Return to Combe du Signal

It snowed a a few centimeters overnight which gave us glorious skiing in the Pays Desert. I took my new old B3s and put a hole in one of them skiing over a rock. "They're broken in now" said Wayne.

At the end of the session we skied the Combe du Signal where the fatal avalanche occurred, two weeks ago yesterday. Frankly, I had been dreading going here, so I can't imagine how it must have been for the skiers who were actually there that day. Possibly it was an important part of coming to terms with David's death.

Although it hasn't snowed much this winter, the Combe du Signal is a big steep slope that holds a lot of snow. Standing up there waiting for my turn to ski, time took on an unnerving premonitory quality. I had to remind myself that almost everywhere we ski could be construed as dangerous, but this thought didn't help much.

I face-planted on one of the pitches. Picking myself and my buried ski out of a couple of feet of powder was difficult and exhausting enough. Imagine how it must be to function in the midst of the chaos of an avalanche.


From left to right: Wayne, Derek, Gill
Skier: Gideon Miller
Photo by Jean Ribart