27 February 2009 Cogne, Italy
It was the last day of a fantastic week of ice climbing around Cogne, Italy. We were a party of six climbers from the Bromsgrove and Redditch Mountaineering Club and had climbed some of the classic ice falls in the area. The weather had been ideal with blue skies during the day and freezing nights.
Over the previous 4 weeks, the Cogne area had received over a metre of snowfall and, at the start of the week, the avalanche risk was High (Level 4). The previous day, the avalanche risk had been downgraded to Moderate (Level 2).
Our personal observations were that the slopes were consolidating and we had not seen or heard any avalanches during the week.
On our final day of climbing, Andy Harpur, Matt Thomas and I decided to climb an ice fall called “Pattinaggio Artistico”. This Grade 3 climb was chosen because we believed it to be on the shady side of the valley and, even though the avalanche risk was only a Level 2, we felt that it would be safer to climb in the shade because of the warm weather.
The day started well, blue skies with wispy clouds and a temperature of minus two degrees. We set off from the Residence Nigritelles in Lillaz at about 0915. There is a fairly steep approach to the climb. When we had ascended about 200 metres and were traversing a snowy slope, Andy stepped into a deep hole, plunging in up to his hip. While trying to pull himself out, the valve from his drinking bladder came off and water started to pour out down his side. As he removed his rucksack, he dropped his camera, which (naturally) bounced down the slope to the bottom of the valley. Andy had to go down to get it, while Matt and I carried on to the start of the route to wait for him. I guess that this delayed the start of our climb by about 30 minutes.
Eventually, at about 1115, we had established ourselves on the belay at the top of “Pattinaggio Artistico Direct” (a 50m high vertical ice fall which we skirted around). The ice that we were climbing is in a gully which has steep cliffs on the left (looking up) and is both beautiful and atmospheric. The gully varies in width from 10 metres for the first pitch to about 30 metres at the top.
Matt, on his first ice climbing trip, led the first pitch which is an easy grade 2/3 and set up a belay above us. Andy and I climbed together to save time. After rearranging the ropes, Andy led the next pitch which had a steep 80 degree, 15 m section. As he was climbing another two climbers arrived at the bottom of the first pitch. Matt and I climbed the second pitch separately.
Climbing as a group of three meant that we were climbing slowly; the logistics of sorting out ropes at each belay and climbing separately is time consuming. By the time that Matt had arrived at the second belay it was after 1330 and the sun was shining on the route. Matt led the third pitch, but he couldn’t find the bolted belay. Instead, he set up a belay with 3 ice screws about 10 metres above the bolted belay. Andy and I climbed together up to the “Ice Screw Belay”, sorted out the ropes and I then started to lead the fourth pitch as two Italians abseiled down the route past us to establish themselves on the “Bolted Belay”.
The ice on the fourth pitch was fantastic; it was softening up in the sunshine and had a plastic consistency making placing crampon points and ice axes easy and secure. I was climbing in brilliant sunshine. Some of the sections of ice were starting to run with water. When I was part way up the pitch, a small slough of snow dislodged from the top of the cliffs to the left of the gully and fell onto the Italians on the bolted belay, this was very small and no problem.
At the top of the fourth pitch, there was a 45 degree, 10 meter snow slope up to the ice of the fifth and final pitch. I climbed up and clipped into an in-situ “Abalakov Thread”. This was starting to melt out, but appeared to be two threads combined. I decided that it was strong, but backed it up with an ice screw and clipped in.
I had a look around. To my left there were a few small bushes then a cliff, above me was the fifth pitch consisting of easy looking ice leading to the skyline and what I assumed to be the top of the climb. To my right was a snow-filled gully, then a ridge, and below me was the bulge of ice that was the fourth pitch, which I had climbed. I could see that the snow-filled gully curved down to where Andy and Matt were standing at the Ice Screw Belay.
I started to sort out my ropes when I heard a deep rumble. I looked up to my right and saw a snow avalanche pouring down from the top right hand side of the gully.
I shouted “AVALANCHE!!!” and dived down to the ground with my head covered. Snow swept around and over me, but soon stopped.
I shouted down to Andy and Matt who replied that they were both OK. I looked around. It seemed that I had only been hit by the edge of the avalanche; the majority of the snow had gone down the right hand snow filled gully into Andy and Matt. We decided that we’d been lucky and that we should continue to climb to the top of the route where we could walk off.
