Prob. arriving in Dakar, Senegal at about 1am, not speaking good French and being mobbed by the locals. Finding a taxi for the half hour drive to the hotel. It worked out fine but at the time it felt like anything could have happened.
Scariest thing you have ever done ?
- Thread starter GJ02
- Start date
A few years back in the Alps, me and some friends went off-piste on a fresh powder day. Even though my friends had been out there all season, they weren't sure where they were going and we thought we were following what looked like somebody else's line through some very steep trees.
The snow was sliding a little when you tried to stop, plus with how steep and tight it was, we kept having to drop down some small rock faces and stuff, which by the last person through had scrapped all the snow off.
We eventually reached a point where we couldn't go any further, so walked backed a little bit, then dropped off another large rock. At which point, we could see that the direction we had just been trying to go cliffed out to massive face and where we now were, was also on the edge of a cliff face with no feasible way down or to the side.
I think that's one of the only times in my life feeling a very strange emotion, where I sort of realized we really weren't in a very good situation. After about 40 minutes of trying to work out our options, our only choice was to try and come back the way we had come down.
Trouble was, we had dropped off a lot of rock faces and some of them were just covered in ice. It was hard enough getting up them in snowboard boots, but my one friend was in Ski boots. We had to shimmy around one ledge the was very sketchy. When we started to try and bootpack back up from above that rockface, it was so steep your nose was almost against the snow. I was the second person to the front when I suddenly slipped, started sliding down out of control and only a friend and a tiny tree broke my fall from stopping me going over the edge. I almost certainly would have died or broken a lot of bones. That was proper scary.
We managed to continue on, again walking back up the very steep slope with some sections where we had scrapped off all the snow earlier being very difficult to negotiate without any kind of rope.
In the end, it took us about 4 hours to hike back out and luckily were able to find a bus home when we got back to a piste.
I'm a very experienced Snowboarder, but its the first time I'd ever felt really scared on the mountain and the likelihood that I could die. Me and my friends were pretty shaken when we got back.
The snow was sliding a little when you tried to stop, plus with how steep and tight it was, we kept having to drop down some small rock faces and stuff, which by the last person through had scrapped all the snow off.
We eventually reached a point where we couldn't go any further, so walked backed a little bit, then dropped off another large rock. At which point, we could see that the direction we had just been trying to go cliffed out to massive face and where we now were, was also on the edge of a cliff face with no feasible way down or to the side.
I think that's one of the only times in my life feeling a very strange emotion, where I sort of realized we really weren't in a very good situation. After about 40 minutes of trying to work out our options, our only choice was to try and come back the way we had come down.
Trouble was, we had dropped off a lot of rock faces and some of them were just covered in ice. It was hard enough getting up them in snowboard boots, but my one friend was in Ski boots. We had to shimmy around one ledge the was very sketchy. When we started to try and bootpack back up from above that rockface, it was so steep your nose was almost against the snow. I was the second person to the front when I suddenly slipped, started sliding down out of control and only a friend and a tiny tree broke my fall from stopping me going over the edge. I almost certainly would have died or broken a lot of bones. That was proper scary.
We managed to continue on, again walking back up the very steep slope with some sections where we had scrapped off all the snow earlier being very difficult to negotiate without any kind of rope.
In the end, it took us about 4 hours to hike back out and luckily were able to find a bus home when we got back to a piste.
I'm a very experienced Snowboarder, but its the first time I'd ever felt really scared on the mountain and the likelihood that I could die. Me and my friends were pretty shaken when we got back.