Illustration by Photo Illustration by The Globe and Mail. Source images: Simon Akam
More from this series • A journalist returns to the mountains after a near-death ski experience
At a 3,186-metre summit below the imposing north face of Piz Palu in the eastern Alps, alongside a group of fellow ski tourers, I surveyed a scene mostly familiar in my ski mountaineering journey – but with one significant element I had not previously experienced.
I expected the climbing skins (fabric strips that provide uphill adhesion on snow when stretched under skis) and the additional clothing we pulled on once the heat-generating climb was complete. But in this case, new to my project of trying to master ski mountaineering after I was nearly killed attempting it in Russia in 2017, both the ascent we had just completed and the descent to come involved crossing glaciers.
My training that week with Swiss mountaineering school Bergpunkt was an introduction to skihochtouren. The German term is difficult to translate, but “high-altitude ski touring” is probably the best rendering. Skihochtouren entails glacier travel – and methods that mitigate the risk of falling into crevasses in the ice – as well as how to move on terrain too steep to ski.
The course took place in the Bernina massif in southeastern Switzerland and we met at the base station of a cable car at just over 2,000 metres. We would be staying in a mountain hut at the top station called Diavolezza almost 1,000 metres higher, but owing to a windy forecast at altitude we did our initial training in the valley below.
The first afternoon we worked on techniques for extracting a skier from a crevasse. A large group has sufficient muscle power to drag someone out directly, with little gear beyond an ice axe laid laterally to stop rope cutting into the snow. In German this is the mannschaftszug, the “team pull.” With smaller teams, pulley systems can allow a single individual to hoist another person from a crevasse.
I am not technically minded and I found these manipulations of ropes, carabiners and prusik cord difficult to understand and, as the training required, to replicate. But I also knew I had to overcome a past attitude: that I simply could not do this. This work was safety critical. I felt a thrill as, with repetition, I was able to build the devices.
That afternoon we rode the cable car up to Diavolezza. In the evening we conducted the materialschlacht – literally the “battle of equipment.” It means working out what gear we needed and how to organize it neatly on our harnesses.
We headed out the next morning and skied down to the glacier below the hut, each of us carrying a brace of carabiners, ice screws, a “microtraxion” device used to build pulley systems, slings and prusik loops, crampons and ice axes. After roping up to move across the glacier, our German guide Tim Marklowski showed us how to pick a route through the fractured sections and where to halt on islands of rock, avoiding crevasses. Where that was not possible, he showed us how to form a huge circle so our party’s weight was distributed, limiting the chance of anyone falling into a crevasse.
The real impact of the gear we were carrying was only apparent on the descent from our peak, as the weight in our rucksacks dragged our centre of gravity back. It became much harder to adhere to the principle of leaning forward and facing the slope. I found the descent, which at one stage involved us lowering ourselves on skis down a steep section on a rope, humbling, though thankfully I noticed that others in the group, all Swiss, did too.
Next we picked our way down the tortured lower reaches of the Morteratsch glacier. We practised skiing roped together downhill, a brutal activity that Marklowski described jokingly in German as “better than dying by falling in a crevasse, but only just.” Control was hard to maintain, and the three of us on my rope snowploughed awkwardly in line. By the time we got off the ice we were exhausted.
As we slid down the trail below the glacier, it felt again like arriving in another world. We were a 15-minute drive from ritzy St. Moritz and its casino and frozen-lake polo. Our ice axes were still strapped to our packs when someone strolled by wearing really excellent knitwear. Another man asked us where we had been. I pointed at our summit among the glaciers; he seemed suitably impressed.
The next day we learned how to rope up while moving on exposed ground with skis strapped to packs, another task involving manipulations of rope and metalwork that I did not find easy. But as we split into teams of two to climb the ridge and carefully laid the rope around boulders for security, I felt the thrill of something previously thought impossible that had suddenly been done.
That night a blizzard blew in; by morning there was some 20 centimetres of new snow outside. The avalanche risk was 3+ on the five-point scale and the entire ski area below was closed. Eventually a cable car emerged and halted mid-air while a safety crew lowered a charge of Tovex explosive on a cord. A deliberate blast above the snowpack triggered a substantial controlled avalanche that plunged down toward the deserted piste below us.
Now what? We could not ski down while blasting was continuing. One option was to take the cable car back to the base station in the valley. Part of me was relieved at that idea; this was my 12th straight day of ski touring, I was exhausted and there was evident avalanche danger all around. But there was also the prospect of a descent of almost 1,000 metres on glorious fresh snow.
Eventually the guide brokered a solution: We chipped in cash for the blasting team to take an extended coffee break; that way there would be an explosion-free window to descend on skis.
The blasters emphasized that this was at our own risk, and our guide added that these were conditions – blue sky emerging after snowfall, everyone excited – where “human factors,” both group dynamics and individual emotions, could easily compromise avalanche safety.
I was profoundly nervous as we pushed off on our skis, the towering north face of Piz Palu above us plastered with new snow. But we descended conservatively, without incident. My skis, so keen to misbehave the day before, floated on the fresh powder despite my heavy pack.
It was entirely glorious, and by the time we reached the valley I felt refreshed, reinvigorated. But as Marklowski made sure we knew, it was also not 100 per cent safe. It was crucial to stay focused, to stay aware. These sensations all come at a price.
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