One last run, I thought. Then I will turn for home. The wind bit like a steel trap and I looked Heavenward to scan the sky. Night was closing in – the clouds were congregating around the peaks, obscuring the last, glorious view of this, my personal Valhalla. There was still just enough light reflected off the snow to make it possible to get back to the town. I lowered my goggles over my eyes in readiness for the descent and lifted my right boot to tap it with my ski poles, dislodging the compacted snow that prevents a true bonding with the ski binding. Ready. A last look around, behind me and down the gradient at the fresh, virgin snow. This was going to be the perfect run. I shouted for joy:” Whoo!” and my voice echoed around the rocks and cols. I braced for the push down into the snow that would signal to my body “we’re off!” As I did, there was a mighty Thor-like thunderclap: but it wasn’t thunder.
Somewhere about 150 metres up the rock behind me, a slab of ice took a dislike to my exclamation of anticipated joy. Already teetering on the verge of a final breakdown under the weight of the fresh snowfall on top of it, the combination of the warm afternoon sunshine and my childish shout of joy, it began to slide down the mountain. The ear splitting “crack” was a last scream of anger as twenty thousand tons of snow, ice and rock sheared off the side of the mountain and headed down the slope directly behind me.
I froze. A bead of anxious sweat traced from the nape of my neck down my spine. Feeling it course its way down my back created the illusion of time standing still. A fraction of a second later my mind snapped back and my body pushed off in the only direction I could go – almost vertically down. My only hope was to out run the avalanche. But could I? I knew this terrain and that helped, but the thunderous crack told me this was a big fall. It would gather momentum rapidly and bring everything in its path down with it, like a ravenous wave of snow, devouring all before it. If I was to outrun it, I would have to ski the run of my life.
Now at top speed, my heart ached and beat like a steam train in full flow. Limbs aching and breath fast, furious and forcing every sinew to the extremes, I kept ahead of the snow beast that snapped at my heels. A kilometre down and I spied my chance of escape: a ravine off the left which had an adverse camber. The avalanche would travel down the natural slope of the mountain but I could turn out of its path. Two hundred metres to go. I squatted lower to generate even more speed. A hundred metres. The crystals of ice that formed the vanguard of the tide of snow behind me reached out to embrace me. If they got a hold, I was doomed. So near. So near to escape. Fifty metres. Twenty. I dinked left and disappeared over the brow of the slope. Although I could hear the avalanche surge on down the mountain behind me, and although I was now out of harm’s way, I kept going and did not look back. I only stopped to catch my breath when I reached the shepherd’s hut. A faint, warm light illuminated the window. I snapped off my skis and raised my hand to knock on the door. Just as I was about to rap on the wood, the door opened and the old, wizened face of the shepherd looked me up and down.
“Are you a ghost?”, he enquired. “I heard the mountain groan, and when Thor groans, he demands a sacrifice. Is it you?” He left the door open for me.
I walked inside. As I took off my ski jacket, hat and goggles, I went to hang them on the hook by the mirror. Where I should have stood reflected in its surface was only the image of the room in which I stood.
“Come sit by the fire. You have a long way to travel, friend” began the shepherd. “They all pass through this way.”
“Who do?”, I asked, puzzled.
“The dead”, he answered. “They never realise they have been buried. The adrenalin is too strong. Come. Settle in this chair. Be still. You can rest here for a while until they come to take you.”