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Explorers of the Infinite – Maria Coffey

The first avalanche passed a few feet to the right.  They clung to the fixed rope, standing one above the other in the gully, head to feet, pressing their bodies and faces into the snow.  The avalanches came at 5 minute intervals, increasing in size each time, throwing off wind blasts that coated the skiers in clumps of snow.

Within an hour, they were getting direct hits.  Five storey walls of snow travelling at a hundred and fifty miles an hour.  What saved the skiers from being plucked off the mountain was a small rock buttress directly above them, which deflected the avalanches to pummel on their backs instead of their heads.

Between hits, Ulmer's companions yelled at each other in panicked French.  She took no part in the conversation.  The experience had taken her to another place,  where the avalanches were like beautiful white angels of death, roaring by in tidal waves