Some years ago I woke up in our 25-square meter flat in Chamonix. Because I rented the flat with a friend of mine, I “was allowed” to sleep in one of our two beds. My friend slept in the other bed. Others, on that time 10 persons, were sleeping on floor, one after another.

I opened my eyes and saw other still sleeping. I looked out the window and saw Mont Blanc in front of blue sky. The weather was perfect. I took a quick shower and started to make breakfast for the guys. I knew most of them had hangover, so I wanted the help them to regain. I needed the guys because I wanted to go ski the backcountries of Grand Montets.

Guys woke up and realized it is a perfect weather out there. They also knew that there is some fresh powder to ski. After the quick breakfast we jumped in our car and headed to Grand Montets, and soon we were in the first cabin to the top.

Oh boy, what a rush it was up there. In Chamonix you see lots of great skiers from all around the world. Chamonix is crowded and you must be in the first cabin if you are willing to ski the new powder. We quickly jumped on our skis and snowboards and started riding. Somewhere in the middle of the mountain face I saw someone yelling and acting like being in panic. I skied to the guy and asked what’s up. He was in panic and told me that his friend was just caught by an avalanche. My heart jumped and I thought “oh no..”.

Me and my friend quickly spotted the small avalanche and figured out that no more snow should be falling. The guy who asked for help had seen where his friend was buried. We took our “beepers” and quickly found the victim. After digging a minute or two we found him. He had less than one meter of snow above him. As he got up I saw he was in panic as well. I started to ask about his condition, but I was interrupted by the noise of a helicopter. Someone had called for help. Guy who had been under snow quickly took his skis which were next to him and started skiing down very fast. I thought “what’s this”? I wondered why he was in hurry.

The helicopter flew just above us and I was them looking around for the victim. We showed that there are no more people and no help is needed. After flying around a little they went away. We shook hands with the guy who asked for help and started skiing down. We did not want to spend anymore seconds in that risky area.

Later in Chamonix valley I realized that the guy probably did not have insurance. I guess he wanted to disappear because without insurance he must pay the helicopter transportation which can easily be thousands of dollars. May I am right, may be not. The point is that do not ski without insurance. It is a must in the mountains. If you get injured or caught by an avalanche, you might need helicopter transportation and treatment in the local hospital. If you do not have insurance, you pay all the costs. Few weeks in the hospital of Chamonix as well as a helicopter flight from glaciers can be very expensive. Avoid an invoice of thousands or even dozens of thousands dollars by making sure you are insured and your insurance covers possible costs. Notice that most of the insurances do not covers accidents happened in backcountries. If you go ski backcountries or climbing mountains, ask your insurance provider if your insurance covers accidents outside on-pistes.

Did we go ski the backcountries later on that day? No, it was a scary accident and we did not feel like skiing anymore. We went back to the valley and straight to the bar.