How I survived an avalanche in Switzerland

I’ve skied since I was seven but in recent years, as I’ve ventured further from the pistes, large boxes of mountaineering kit have crept into the cupboards of our bedroom at home in London. Each contains shovels, avalanche probes, ropes, boots, survival shelters and so on. The emergency equipment all remained sealed in its packaging despite being taken on multiple trips, until one day late last winter, when I gratefully tore open every last piece. With three friends, I was on a week’s ski touring trip in Switzerland. We’d begun in Grindelwald, riding the rack-and-pinion railway up to the Jungfraujoch, Europe’s highest station, then heading south on to the vast expanse of the Aletsch glacier where we stayed in a series of mountain refuges. On Saturday morning, we woke in the Konkordia Hut, ate breakfast, then the hut guardians wished us well as we set out again across the glacier, roped together in single file. We were heading for the Hollandia Hut, though we would never make it.