A VIZIT TO MOUNT CHIGET

This amusing event happened many years ago. I was invited to a laboratory investigating snow avalanches. The laboratory was founded at a height of 3 thousands meters near the top of Mount Chiget in the Caucasus. I got to the laboratory by rope-way on a nice sunny day. I left my luggage in the room and came out to see the mountain covered with white blinding snow.

Near the laboratory two strong guys were digging a trench using small spades and they had already dug half of it. I knew that the trench must have been near 2 m deep to study the snow solidity. If there was a wrong layer in the sample of snow, the artillery should have started shooting at the mountain to initiate an artificial avalanche.

Watching the laboratory assistants I was very surprised. To my mind they were digging extremely slowly. It seemed to me they did it deliberately. I asked them to get out of the trench, jumped down, took one of the spades, and began throwing the snow away fast and energetically to show them a proper work. The young men observed me in silence and with cunning smiles on their faces.

After I had thrown away about ten spades of snow I felt suddenly a strange feeling. All things around me had become brightly green and I couldn’t breathe. Actually, I tried to gulp in, but I couldn’t. I pressed myself to the trench wall trying to say something before the end. At this moment I heard the voice of one of the guys explaining to the other that I would need only a minute or so to get oxygen come to my brain.

In fact some minutes later I felt better. I started to see real colors and the guys helped me climb out of the trench. It was my first experience of the lack of oxygen. Since then I have understood that in such cases all movements should be done slowly and smoothly.

And not only in such cases!

2006