Aussie skier James Mort dismissed the one thing no skier should ever ignore. Ever

THIS Aussie is lucky to be alive, and all because he ignored a subtle noise which he intuitively knew was trouble. If you’re ever at the snow, NEVER do this.

THE ‘whump’. That’s what gave it away. It’s the noise James Mort should never have ignored.

Mort is an Aussie skier who just survived an avalanche at the ski resort of Les Crosets, which straddles the French Swiss border. His name is rather ironic given “mort” is French for dead.

But James Mort is very much alive — more thanks to good luck than good management. His video is doing the rounds of social media today and it’s pretty dramatic stuff.

WARNING: Just to let you know, there’s some rather colourful language in the video.

In it, James and his mates rip into some deep fresh inbounds powder. Inbounds means within the resort. Most avalanche fatalities occur in the back country or the so-called slack country (slopes just out the back of resorts).

But inbounds can be deadly too, especially with this much fresh snow. James Mort had scoped the run from the chairlift and reckoned it was OK. But then he ignored the whump.

“We were delighted to notice that there were no tracks leading to the run so we would score first tracks,” Mort wrote on Tumblr.

“However as we pushed through the deep snow I noticed a muffled ‘whumping’ sound as our skis broke through a thin layer of hoar frost about 30cm under the fresh layer of snow. We stopped and discussed our options. Due to this particular gully being known among locals as a safer option due to its short length and low pitch, also taking into account the fact that we had skied the line on previous trips in similar avalanche conditions without an issue, we decided to push on and ski the line anyway.”

And it was all pretty sweet until they headed for this gully, which is exactly where the slab avalanche occurred.

Long story short, an avalanche occurred. It’s all there in James Mort’s blog. He was dug out after alerting his mates to his position by poking his ski pole a few centimetres through the snow.

Mort knows he was lucky.

“Do not follow my path, always practice conservative decision making when in the mountains taking into account the local avalanche conditions,” he wrote.

“I was lucky. So far 75 people in the Alps this year have not. Always carry a transceiver, probe and shovel and most importantly get educated. Speak to your local avalanche authority and to ski patrol if you plan to go off piste and complete an avalanche awareness course. It may just save a life.”

Yep.

At least they had shovels. Picture: Facebook

So what actually was this whumping noise? Ah, well there’s some fairly cool snow nerd stuff behind that, and it goes like this.

Snow accumulates in layers, not just in one big amorphous snowpack. The character of those layers varies, depending on whether it has been (relatively) warm or cold, or whether recently fallen snow has been wet or dry.

The “whump”, or “pop” as it is sometimes called, is the sound of a layer of snow fracturing or even collapsing. The sound is well known as a strong indication that a slab avalanche could occur.

Slab avalanche? That’s when the new layer of snow all breaks off in one slab, as happened in this case. The whump was the warning.

There was another massive warning sign that James ignored too. He mentions a thing called “hoar frost”, which is a layer of surface frost crystals often as much as 2cm thick. It prevents new snow bonding well to old snow, which is exactly what made a slab avalanche so likely.

Surprise, surprise, the avalanche happened. Don’t you be next.