Uploaded as One Bad Decision, Then The Avalanche Hit, this video from a pair of fraternal outdoor athletes follows the exploration of a new line on the Dolomites. The expedition turns harrowing when a momentary disregard puts them in the path of an avalanche.
After introducing themselves, first as risk-takers and then as brothers, Jakob and Matthias Weger take us with them on a trip to the Dolomites of northern Italy. They’ve just successfully skied a new line. Flush with victory, they look back at the face of the mountain and see another, even wilder line on the same face.
Their successful first line is on the left, the second line is on the right. Photo: Screenshot
Going for it
The Wegers decided to take it on. They take us through their reconnaissance, exploring the line with drones. It gets steeper and more technical toward the top, with a rappel or possibly a drop in the middle. Inaccessible from behind, they will have to climb to the top of the couloir in order to ski down.
Deciding to go for it, the brothers return early in the morning, bringing along a few friends to help film, including Michel, who will come with them on the climb itself. As the trio enters the couloir and begins to climb, fog descends, and it begins to snow. Preoccupied with figuring out the technical aspects of the attempt, they admit that they weren’t thinking “about avalanche dangers or the weather.”
Nevertheless, standing below the drop, they all remember a strange instinct telling them to leave Michel here, to film them safely from below. He does so, and the brothers continue alone.
As they ascend, the snow becomes thin and unstable. Spindrift comes thickly down the foggy channel as they repeatedly test the surface. A trope-familiar audience recognizes foreshadowing as the brothers continue hesitantly.
Conditions begin to turn. Photo: Screenshot
The avalanche
Then, mere moments before they would have agreed to turn around, the surface comes apart beneath them, and they are part of a rushing torrent of snow tumbling downward. We follow Matthias and his camera in a flurry of white and grey confusion, but finally he manages to get above the gradually slowing mass of snow, riding it to a stop.
Over the radio, he exclaims that he is alive, and all of them begin calling for Jakob. First over the radio, then, with growing desperation, Matthias calls his brother’s name, and it echoes over a silent mountain. Finally, however, Jakob replies from a distance.
“We fucked up,” Matthias says quietly. He lies in the snow, wrapped in a gold emergency blanket. It was only after he learned that Jakob was safe that Matthias realized the extent of his own injuries. He’d been swept down the entire couloir, smashed against the wall, and hurled over the drop.
As they waited for the rescue helicopter to arrive, they considered the consequences of their decision not to turn back — and how narrowly they’d avoided a tragedy.
The video is a postmortem reflection on a single mistake, more than a document of a skiing expedition.
