legends · 4 min read ·
Snow Pit
An avalanche forecaster digs through the snowpack and finds a line of footprints that is still walking.
**Alpine Safety Service — Snow Profile, Kellerhorn North Couloir**
**Date:** 12 January · **Elevation:** 2,340 m · **Aspect:** N · **Slope:** 36° · **Observer:** M. Brandt
- **Depth (cm) · Layer · Hardness · Grain · Notes**
- 0–20 · New snow · Fist · Stellar · Dry
- 20–45 · Wind slab · 4 finger · Rounded · Stable
- 45–47 · Surface hoar · Knife · Feathers · **Weak layer**
- 47–90 · Old snow · 1 finger · Faceted · Settled
- 90–140 · Basal · Pencil · Depth hoar · Weak
- **141–143** · **Anomalous** · **—** · **Not classified** · **See note**
· · ·
**Observer's note (M. Brandt, 12 January)**
At 141 cm the pit wall changes. The faceted crystals stop and there is a thin dark layer, 2 cm thick, that does not behave like snow. Under the lens it is made of impressions, each about 28 cm long, laid in a line, heel to toe. They are footprints. They are pressed into the old surface, one after another, running across the pit wall from east to west.
I measured a row of eleven. Stride length: 71 cm. A man's stride, a tall man, walking slowly. The prints are sharp. They were made in snow that was then buried, intact, under a metre and a half of newer snow.
This is a snow layer from a past season. There is no record of anyone crossing the couloir. The slope is too steep for walkers and too exposed for climbers.
· · ·
**Daily bulletin, 13 January**
*Avalanche danger: 3 (considerable). Kellerhorn North Couloir: avoid. A persistent weak layer exists in the snowpack. Natural releases are unlikely but triggering by a single skier is possible.*
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**Observer's note (M. Brandt, 15 January)**
I dug a second pit 200 m east of the first. The anomalous layer was there, at 142 cm. The footprints in it continued in the same line, same stride, same direction.
I dug a third, 400 m east. The layer was there, at 144 cm. The prints ran on.
I have mapped the line across four pits and 1.1 km of slope. It leads from the couloir, across the cirque, and over the ridge to the north. It is a straight line. It goes where nothing can walk.
I have been looking at the depth. Each pit puts the layer a little deeper. At 1.1 km it is 3 cm lower than at the start. If the prints were laid in a single winter, in a single walk, the walker was going downhill, at a very gentle angle, into the slope.
· · ·
**Daily bulletin, 19 January**
*Avalanche danger: 4 (high). Kellerhorn North Couloir and adjacent slopes: closed. Natural releases expected. All off-piste travel in the sector is prohibited.*
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**Observer's note (M. Brandt, 22 January)**
Now I have dug along the line from the other end. Five pits to the south. The prints continue. They continue under the lift station, under the piste, under the car park of the Hotel Edelweiss. The layer, in a trench excavated for a drain, was 4 m down, in frozen ground.
The prints are in rock now. I mean they are impressions in the surface of the stone. A person walked here before the snow, before the rock, before the ice. The line leaves the valley in the south and goes into the glacier.
I have pushed the profile as far as I could. The last print I found was cast in the ice of the Kellerhorn Glacier, at 51 m depth, in a crevasse core. It is a left foot, bare, with the toes spread.
The right foot has not been found. The line of prints is continuing northward at the rate of a slow walk, about 3 km per hour, and I have plotted its present position on the map.
· · ·
**Daily bulletin, 24 January**
*Avalanche danger: 4 (high). The sector remains closed. Skiers are reminded that closure signs must be obeyed.*
*Note from the forecaster: the persistent weak layer is continuing to move upslope. Please avoid areas on a line between the Edelweiss car park and the Kellerhorn summit. The forecaster is unable to predict the time of release.*
· · ·
**Observer's note (M. Brandt, 25 January, last entry)**
Today's position of the line is the ridge directly above the village. I have dug a final pit in the slope above the church. The footprints are at 20 cm. They are fresh. The edges are sharp, and the snow around them has not yet frozen. There are eleven of them in a row, going north, away from the valley.
The stride is 71 cm. The tread is a man's. The last print is facing the church.
The weak layer is not in the snowpack. It is on the surface. I can see them now, laid on the new snow, heel to toe, rising out of the slope, the toes pointing up the ridge. It looks as though someone has been out here a long time, walking steadily in one direction, and has only just stopped to look back.