Near death skiing experience: fact or fiction?

My latest book – The Ski Trip – begins with a man falling to his death from a ski run in the French Alps. Luckily, tragedy rarely strikes on pistes in real life. But off-piste skiing can be more hazardous – as I found out as a snow-loving, risk-taking 26-year-old. And my own close-call formed part of my inspiration for The Ski Trip.

I completed five ski seasons in my twenties and each one brought a range of stories to brag about back home. Avalanche near-misses. Falling into a river. Trying solo parapenting and missing an electricity cable by a hair’s breadth. But it was one particular off-piste adventure that can still send me into a cold sweat.

It was late April 1999. The end of my final ski season in Val d’Isere, France. The guests had gone home, and spring was in ascendency. But then overnight, we were treated to a huge snowfall. My boyfriend (now husband) and I went straight to Le Fornet – a quiet ski area with rickety wooden ski lifts and scurrying marmots – because we knew we would be guaranteed fresh tracks for at least the first hour.

It was amazing. Exhilarating. The adrenalin surged. And then, a few hours in, I saw an incredible stretch of unblemished snow falling away to my left. By this point, there were about 50 other skiers in the area, but I didn’t question why there wasn’t a mark on this white blanket. I was too caught up in the moment. I set off, with Chris about ten metres behind me, and I adored the feeling of cutting through the soft snow.

Until I didn’t love it anymore.

To this day, I don’t know why I stopped. The undulation of the slope meant I couldn’t see what was ahead of me – perhaps that’s why. I started shaking; unclipped my snowboard; screamed at Chris to do the same. Then I trudged my way back up the mountain – not an easy task in deep snow – still unable to explain what had spooked me. We eventually climbed high enough to traverse around the top of the mountain and look down. My tracks stopped about three metres away from a 30-metre drop onto bare jagged rocks. We didn’t wear helmets in those days – if I’d completed one more turn, I would have fallen, and not survived.

That was 24 years ago, and I still think about that near-miss from time to time. And how precarious life can be.