The road less traveled:
surviving an avalanche

By Aaron Hill

Along a mountain ridge above Herman Gulch, a bristlecone pine tree spent some time with me. This ancient sentinel bore witness to time on a scale I would never understand. Taking off my glove, the soft skin of my palm explored the rough bark. Perhaps a hundred years from now someone else would touch this tree. Something about that moment made me realize that my life is brief and fleeting.

It was my birthday, and it felt natural to dwell on such thoughts. Just as I was born, one day I would die. However, up there in the mountains with nature all around me, I felt timeless. I let go of the ancient tree and wished it well.

Like a magnificent staircase, the ridge gently curved down to the trail two thousand feet below. Going forward, I began to make my way across a steep chute that eons of spring melt-off had carved into the mountainside. Without the precipice thirty yards below, it would have been an exciting and dangerous sled ride to the bottom of the mountain.

Turning around I smiled and said a silent goodbye to my summit sanctuary. I would always remember the birthday I spent on top of a mountain. As I enjoyed the moment, I lost my footing and started to slide down the hard snow. Using my ski poles and the weight of my body, I attempted to regain my balance.

But I kept sliding.

I tried to stop my slide, but nothing worked. The ledge of the precipice was now growing terrifyingly larger.

The icy crust defeated my desperate efforts to stop. Thoughts of going over the ledge sent me into a panic. Whether the drop-off was one foot or fifty, I had no desire to go over it. Mightily, I slammed my boot into the slope. I gasped as the boot broke through the crust. Like a crystal glass when it drops on a hard floor, the crust beneath me cracked open and splintered into a million pieces. The slope had shattered. In an instant I was riding a river of snow. I had triggered an avalanche.

I was powerless.

My velocity increased as the mountainside came down with me. My mind raced. The panic went from a trickle of concern to a flood of fear. The ledge was approaching fast.

“Not the cliff. Oh please. I’m going over. Oh God!” I cried out.

The relatively quiet motion of the snow was disrupted by the sound of my boots scraping against the rocky top of the cliff. I felt the jagged rocks against my legs. And then the momentum of the slide launched me over the cliff. I flew through the air and in an instant too fast for my mind to remember, I was sucked under the river of snow.

With fleeting hope, I tried to gasp one last breath of air before I was swallowed by the dark. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. Under the snow, I was traveling down the mountain at an unimaginable velocity. There was something fluid about the snow. And there was noise, like rushing water.

Instinctively, I opened my mouth to take in a breath. Snow pushed itself into my mouth and down my throat. I choked. I couldn’t close my mouth. I couldn’t breathe. It was dark. I didn’t want to accept this as the end. But I knew it was. I knew enough about avalanches to know that once you got sucked under the snow, your chances of survival were close to zero. But what could I do? I couldn’t move. I was encased in a river of concrete.

I felt so guilty as I contemplated the inevitable. I didn’t want my family and friends to suffer. I didn’t want to do this to them. I didn’t want to die young. It wasn’t my time. Not yet. But, I thought whimsically, isn’t that what almost everyone who dies young thinks? I am no different.

The sliding snow raced down the chute. Inside the snow I felt myself become airborne again.

I hit hard.

What wind I had left in my lungs was driven out. Already asphyxiating, my hopes of survival were cut from slim to none. When would it stop? All I wanted was air.

The snow twisted down the mountain. My body was like a rag doll. Colossal pressure forced the life out of my body. I was being crushed into oblivion. My descent continued. I was now going down headfirst. Morbidly, I greeted death’s cessation of fear and pain. What would my head strike? Would it hurt, or would it kill me instantly? What tree would break my body like a twig? How many minutes would pass before I suffocated? The snow pushed my legs behind my back, threatening to fold me over. What would my back feel like when it broke?

Then I twisted around again. This time, my legs were in front of me, and I was on my back. I wanted to tell my loved ones I was sorry for doing this to them. As the light of consciousness began to dim, I prepared myself for the dark reality that my life was over. And then it happened. The slide started to slow and my body hit something that pushed me to the surface. The bright sun filled me with hope. Coughing out the snow, I gulped fresh air. I imagine my very first breath of life felt something like the one I took that day.

I breathed again.

It was not over yet. I was riding on top of the flowing snow, but I was fearful of begin sucked under again. With every fiber of my being, I struggled to the side of the avalanche. I had one last chance to live.

As the groaning of the snow died down, I could hear and feel my heart beating hard. The nightmare was now over. Looking up the mountain I could see the path I had taken inside the avalanche. It was a rocky curved chute. It had taken three hours to climb the mountain and thirty seconds to descend it. The path was definitely the one less-traveled. I was amazed that nothing seemed broken and that I was in one piece.

I was alive.

A group below had been watching the avalanche unaware I was trapped inside. Now they were yelling at me to see if I was okay. I made my way to them and was greeted by wonderful hugs. They were complete strangers who felt like old friends.

A little later and with tears in my eyes, I got into my car and started the engine. Still shaking from shock, a gnarled pine tree drew my attention. The tree had survived a pretty rough existence. Thoughts of the ancient bristlecone pine on the ridge and the avalanche began to replay themselves in my mind. Softly, the interior of the car dissolved away. I became frozen in a state of pure joy as the enormity of the situation overtook me.

Wiping away the tears, I was thankful that the flame of my life had not been smothered. It was then that I knew something inside my soul had changed.

My life has been very different since. Whenever I find myself drifting back into the trappings of the material world, I close my eyes and remember what was important to me just before I thought I was going to die. It wasn’t my job or the kind of car I drove. In fact, even my life had no meaning to me when it was about to end. In the moments before death, I understood that it was people who truly mattered. I learned never to be afraid of doing the things in life that will bring me closer to the ones I love. In the end, it won’t matter where I live, what my title is, or how much money I have. If you don’t believe me, ask a tree. P