Into the
blue I
What does it feel like to lose your partner in a crevasse? Tom King found out.
t was under beautiful blue skies, at about 1pm on a Saturday afternoon, that Emily disappeared from sight. Seemingly swallowed by the glacier a few meters in front of me, I heard three screams – the last, an impossible
hope-sapping, heartbreaking distance away. Sandwiched between Italy and the sky-blue Lac Léman of Switzerland, lies the legendary French town of Chamonix-Mont- Blanc. A center of extreme skiing and mountaineering, this mountain-ringed valley attracts a menagerie of athletes and tourists alike. At the center of the circus – the Kaaba for skiing pilgrims – sits the Vallée Blanche: 20km of lift-accessed, off-piste glaciated skiing. People fly halfway round the world to ride the cable car up to the 3,842m Aiguille du Midi: one of the world’s most impressive cable cars stations. Carved out of the solid orange alpine granite, this sanctuary of safety is a remarkable achievement in alpine engineering
But step through the safety gate to follow the track down a snow
arête and you are immediately transported into a beautiful world of mountains, snow and danger. In winter, rope handrails guide and protect you from a fatal fall down the 1,000m north face below, until you arrive on the top of the Mer du Glace glacier, ready to begin your ski descent. There are several possible variations, all converging on the flatter, calmer sea of ice way below. In winter, snow covers the glacier to a lower altitude than in the summer and snow forms bridges over the gaping crevasses. But these bridges are often hidden from sight, their stability unknown and untested. As Emily fell, I rode straight past her to the downhill side of the crevasse. In the beautiful afternoon sunshine – on a benign part of the descent – I began making preparations to discover if my girlfriend had just died. Calmly, I took off my bag and found a suitable location to build an anchor. By now other skiers and mountain guides had arrived. A radio was produced and a helicopter called. I clipped into my rope and started crawling across the snow towards the hole where she had disappeared. It had been at least ten minutes since I’d seen her. Ten minutes where my thoughts were absorbed with ensuring my own safety: tying knots, placing ice screws, uncoiling ropes.
SUMMIT#88 | WINTER 2017 | 21
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