Whit Coutell / Reader
- Avalanche! you shouted repeatedly and then scanned your surroundings quickly; on the left there was nothing but a steep slope and dangerous cliffs and on the right about fifty meters away there was a sparse forest, the highest parts of the tree line, and perhaps some shelter from the falling masses of snow. "Run into the forest!" you yelled, hoping that your clients would hear your voice over the loud rumbling and when they turned to look at you, you pointed at the trees and started to run towards them. The sound got even louder and now it was impossible to hear any other noises and the upper slopes of the mountain were hidden by a cloud of snow... a cloud that was hurling towards you with a terrible speed. You kept falling into the snow, sinking knee-deep even though your expensive snowshoes were supposed to prevent you from sinking in. However, they clearly were not made for running and therefore they were now working against you.
Finally you reached the forest and after taking a quick glance to figure out whether your clients had managed to find shelter or not, you hugged a tree and braced yourself for impact. You saw two tall men following your lead and then the wall of snow hit you. You kept hugging the tree, the rough bark scratching your cheek, and closed your eyes to prevent getting your eyes injured by ice and pieces of wood and rock mixed with the snow. It was too much; the weight of snow was constantly pulling you and after a moment you felt your strength leaving your arms and your grip slipped.
The sound of deep loud rumbling filled your ears as you kept tumbling down the steep slope with the snow like you had been shoved into a washing machine while the weight of snow on and everywhere around you made it nearly impossible to breathe and allowed you to get only short gasps of air every once in a while, even though you mostly ended up with a mouth full of snow instead. You knew that the only way to survive was to 'swim' in the snow and to stay on the surface... otherwise you would get buried under the snow, which turned into a cement-like consistency as soon as it stopped moving. Your body got slammed against something a few times, the impacts forcing all air out from your lungs... and finally you hit your head after which there was nothing but darkness.
---
- Are we all set? a tall, handsome man asked with a British accent and flashed a charming smile at you. He was carrying a camera and filming the preparations while the rest of the entourage, three guys and a co-worker of yours, a wildlife expert, were checking the equipment.
- Mister Coutell. you said and offered your hand to him for a handshake. He took it and squeezed it firmly. You presented yourself and told the tall man that you were the person in charge, the guide, during this expedition. "Yes, we are nearly ready" you replied after establishing hierarchy and then added "My colleague is just finishing the safety briefing-"
- Ah that. Yes. the man, Mister Coutell, a famous documentary filmmaker commented and rolled his eyes.
- Actually, you should have attended too. you stated with a disapproving tone. You did not like it when your clients disobeyed your instructions because in the wild it meant that one stupid action could put everyone in danger.
- Me? Oh please! he chuckled. "Don't you know who I am?" he asked and then gave you a lengthy description of all wild adventures he had participated while filming his awarded documentaries. "I spent a year in a tent, in Africa" he stated and chuckled.
- Do you understand that we are heading to the mountains, Mister Coutell? you asked and then continued calmly but firmly "It is quite late in the spring which means that the possibility of an avalanche is quite high."
- How exciting! Mister Coutell exclaimed and smirked. "I would totally win an Oscar if I caught an avalanche on camera" he stated and continued monologuing about his great accomplishments while you checked his hiking backpack and made sure that the film maker had everything he needed.
After this you went through the safety briefing with him personally even though it was a struggle; the guy had a huge ego and he kept interrupting you constantly. No, not because he had questions but because he wanted to question everything you said or make sure that you were fully aware about his skills and confidence. He wasn't really listening and after few minutes it had gotten apparent that the filmmaker extraordinaire was more interested in exploring different settings of his new expensive camera than paying attention to anything you were saying. This pissed you off and therefore you decided to change the route a little so you would avoid the dangerous cliffs and stay away from risky paths that easily claimed lives if one wasn't paying attention. However it also meant that Whit Coutell would not get the shots he wanted, but that was his own fault. Safety was your priority, not his documentary film.
You got on snowmobiles and headed to the mountains from the resort you were currently working as a guide at. Mister Coutell's manager had contacted you just a couple of weeks ago and booked you and your co-worker, the wildlife expert called Scott, for the third week of March because Mister Coutell was making a documentary about the harshness of winter. The documentary crew had already booked another company for the job in the end of last year but gotten into legal disagreement about the contract just before the scheduled tour and therefore the expedition had been cancelled... and then rescheduled with the company you represented.
You obviously had not been informed about any further details, in the eyes of the big bosses you were just a guide after all, and when you had objected due to the fact that it was quite late in the spring already, which made the snow conditions up in the mountains unpredictable and dangerous, you had been told that opportunities like these did not come often and therefore you had not had any other choice than to organize the trip. The mountains were hazardous in the spring because there were constant temperature changes and the sun warmed up the slopes already which then sometimes caused the wet snow to start sliding off the mountain.
There were six of you in total; Whit Coutell and his crew of three guys, you and your coworker Scott who was the wildlife expert and knew everything about surviving in the wild. You had worked in an office in a big city for a tech-start-up and then, after getting tired of the hectic lifestyle, you had gotten yourself a new profession and moved to a small town that was located on the footsteps of a mountain range. In other words, you had been a professional guide for a couple of years, still a rookie in some older guides' eyes, and therefore having Scott around was awesome because whatever happened in the wild, he had all the answers and he knew exactly what to do. Scott had over thirty years of experience and he always stayed calm, no matter what.
