This story begins on a Saturday morning in 2020. Just yesterday, I arrived in Austria with my best friend Daniel. On the internet I saw many breathtaking photos of the landscape and I really wanted to see it for myself and hike up some mountains. But when I looked out of the window today and saw strong wind and rain, I thought that I would have to cancel the hiking trip. But then Daniel said, that - according to the weather forecast on his phone - the weather would improve within the next few hours. So we continued packing for the trip and about one and a half hours later we stood on the parking spot of the „Großglockner“, where the trail begins. We noticed that the weather had got a lot better and we were both very excited to start the trip. On our way up we saw many different animals, such as ibexes, marmots, a lynx and vultures. The air was wonderfully clean and the view got better and better the higher we hiked. After about five hours, we arrived at our destination, an about 2000-meter-high hut. There we both ate an Austrian specialty called „Kaiserschmarrn“ with apple puree, and it was delicious. Later, we enjoyed the breathtaking view for one last time and started to walk back down. Shortly after, the weather got worse and worse and we decided to walk a bit faster, because we had heard a lot about accidents in the mountains due to bad weather conditions. For some reason I was able to convince Daniel to leave the regular trail and walk on an unmarked path, because I thought we would be faster that way. We walked very fast, we almost ran since the weather was still getting worse. The rain got stronger and stronger and it started to get really slippery. Furthermore, we had lost orientation und at this point we were sure that we would not find our way back. All of a sudden, we heard a loud noise and quickly turned our heads to look what had caused it. It was terrifying: we saw a huge mass of white smoke coming straight toward us. Frightened by what we had just seen, we stood there frozen for about 2 seconds until we looked at each other, at the same time, and knew that we had to run as fast as we could. Soon we realised, that there was no way to outrun the avalanche, especially because our legs and feet hurt and the snow slowed us down too much. The avalanche came closer and closer, we had to come up with something. I saw a rather large rock in the distance and thought that we could protect ourselves behind it, so I gave Daniel a sign and ran with him behind the rock. Probably the worst 30 seconds of my life followed: we sat behind the rock, made ourselves as small as possible, closed our eyes and prayed to survive. It took me a while to open my eyes again, but when I did, I saw that the avalanche was gone - and Daniel was still next to me! My heart was beating fast, but I was also overcome by a tremendous relief. I hugged Daniel and apologized, since it was my fault, that we had walked down this path. But he was not angry with me and we continued to walk downward. A few minutes later we spotted the regular trail and managed to get home safely.
written by Leon, Tim and Luca, year 10, December 2021