Avalanche!
A few years ago I was on a snowboarding holiday in Les Deux Alpes with my brother. We decided to spend the week doing the off-piste course, which was 6 days out-of-bounds and in the back-country (I recommend, the off-piste there is fantastic). We were the only boarders in a small group of skiers.

On the first day we were taken through massive fields of untouched powder and eventually got to a couloir. The guide went first. My brother went second. I came round third, and as I went to wait below my brother the snow just slipped away and I was suddenly waist-deep in a 10m-by-10m slab heading towards a rocky cliff drop. "Move move move!" came the shouting from the guide, who had actually skied in behind me to ensure I got out. Luckily I had the momentum to do so and the realisation of what was happening didn't hit me until it was all over.

That evening I was high on testosterone and adrenaline and for the first and last time in my life I understood how it felt to be an alpha male. It didn't last. The next day I was physically exhausted and could barely stay upright. Whilst digging myself out of a 4m deep powder hole in avalanche country the realisation of what happened and what was going on hit me, as did the panic. Luckily, we got to the bottom to a waiting jeep in time for lunch, at which point my bro and I decided to call it a day.

There were a couple of other a avalanches that week, but I was only a witness and they were easier to cope with. One looked huge but was only a few inches deep so the guy just dug his skis into the hardback below and didn't go anywhere. These days I still off-piste, but only for an afternoon, and always with a guide kids!
(Rilux might be pregnant and has bum-aids, Fri 5 Jul 2013, 2:30, 2 replies)

Wouldn't your momentum have been in the direction that the snow was pushing you?
Ah, you leapt of the cliff, and unfurled your Union Jack parachute. As you were.
( monster munch person, man, woman... camera... TV?, Fri 5 Jul 2013, 8:45, closed)

Of course it happened that way!
(But also being a snowboarder I usually zig-zag down a mountain unless speed is the order of the day, hence as well as going downhill I was also going "left" and got out).

Some interesting facts about avalanches:
1. Sound doesn't trigger an avalanche. That's a Hollywood myth.
2. A mountain can be too steep to avalanche. The pressure from the snow isn't right.
3. If an avalanche has just triggered you're safe to ride in the powder that was next to it. If it were to avalanche it would have done with the rest of it.
(Rilux might be pregnant and has bum-aids, Fri 5 Jul 2013, 13:43, closed)