Some times I think to myself why the fuck do we do this. I sat in the helicopter swooping around the sharp valley ridges. The pilot would drop me in Saas fee so I could pick up my car and drive to the hospital. Although everything was now ok, this is when the flood of thoughts and emotions hit.
We had set our sights on ski touring Alphubel 4209m. As we geared up and started up the hill I was slightly hesitant due to the lack of tracks. Maybe opting for the summit of Allalinhorn would be easier and safer? I feel I often look for excuses to back away from a hard day on the hill. This was on my mind and so I wanted to stick to the original plan. At an altitude of 3500m I was point man. I made a kick turn and traversed yet again at an angle across the slope. We were unroped and ironically singing “Beautiful day” by U2, (maybe we deserved it.) Our second mistake was our spacing. Luke was just behind me, and Ewa behind him. I heard a muffled yell before I turned around to see a chasm behind me. My skis poking off the edge of the snow-bridge I was standing on. There was no response when I yelled.
I needed to make myself safe to be of any use to anybody. We all had been touring along the length of the crevasse. Stepping to the uphill side I stood some distance away from the crevasse and immediately called air glacier. Once I had passed all the information across I then got started on making an anchor. With one ski dug in horizontally and the other one in front and dug in vertical I had a stable enough anchor to attach my rope and safely reach the edge of the crevasse. Only from there could I now hear Ewa and Luke, but I couldn’t see either of them.
They were both ok, they couldn’t move and Ewa relayed that Luke was bleeding a little but nothing serious. I sent the rope down and set up a three to one pulley system. Luke tied on and I started shifting him out. I made a mistake here by just throwing down the rope. I could have made it a lot easier for Luke by attaching a screwgate with a double barrel knot on the end, especially as it transpired Luke had a dislocated shoulder. This also made it very hard for him to dislodge himself from the squeeze before the Helicopter came.
At this point at least I knew they were both safe and the rescue was on the way. I could “relax” a bit. I didn’t comprehend the time it would take for the rescue to come, and that this could have consequences. Ewa was stuck. The collapsed snow-bridge had ended up burying Ewa and the wind blowing more loose snow on top of her meant she really couldn’t move. Even if I sent the rope to her instead of Luke she wouldn’t have been able to grab it. Let alone clip it to her harness. She was now in a freezer, covered in snow, wearing just a base layer, unable to get her down jacket out of her daysack. After the rescue her temperature read 32 degrees centigrade. It was not something that occurred to me. Even though the fall did not injure her, the time stuck in the crevasse was the danger.
I took the helicopter ride out as the last person and it gave me time to reflect. An “after action review.” I felt guilty as the most experienced in the group. Though everyone on the hill should be aware of safety precautions and if an option to make a situation safer was given no-one should deny that option.
All the small things could have made the situation very different. Everything from if we had been one step to the right or left, or had our pole loops through our hands etc. Although using a rope has its pros and cons, I think in this situation we would have all been in the crevasse if we had been tied on. Though spacing was the most important takeaway from this situation. Just like from my military training, how many times “keep your spacing” was called on patrols or over the radio.
Overall what’s done is done. It was an opportunity to learn from. After 10 years in the mountains this was the first real rescue I had been involved in. There is always space to learn and learning from a real time situation is probably (though unfortunately) the most effective.