Greg Nieuwenhuys

I decided to hit the road to Meribel for the weekend and was very happy to find tons of fresh snow. It was really incredible, waist deep dry powder and relatively empty slopes. I made some huge descents and the powder got completely into my nose, so much snow!

The north oriented slopes were pretty stable on saturday, so I went on skiing steaper and steaper. The avalance danger that day was 4/5 but I was surprised how stable the snow was. I did'nt see any natural avalanches either.

Saturday night there was some more snow (~ 5 cm) and on Sunday the weather was good and some additional lifts went open, like the Col de la Loze. I went tree skiing in some pretty steep slopes and really was having the greatest fun...

...before I got trapped by a slab in a west oriented slope, at around 1900 meters. 4 meters wide, 1 meter deep and it I was really in the middle of it. Fortunately it moved slowly and I managed to stay standing resisting from the force of the snow on my legs. At that time I still did not realise what was happening, everything went by automatic pilot. A couple of seconds later I had skied out of the avalanche and looked at it getting wider, and moving faster. It stopped about 100 meters under me.

Pretty scary experience. First time cought by more than just a bit of snow. I think I challenged the conditions a bit too much that day.

However, I look back at an excellent weekend with some amazing ski descents - full speed, air time, fresh powder and a big smile!

Well, see yah next time!

Greg