The Day That Went from “Moderate” to “Merde”

Jeff Banks | IFMGA Guide | CEO & Founder, AspectAvy

Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face.

Our goose was cooked. It was time to call the chopper.

“Allo? Oui, je suis un guide de haute montagne… et nous avons besoin d’un hélicoptère.”

Welcome to Chamonix: the death-sport capital of the world. It’s not uncommon for a hundred people to die in these mountains each year. The place is Disneyland for mountain athletes: glaciers, granite spires, and gondolas connecting one adrenaline rush to the next.

But here, Mickey carries ice axes and plays with fire.

As daylight faded, so did our options. The slope below us rolled over steeply: wind-loaded and waiting. Ski any farther, and we’d risk becoming a statistic.

We swallowed our pride and called PGHM Rescue.

“Sorry! We are verrrry busy today. Many rescues. Can you spend the night on the glacier?”

Sure, no problem. We had enough equipment to bivy. I gave them our coordinates and hung up.

Then WHUMP.

A 3–6 foot crown fractured at our feet. The whole slope roared to life, rumbling down to the glacier below.

Morning Glory

The day had started off innocent enough.

Forecast: Moderate danger.
Weather: 20 cm of light powder on a solid base.
Winds: Shifting northeast — a classic “Bise” pattern.

It looked like a dream setup.

There were four of us: three internationally certified mountain guides and the head of the Freeride World Tour. What could possibly go wrong?

We dropped into the Pas de Chèvre in perfect blower pow: 2,200 meters of pure joy all the way to the valley floor. Croissants, cappuccinos, and laughter followed. Then we rode the lift back up to Brévent, dropped another 1,600 meters through the ENSA couloir, and finished the run high on life and leg cramps.

Excellent stability. Sunny skies. Everything according to the plan.

So we decided to chase one last encore: an afternoon lap off the Aiguille du Midi. The Glacier Ronde.

Punched in the Face

We stepped out of the tram, and the wind immediately tried to blow us back in. It wasn’t 20cm of new snow. It was 50 to 150 cm of drift; difficult to tell how much because it was still moving.

This wasn’t part of the plan.

We dug out of the ice cave, skied down the knife-edge arête, and wallowed up the glacier toward the Ronde entrance. Normally it’s a narrow traverse, with shoulder brushing granite on one side, air on the other. But this time, I was shoveling through head-high drifts while roped in. And something didn’t smell right.

That’s when Mike, the voice of reason, broke the silence:

“Guys, if we dig our way in and it doesn’t get better, we’re trapped in 2,600 meters of avalanche terrain. It’s getting late early.”

He wasn’t wrong.

But nobody likes to admit defeat in Chamonix. A lesser team might’ve turned back and taken the tram down with their tails between their legs. We, unfortunately, let our hubris get in the way. And all of future Jeff’s good judgment often only comes from present Jeff’s bad experiences.

Photo in the Vallee Blanche, Chamonix, France.

Photo: Jeff Banks

When “Moderate” Turns to “Merde”

We bailed on the Ronde and dropped into the more mellow Vallée Blanche, threading the needle between overhead hazard and wishful thinking. I used every trick in the guidebook, hoping the snowpack would calm down as we descended.

Spoiler: it didn’t.

By the time we reached the Requin Refuge, the Shark Hut, we’d crossed fresh debris and jagged crowns the size of cars. The day that began as “moderate” had turned full “high.” Hope, as it turns out, is not a plan.

We were skiing through the aftermath of our own denial. The mountain had been telling us the truth all day, shooting cracks, wind slabs, drifts, but we were too anchored to the morning’s forecast. Our mental model hadn’t caught up with reality.

When the chopper finally brought us back to the valley, it was dark, but it got darker as we listened to the pilot’s story at the heli-pad. Our friends on the Cosmiques Couloir pressed on and got avalanched traversing to the lift. One of them didn’t come home.

That was the gut punch. The realization that “Moderate” can turn to “Merde” in a matter of hours, and that it’s not the mountain that needs updating. It’s us.

What We Learned — and Built

That day became the spark for one of AspectAvy’s most important features: Verify Forecast.

Every avalanche forecast is a model: a simplified version of reality. Useful, yes, but incomplete. The key is to update it as you go.

With AspectAvy, you can do exactly that. Input real-time observations (wind loading, cracking, collapsing) and the app dynamically updates the slope shading of your terrain model. In minutes, your map reflects what the mountain is actually doing, not what the morning bulletin said it would do.

Had this tool existed that day on the Glacier Ronde, it would’ve painted the truth in bright red, “Don’t go there.” We would’ve seen the danger grow as the winds cross-loaded our slope, and we would’ve stayed off that terrain entirely. All models are inaccurate, but some are useful.

So, here’s the takeaway:
Don’t ski yesterday’s forecast.
Don’t trust a static model.
Verify. Update. Adapt.

Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the face.

Test your Knowledge: Verify the Forecast

1. How often do the avalanche forecast and actual avalanche danger not match each other?
More often than you’d think. In Colorado, data shows that the forecast and real-world conditions only match about 84% of the time overall. That means roughly 1 out of every 6 days, the danger rating you read in the morning doesn’t reflect what’s actually happening in the snowpack. Above and near treeline, that agreement drops to about 81%, and below treeline it’s even lower. Forecasts are good, but they’re still just models.

You can read the report here.

2. What are some field observations that should prompt you to verify the forecast and update your mental model?
AspectAvy flags five red-alert observations that should trigger a recheck:

• Recent Avalanche Activity – New slides within the last 48 hours.

• Shooting Cracks – Cracks propagating out from your skis or boots.

• Whumpfs – Audible collapses of the snowpack (nature’s warning shot).

• Rapid Loading – Heavy snow transport from wind or new snow piling up.

• Rapid Warming – Big temperature swings that can destabilize layers fast.

If you see any of these, your moderate day might have just turned considerable.

3. When was the last time your mental model didn’t match reality in the mountains, and how did you catch (or miss) it?
Think back to a day when you wanted the snowpack to be stable: you quietly ignored the warning signs. Maybe you brushed off a whumpf because the skiing was too good to turn around. Maybe the wind slabs didn’t “seem that bad.” This is the Human Factor Traps that Verify the Forecast helps you avoid, by forcing you to check what’s actually happening around you instead of what you hope is happening.

Read last week’s blog post to learn more about Human Factor Traps