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Fox neve avalanche 20-Nov-2006 At 8:06:25 PM vwills

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As everyone starts to sharpen their crampons and ice tools in preparation for another NZ alpine season I thought I should post this abridged tale in the hope someone can learn from our mistakes.

Ant (Stevenson) and I arrived in NZ late Oct and flew into Pioneer in search of ice. The next day we ascended the S face of Douglas via the central couloir which was every bit as stunning as it looks. Over the next few days we ascended Tigger on Barnicoat and the S face of Alack with hut days in between.

The weather was fairly wintery, often with afternoon precipitation, which was usually snow, and cool days. The day we climbed Alack it warmed up, and the following day we walked over to inspect a nice looking line on the S face of Christie but the ice on the route was thin and the freeze that day was poor so we practiced crevasse rescue instead.

The next day (the 7th Nov) it started to snow at 4am and we aborted the Christie mission again and went back to bed. It snowed about 20cm with light to moderate NW winds, with both snow and wind abating in the evening. We were surprised by 2 guys skiing in from Chancellor around 6pm, (one with severe sun burn).

We got up the next moring at 330am and the moon was out and the sky was clear. Christie was visible across the glacier. The forecast was for morning precipitation clearing by the afternoon. It was bitterly cold. The new snow came to our ankles and our footprints from 2 days before were still visible. We started the route around 6am and at the top of the first 60m pitch there was blue sky. The cold made us (particularly me) inefficient due to numb hands and I had to get Ant to help me get my mittens on at the first belay. We discussed turning around then but the day seemed on the improve. The climbing was quite delicate and interesting over the second and third pitch, though we kept getting showered by increasing spindrift and were enveloped in a whiteout. This suggested the wind had intensified, though in the lee we had no idea how bad things had become.

The last 20 metres to the ridge was through unconsolidated snow over loose rock. It wouldnt have been a pleasant down climb back to the last good ice anchor where we could have put V threads but in retrospect rapping the route would have been the best descent option. The wind on the ridge was fierce and we were beset with horizontal driven snow. We belayed each other 120m down the East ridge over a lot of rotten terrain. Visibility was so poor it was hard to follow the ridgecrest 1m in front of us. This process was very slow and cold so we then continued to solo down the ridge which was still steep with loose snow over bad rock. Once on Newton Col we roped up for glacier travel. We recognised a substantial avalanche risk, though our next actions didnt reflect our state of dread.

In the time it took to rope up (about 10min) our packs were completely covered by snow. We were both tired, hungry, thirsty and having stopped moving, very cold. Ant had his goggles which worked. My glasses with sideshields still were getting snow forced onto the inner side of the lens so Ant led out. I thought we were traversing to go below a large ice cliff we had seen at the eastern side of the pass. I was alarmed to see we were above it. Ant motioned to turn back but we had barely gone 5 paces when the slope started to slide. The crown wall wall was about 50cm, I could stick my pick into the firm slope and briefly stayed still while the snow piled up around me. Ant was below me and as he fell over the cliff I was pinged off. The fall was about 20 metres. It seemed to go on forever. I landed face down and snow fell on top of me burying my upper body and legs, though my left arm punched free. Ant miraculously landed on his feet and waited to get buried but my unintentional belay left him close to the cliff and the snow cleared him and he was able to drag me out. I had facial abrasions, was spitting blood and fractured right ribs from where the coils crossed my chest wall. I was also pretty breathless.

We moved away and then slowly navigated on a rope bearing back to Pioneer corner. The ankle deep snow of the morning was now thigh deep and we knew the slope up to the hut was as bad as the one we had triggered. We were both considering digging into a crevasse to bivy if the route to the hut was impossible.

I huddled behind the rock as Ant went up the slope as close to the ridge as possible. About 40 m up he triggered another avalanche. He seemed to stop moving after that and I thought he had been knocked into a crevasse. I started to ascend and was relieved to see him waiting to belay, but the rope was buried under snow so he had been unable to pull it in. My right arm felt useless so we repeated another 60m pitch before we finally struggled onto the plateau and we slowly waded though waist deep snow to the hut.

We had avalanche transceivers, probes and shovels. We were thinking avalanche, though recognise that we had little winter mountaineering experience. Still we got engulfed in one and our "easy, quick route" to do on a day of equivocal weather turned into epic proportions.

We made some bad decisions
-going out that morning
-getting engrossed in the climb and not being aware of the extent of the weather deterioration
-not rapping the route
-walking into a terrain trap

We flew out the next day and when cragging proved impossible a few days later (dont try rockclimbing with fractured ribs- it hurts) went tramping. The weather remained unstable with ongoing heavy snow fall and high winds up to the day we left.
We obviously feel stupid, but lucky to be alive, and hopefully airing stuff like this will make someone else take pause in future.