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.