I’m buried beneath a metre of snow above the ski resort of Les Menuires in the French Alps in a cold, silent, friendless world. Then suddenly there’s a scuffling sound, followed by a pair of black paws frantically excavating the snow, as Split the avalanche dog bursts through to my rescue — more of which later.
This is all part of an exercise by the Les Menuires Ski Patrol, which I’m shadowing for a day that began a few hours earlier at 7.30am on a cold January dawn.