I called down to Matt to climb. After about 2 or 3 minutes, while Matt was still climbing, there was a very loud rumbling which turned out to be a very large avalanche somewhere else in the valley. I looked up at the skyline. The small avalanche had come around a small gully on the right hand side of the skyline. If we had another small avalanche then it would probably do the same and the pitch that we were climbing would miss most of it. However, the avalanche that I had heard had been very large; would a big avalanche come over the whole of the skyline and wipe us out? I didn’t know what the terrain was like above the skyline.
I became very nervous and thought that we should abseil off the route. I called down to Matt and Andy, and said that I thought we should get off. Andy and Matt agreed and I lowered Matt down to the Bolted Belay. Once he had clipped in, I started to set the ropes up on the Abalakov Thread so that I could abseil down to Andy at the Ice Screw Belay. While I was doing this, Andy called up asking if I could lower him down to the Bolted Belay. I thought that it would take too long, so I replied “No” and started to abseil down.
I only got about 8 meters down the snow slope when I heard (or was it felt?) the sound of another avalanche. I looked up and saw a much larger avalanche roaring down from the right hand corner.
I shouted “AVALANCHE!!!” ran to my left and dived under a small bush praying that the Abalakov Thread above me would hold. Snow swept around and over me.
Eventually, it stopped and I stood up. Again the majority, of the snow had gone down the snow filled gully directly into the “Ice Screw Belay” where Andy was clipped in.
I called down, “Everyone OK?”
Andy shouted back, “I’m hurt. I think I’ve broken my chest.”
“OK, hang on, I’m coming down.”
“Matt, you OK?”, I shouted.
“Yeh, most of it went past me.”
I abseiled down to Andy, pausing briefly to remove two ice screws from the route. When I got to Andy, there was blood in the snow and he had cuts on his right cheek. I clipped into the “Ice Screw Belay” with a sling which was connected to my harness with a lark’s head knot.
“How do you feel?”
“I think I’ve broken something in my chest.”
I had no time to mess about. “Can you cough?”
Andy coughed gently.
“Can I lower you down to Matt?”
“Yeh.”
We had a pink rope and a blue rope, which were currently threaded through the Abalakov Thread high above us. I knew that I could only pull on the blue rope – the pink rope would jam in the thread. Andy was tied into the pink rope. I quickly made a “figure of eight” knot in the blue rope and handed it to Andy. He clipped it onto his harness. I threaded the blue rope through my belay plate and he unclipped from the “Ice Screw” belay.
I managed to lower him down about half way, when the blue rope tightened and then jammed because the other end was still tied onto Matt.
“Damn!”
“Matt, are you clipped into the belay with slings?”
“Yes.”
“Matt, you need to untie from the Blue rope.”
“OK”
I looked down at Andy; he was in a very exposed position, his only protection was the single 8mm rope to my belay plate. Matt struggled with the wet knot which had tightened up when I lowered him down.
Andy shouted, “Hurry up Matt!”
Matt struggled, “I can’t get it undone.”
“Take off your gloves”
A minute passed. Andy decided to put an ice screw in and clipped onto it.
Matt got the knot undone. “Shall I leave a knot in the end?”
“Good idea”, I shouted back.
Matt dropped the rope end and I started to pull it towards me.
We all heard the third avalanche.
“AVALANCHE!!!”
Again, I dived to the snow and desperately tried to suck my body into the ground. Snow thundered into me, hitting me on the back which was partly protected by my rucksack. I remember the roar of the snow, the sound of tonnes of snow hammering me and the breath being slowly crushed out of my lungs...
I woke up to blue skies and the faint sound of Andy shouting “NEV! NEV! Are you OK?”
“Avalanche”, I thought.
I managed to say “Yes” to Andy and tried to move.
I was lying partially buried with my legs tucked under me, hanging from the belay with my head down the slope. My upper body hurt, I was winded and it took me a minute or so to gather my senses and struggle to my feet. My chest and my face hurt. My right eye was closing and I could feel the left side of my face was badly swollen. I tried to move my jaw. That was OK. I ran my tongue over my teeth and they seemed to be all there.
Matt shouted, “Shall I call a helicopter?”
“Not yet, let’s get ourselves safe first”
I started to work. I needed to pull the blue rope through and get enough slack to lower Andy to the Bolted Belay. The rope was jammed in the hard packed snow from the avalanche. I had to unclip an ice axe and chop away the snow with the adze to release it. Finally, I got enough slack and managed to lower Andy down. I put the two ropes through my belay plate and disassembled the Ice Screw Belay, then lowered myself down to the Bolted Belay. I clipped into the belay and we started to take stock of our situation. The other two seemed very concerned about the state of my face.
