
landing in a river of moving debris. I was rolled over and over and
started fighting for breath. It felt like a combination of being
buffeted by white water in a swim whilst kayaking and face planting
constantly in a ski crash. I realised that my hands were being dragged
down by my ski poles and wriggled my hands free of the leashes and
started trying to front crawl for the surface. Then as suddenly as it
had started it stopped. A moment of panic and I thrashed about. Luckily I
had an arm out above the surface and the rest of me can't really have
been buried much. I still couldn't breath. I coughed and wheezed and
expelled snow and blood from my throat (note to self: keep mouth shut in
avalanches). If I had been buried It would not have been long before
suffocation.
I started looking back up hill to see where
Ant was. He was already stood up and waving. I couldn't shout because my
throat hurt. Andy was stood at the side of the gully about 30m away. I
waved at one of the girls I could see on the skinning track to let them
know I was ok. I felt a sense of massive relief. At certain points in my
rapid journey downhill I had wondered if I was going to get killed.
Looking back at where it all happened.The route I went is marked in red and Ant in Blue. The area of windslab in green. (Photo by Anthony Emmet).
We
had joked that morning whilst putting our transceivers on how
embarrassing it would be to die in an avalanche in the Lake District. It
immediately dawned on me just how complacent I had been and also how
lucky (if that's the right word) I had been.
Looking
back up the gully, the debris is about 5m wide and I don't know how
deep. Ant Emmet with his one remaining ski is in the distance. (Photo by Andy Benson)
Looking down the gully from about halfway with me at the bottom.
(Photo by Andy Benson)
