The next minutes happen in a kind of time warp. You really don't have a sense of time at all. Everything is very crisp, very clear, very immediate. Your thoughts don't happen like normal thoughts, where a voice in your head articulates the thought in words. They are just there, without words. More like knowings than thoughts.

You don't think, "wow, this is how I die."  You just know it.

You don't think, "I don't want to die right now." You just know it.

 

The series of things that pass through your awareness is something like this:

You realize, without any doubt, very, very clearly, that this could be the end of your life. Right here, buried under this snow. In the cold, white, silence.

You realize, also without any doubt, and very, very clearly, that you do not want this to be the end of your life.

You realize, also without any doubt, that that decision is not up to you.

You make a conscious decision, unarticulated like the rest of your thoughts in this compressed warp-time, that if you are going to die here under the snow, that it will not be because you give up. It will not be because you assent to your death. It will be against your will, not with it.

You realize that you are not in control of that outcome.

You are not afraid.

 

You assess your situation: You are lying on your side. You see light coming through the snow, which tells you which way is up. You notice that your hands are in front of your face, having made a little pocket of air, the way all the avalanche trainings told you to do. You know that you didn't do that consciously, but that you did do it.

 

You think, "Okay, well if I can see light, maybe I'm only buried a couple of inches. Maybe I can push my hand up out of the snow, and make an air passage, and yell for my friends, and they'll come and unbury me." You try pushing your hand up, and realize you can't move it at all. You are completely pinned by the snow.  You think, "Okay, so if I can dig forward with my hand, kind of tunneling upward, maybe I can get my hand out." You move your fingers to dig. A clump of snow falls over your face, filling your mouth. You realize you could suffocate, right there.