Spindrift

This is the name of snow coming down cliff, usually from wind, but in this case I’ll use it for melted snow too. There might be a better name when it’s melted. It’s not quite an avalanche because the whole slope isn’t moving but apparently it’s okay to say spindrift avalanche.

I got stuck in a spindrift avalanche yesterday. We were trying to access the normal route of a nice climb/ski combination. However climate change has altered the approach, and now to get to the nice little couloir, it’s necessary to climb up a not so nice little avalanche niche. For me it was pretty obvious that this was dangerous as all get out, but my partner didn’t agree. I’m always worried about everything, he says. So we start up, and it’s steep and hard and the snow is mostly rotten. We get to a rocky part and finally finally finally he agrees that it’s dangerous and we need to go back. There’s no protection in the rocky part and it’s all loose shale, not even held in place by ice, it’s too warm, with a long fall if (when) anything lets loose.

I start down and my partner attempts to belay me off an ice axe. The snow is rotten so I don’t have a lot of faith in the belay and I want out of there so badly I could scream. I climb down, feet waving into rotten snow and I’m almost out when a large spindrift avalanche hits me. It’s long. I hunch down and realize that if I stand up, my head isn’t in the snow so much. It takes a minute or so for it to stop. I don’t move; I just get slowly buried. My sunglasses are full of snow and my bandana has fallen into my eyes so I can’t see anything. I manage to figure out that if I can get to the right another meter or so, I’d be out of the avalanche but….my left snow boot is buried in snow. I start scraping with my ice axe, and scraping and scraping. My foot is almost free. I put the ice axe behind my knee for leverage and manage to put my leg free. I crab a meter or so over to the right, calling up that I’m “okay” (ready to vomit from stress and panic) but I am okay. I untie my rope and go down to our skis.

Now it’s my partner’s turn. He tries to belay down (off a snow hanger but like I said, the snow is all pretty rotten) but an even larger spindrift hits him almost at the end. His belay cedes and he’s floating down on the snow towards me, fast at first then slower as the slope eases off. His ice axe is buried somewhere.

We are alive today but I think we’ve used up one of the nine, there. My partner has used up a few more (see “The Fall” from a few weeks ago (https://forolavache.com/2026/03/02/the-fall/) We were lucky there weren’t rocks in that avalanche. We are lucky not all the snow came down at once. I am lucky that I was able to scrape my left boot out. The bindings were broken, but my partner has a repair kit and he was able to wire my boots into ski position (and there they stayed, even when we were walking down the last part).

It was incredibly stupid to go up where we did. There was no need to get into that much danger, and it was obvious from the get go, at least to me. I don’t know how to insist with that stuff. I always come off sounding girly but today he says that I was right in my assessment. I don’t want to be right after we almost die. I want to be right before we try going up the slope, getting stuck halfway, needing to come down and getting buried in spindrift.

In any case, happy to be alive and very, very tired. Very grateful for the first part of that sentence. I’m very happy to be alive today.