Not a good day to die

It was a good day to stay at home.

Early snow meant that by 29th Dec everthing in Wasdale was white above 500ft.
It had snowed hard a day or two before then clear skies and no wind just left the snow where it was until the night before..........when the wind got up................alot.

Col having fun in the snow

We set of fairly early, Phil, Col, Andrew and I in Col's 20 year old Sierra Cosworth. We had all the gear, ice axes, crampons, turkey sarnies and itchy feet after the Christmas lethargy of the last few days. Lets do Skew Gill and Custs Gully?

Skew Gill is a deep gill in that cuts into the North west face of Great End in Wasdale, the base is crossed by the corridor route to ScaFell Pike at about 1500ft, it gains about 600ft in 1/4 mile along its length.

The snow was deep but stable going up. We had a great time wading through the drifts not knowing what we were heading into.

The exit gully is steep but short and opens out onto the upper snow field, this was fairly easy going as the snow was soft but stable. I exited followed by Andrew, Phil and then finally Col.

Turning around I took a picture then handed the camera to Andrew who made his way higher to take a photo. He didn't get the chance......................

Seconds later it all changed

At that moment the snow field to our right (left hand side of the picture) moved......... Andrew Phil and I ran up the moving snow to our right and managed to find stable snow, we looked back to see the whole slab disappear over Col and head down the exit Gully we'd just climbed up...then silence.......so much silence.

When the cloud of loose snow cleared Col was nowhere in sight..

Quite a few 4 letter words were spoken most starting in F, but one being... dead!

Without thinking and before we discussed anything Andrew set of back down in the direction Col had disappeared. By the time he was half way down I started to think rationally again, 'we'll stop hear' I shouted, thinking if we all tried to climb down we'd just all end up in a big mess. Andrew got to the bottom and while just insight shouted up that he could see Col in the distance and he was moving..........a few more 4 letter words spoken this time mostly in relief that he wasn't buried. Andrew then disappeared from view and ear shot.

Phil and I sat down and waited, after 10 minutes we shouted a few times but got no response it was then we realised that we hadn't got a clue what they would do, was Col hurt? could he climb back up? did they need help? Why the hell hadn't we agreed what to do in the 20 secs after the avalanche while we were all in shock (sort of answers itself in hindsight).





After what felt like an hour but was probably 15 - 20 minutes we decided that they were not heading up but we did not want to head down and risk another avalanche so we looked arround for ideas. To our right was not a pretty site the snow field was in 4 distinct sections, one had slipped the others were still there with a clear fracture line where the first section had gone. Going over there was not happening. Above us looked steep but also rocky so less chance of avalanche we thought. So we headed up.......not a good idea! Very soon it became obvious we were in serious shit, the slope was obviousy unstable and mini avalches were breaking away at every step, we made it to an outcrop just in time as soon as we got there the whole slope moved again.

The second avalanche was much bigger than the first and also went straight over the sheer drop we were above. We now had no choice, climb and climb fast and hope for the best. Phil had lost a crampon on the second slip and we were seriously crapping it.

The next 10 minutes are the fastest and one of the worst experiences of my life, I was sure Andrew and Col were now under the second avalanche, I was also fairly sure that at any time we would end up being swept over the cliff below us. Anyway we made it, scared but in one piece we emerged at the top. The thoughts quickly turned from self preservation to being sure we'd just killed our two mates.

We headed down as fast as we could down the north flank towards Sty Head then around to the base of the Gill. I turned the corner heading back up the gill fully expecting to have to climb back up and start digging but as I turned the corner I was to be faced with two smiling faces! Well Andrew was smiling and Col had a sort of grimace that for a while looked like a smile.

Bugger me despite all our efforts and two avalanches they were bloody alive!

We didn't get to Custs Gully that day, seemed a bit to much like hard work.