Edited pearoast: Because the original was badly written.
(All of this story is genuinely true. I am not exaggerating how close I was to the... well, you'll see).





Two winters ago, I was on a uni skiing trip. We'd all got up very early and driven up from Edinburgh to Glenshee (big Scottish ski resort). Being (then) not very competant, I soon lost the rest of the group on a slope that, frankly, was too difficult for me. I decided to try and ski the rest of the way off piste, as the skiing conditions were negligibly different and I thought I could see an easy way down.

Did I mention it was snowing heavily, and I wasn't wearing my goggles?

Did I also mention the line of pretty stripy poles I was heading for, which I believed marked another way down?

Did I mention that these poles ACTUALLY mean "Danger: Keep Away"?

Anyway, I was happily pottering along, my thought processes running somewhere along the lines of "Hmm hmm hmm hmm hmm hmOHSHITWHATTHECUNTINGFUCKAAAAAAAAAAARRRRGH".

I had, in the whiteout, entirely overlooked the start of a gully and plunged over the edge. It wasn't shallow either - about 50-60 degrees. Far steeper than it looked from a distance. I built up far too much speed far too quickly, and panicked. I threw myself to the side just as I smashed into a snowbank. My left ski released as it was supposed to. My right ski didn't. And when that happens, all the twisting forces go through the weakest link. In this case, my right knee.

In short, I was now lying in the bottom of a mostly invisible gully a long way from the main ski run, with no way of calling for help (no phone signal) and a fucked up knee. For the first 5 minutes of lying there, I thought I might be in for the long hall in terms of waiting for help. Fortunately after about 10 minutes I found that it would just about support my weight, albeit at the cost of a fair bit of pain. However, I wasn't safe yet. I still had to get off the damn mountain.

The more observant of you may be wondering why there was a gully on this mountainside in the first place. The more clever of you may have realised that this would be because it contained a stream at the bottom. I had plunged into the very top of the gully, about 10ft above where the stream came out from under the snow. Had I gone in 10ft further on, due to the fast and rocky nature of the stream, there's little doubt in my mind that I would now be dead.

I couldn't go back up the mountain because I couldn't bend my knee properly. I had to go forward or nowhere. I ended up shuffling along the side of a 60 degree gully in nearly waist deep snow, my heart in my mouth every time a ski shifted or slipped downhill. Because if I fell, I was going to go headfirst into the stream. And die. Fortunately, I have a useful reflex in these situations - I don't panic or cry or go into shock. I deal with it calmly and rationally, ignoring any pain or difficulty for as long as is necessary to get to safety. Then when it's over, I collapse in a heap and lie there for a long time, completely unable to do anything except think about what could have happened.

I did eventually get off the mountain and somehow over the others between the minibus and where I was, shaking like a leaf with pain and delayed shock, and balancing as much as possible on one ski all the way. I stayed there until the others got back, and we headed home. Stopping off for food on the way back, I got out of the minibus and fell over, unable to walk.

It took about a month for me to stop limping and until January this year to feel any desire to ski off piste again. The story has a kind of happy ending as I went back this year and skiied the original run in the same conditions without any problems, but I still think about what could have been...
( MatJ LOOK, Fri 20 Aug 2010, 21:06, Reply)