Gruvefjellet, the snow avalanche

  None (Countryside), Norway
Tuesday, April 6, 2004

As a landscape, this was maybe one of the most beautiful days we had in Svalbard. However, we always enjoy a bit of risk in any adventure, so...why not being exposed to a snow avalanche?
In previous days to this short one-day excursion, we had been watching the reports on avalanche danger conditions. They were not good (3 to 4 on the European Hazard Avalanche Scale, http://www.avalanche.org/~moonstone/images2/gr000317.jpg), but were getting better towards our planned date.

Transcription into English - avalanche danger

Official note, Norway's Metheorological Inst.

Therefore, we decided to go for the trip. We went up a valley that in the past had suffered a strong avalanche, destroying some houses of Longyearbyen in its way, but which in this ocasion it was completely free of accumulated snow. When we arrived to the upper part of the valley, we saw a big cornice of ice (that you can see in the pic Gruvefjellet 2) at the beginning of the valley, so, with the reports in mind, decided to avoid it and climb up the hillside, which was mostly free of snow. We even walked perpendicularly to the slope in order to avoid cutting the snow layer (as we had been taught).

Gruvefjellet (1)

Gruvefjellet (2)

At the middle of the ascent, we heard a deep and loud crunching of snow resounding under our feet and all over the valley, like a thunder in the middle of a storm. We stopped, terrified. Walking very slowly, and trying not to break more the snow layer, we managed to arrive to a point with stones, and finally, made it to the top of the plateau. The snow-ice layer had broken below us, and if it had began to move, it would have carried us down the hillside.

After breathing deeply for a while with relief, we managed to look around a bit. Despite the fright, the views from the top were so amazing that we almost forgot the incident in a few minutes and starting taking pictures, that you can see here:

Gruvefjellet (3)

Gruvefjellet (4)

Gruvefjellet (5)

Gruvefjellet (6)

Gruvefjellet (9)

There were also about twenty reindeers walking around peacefully (even following us...or assuring her friend Bea was OK).

Gruvefjellet (7)

Gruvefjellet (8)

The way back home was much easier, as we went down the plateau through another valley (with some suspicious cornices too, as you can see in pic 13), and came back to Longyearbyen from Tempelfjorden.

Gruvefjellet (10)

Gruvefjellet (11)

Gruvefjellet (12)

Gruvefjellet (13)

Gruvefjellet (14)