We all heard the fourth and largest avalanche.
“AVALANCHE!!!”
We all took hold of the chain on the bolted belay and tried to jam ourselves into the corner. The noise was intense. I just pulled myself in as hard as I could and waited to be ripped off. Snow thundered over us. It seemed to last forever, but I guess it was about a minute. There must have been hundreds of tonnes of snow and ice roaring past. It would have been an awe-inspiring sight, but I didn’t dare raise my head to look. (Two other members of our trip saw the avalanche from the valley and said that the whole gully just turned to “liquid snow” and poured off the 50 metre vertical ice fall below us.) Fortunately, the bolted belay was tucked away in a corner and most of the snow missed us. However, enough snow hit Andy to rip off his helmet.
As soon as it had finished, Matt sprang into action. He got out his mobile phone and called the emergency services on 112. He got patched through to someone who knew where we were. Matt requested a helicopter to air lift two injured climbers. The response was immediate and that they would be there in 15 minutes.
While we waited, we pulled down the ropes from the abseil and coiled them. We tidied up our equipment and checked that we would be able to unclip quickly from the belay. Matt and Andy decided that I would go first then Andy with Matt last. Then we waited, ready to dive into the corner should another avalanche come down.
While I waited, I felt the swelling on my face. My right eye was nearly closed now. There didn’t seem to be any broken bone so I spent the time holding snow on my face to ease the swelling.
The sound of rotor blades was fantastic. The helicopter did a pass low down in the valley while we waved and raised our arms in the “Y” shaped “We Need Assistance” signal. They saw us and came round in a climbing turn to hover about 30 metres above and in front of us. We busied ourselves, double checking that we were ready to go.
A crewman slid out of the side of the helicopter wearing mountaineering clothes, crampons and a rucksack. He was lowered down and the helicopter manoeuvred to get him onto the 45 degree slope where we were belayed. He was spinning around with flashing crampon spikes, but I managed to get hold of him and he pulled himself in. He very quickly assessed the situation and clipped the helicopter cable into my harness. Andy unclipped my final sling. The crewman gave one last check of my equipment, a hand signal to the pilot and I was whisked away up into the sky.
Relief flooded through me. I had about 30 seconds to enjoy the view before I was dragged into the helicopter. I was quickly unclipped and, while they went back down for Andy, my crampons were removed. I just lay there in a heap. Andy arrived about 2 minutes later and then Matt and the crewman were winched up together. Matt told the crew that there were possibly four other climbers below us, so the helicopter descended to the valley and then flew up the whole lower route. We couldn’t see anyone, so the pilot flew off.
The helicopter landed on the langlauf field in Cogne, where Matt and Andy were unloaded. The crew kept me on board and flew me down to Aosta, where an ambulance was waiting to take me to hospital. Back in Cogne, Matt had a look at Andy’s injuries and told the officials that he thought Andy had serious injuries. The helicopter came back to get Andy and took him to the hospital. Matt walked back to the apartment.
PROLOGUE
Matt escaped with minor bruises.
I was kept in hospital for two nights for observation, but had no internal damage or broken bones - just bruising to the upper half of my body, in particular my ribs and my face. When released, I gingerly got into a taxi to Geneva, met Glenys there and flew home.
Andy had a broken sternum, two broken ribs and two cracked vertebrae. He was kept in hospital for 7 days and flown home in an Air Ambulance.
In my humble opinion, we were too slow and in the wrong place on such a warm day. There had been no major avalanches during the week, but it was warmer on that day that any other, so we suffered the consequences - we were lucky...
ITALIAN NEWS RELEASE
“English climbers swept by Avalanche“
Ieri pomeriggio, in località Lillaz, a Cogne, due alpinisti di nazionalità inglese impegnati nella scalata di una cascata di ghiaccio sono stati travolti da una colata di neve. La piccola valanga, staccatasi per l'alta temperatura registrata nel pomeriggio, ha coinvolto complessivamente 3 alpinisti, di cui uno è rimasto illeso. I due feriti, che hanno subito traumi di lieve entità, sono stati trasportati dal soccorso alpino valdostano in elicottero all'Ospedale regionale Parini di Aosta.
Translation:
Yesterday afternoon, at Lillaz in Cogne, three British mountaineers involved in climbing a waterfall of ice were overwhelmed by a melt of snow. The small avalanche came off the high temperature recorded in the afternoon. A total of 3 climbers were involved - one is left unscathed. The two injured, who suffered minor injuries, were transported from the alpine rescue helicopter to the Regional Hospital of Aosta.