You rode with Mister Coutell who sat behind you, his arm tightly wrapped around your waist while he handled his film camera with the other. However there were constant interruptions because the filmmaker wanted to get specific kinds of shots of him riding the snowmobile, shots from different angles, with plenty of background and also close-ups, and this caused constant delays to the schedule. Finally you arrived to a cottage that was located by a beautiful mountain lake, now frozen, and small rapids that were no longer chained by ice. You turned the snowmobile off, carried the bags into the cottage and lit a fire in the hearth while Mister Coutell's crew filmed Whit doing a long monolog about the wildness of the surrounding nature and trying some ice fishing... without actually getting any fish. Fortunately his groupies had gotten a big fish from the resort's kitchen so now they had something to pull out from the hole.
You found this all very ridiculous but decided not to say anything. You weren't getting paid for voicing your amusement and didn't understand the fine art of making documentary films anyway. You had basically decided that you would not get involved unless they did something stupid that put the entire group in danger. Besides, it seemed like Mister Coutell and his minions listened to Scott more than you; he was like a cool dad, basically one of the guys while you were the amateur guide who didn't know what she was talking about. Yeah, at least one of the groupies seemed to think that a woman couldn't possibly be a qualified wilderness guide and know what she was talking about.
Fortunately, at least Scott respected you and always cheered you on, even after using your 'city logic' to solve a wilderness problem and getting yourself into a trouble. You rarely made mistakes nowadays but you were relieved to know that Scott never doubted you and if you screwed up, he gave you feedback in a constructive way, without scolding you in front of your clients. He had been your mentor for past two years and therefore you trusted him completely. In return you had taught Scott a lot about new technical devices that made working easier and had basically secured his job since he was no longer just an old-timer who couldn't learn new tricks and had to be replaced by some tech-savvy and cool hipster.
You had very conflicted thoughts about Whit, though. On a positive note, he did not assume that you were the cook and the maid of the group, which was good, and he seemed like a decent guy... but then again, he was also self-centered and constantly seeking out for the perfect shot that would win him the next big award. He was perhaps even slightly arrogant and definitely had too high opinion about his survival skills, although you did not know him and therefore it was possible that he had some kind of survival training background. It would have made sense considering the genre of his documentaries.
What else about Whit... you estimated that he was in his early thirties, born in the UK or perhaps he was just faking the accent to appear more sophisticated. He seemed like the type of a person who had been born into a wealthy family and therefore, from an early age, he had had limitless possibilities and when he had chosen filmmaking his parents had enrolled him to the best film school available and paid the high tuition fees, no questions asked. Whit dressed very well; even now, in the middle of nowhere, he was wearing clothes that fit him perfectly and had cool functions, state of the art -shit that you couldn't afford even dream about. He looked like he had jumped out from an innovative outdoors' magazine that created trends instead of just following them.
Whit had brown hair that looked like it had lightened in sunlight, most likely during his trip in Africa, or perhaps the sun in his hair was fake too, gotten from a bottle in a highstreet hair salon. He had green eyes that were framed with long dark eye lashes and his eyebrows were impressive. He had a light stubble and his hair was a little bit curly; it looked like he had just spent a day at the beach and the salty breeze from the sea had styled his hair. He had perfect white teeth and a gorgeous smile... but his smile seemed genuine because whenever he smiled there were tiny lines in the outer corners of his eyes which you found very attractive. Whit was also very tall, nearly two meters, and he had broad shoulders. He was not a bodybuilder -type but he looked strong nevertheless. Yes, you were attracted to Whit Coutell, honestly you had been attracted to him from the very first moment but you were more than determined that you would handle your celebrity client like a true professional, which meant no flirting of any sort. Besides, you were quite sure that he was dating someone anyway... and you found his personality quite annoying... or perhaps it was just a role that he was playing. You didn't know and frankly, you didn't care.
The plan was to sleep in the cottage and then tomorrow morning, right after sunrise, start exploring the nearby areas. The resort itself was located in elevated altitude, the location making it perfect for winter sports and this cottage was situated about forty kilometers away from the resort as the crow flies. There was only one narrow road that connected the cottage to the resort and during wintertime the cottage was only accessible via snowmobiles. The cottage had been built closer to the highest mountains, higher than the resort itself, by the mountain lake to act as a base camp of some sort. It normally took an hour to travel the distance between these two establishments but now it had taken nearly three due to the constant delays caused by Whit and his crew.
You had arranged snowshoes for the entire group and after few practice rounds in the surroundings of the cottage, you would take the group into the forest and follow the river down to a remote camp where you could make fire and enjoy lunch - a simple stew made of fish, caught for real this time. Then you would return to the cottage and while Scott prepared dinner, you would take Whit and his crew on a snowmobile tour on the frozen ice. The cottage was located in a bay and when you went a bit further, just around a cape, you were greeted by a breath-taking view of the mountains that were bathing in the sunset. Then the next day you would drive across the mountain lake to the mountains, park the snowmobiles to a secure location and start the long hike.
The most important thing was to avoid being on the slopes during the sunniest and the warmest hours of the afternoon because that was the moment when the risk of an avalanche was the greatest... which was also the reason why it was not allowed to ride on snowmobiles in the mountainside during spring; vibrations, like the ones caused by a snowmobile, could easily trigger an avalanche and bury the entire entourage under heavy masses of snow and ice. You had originally planned to take Whit and his guys up to the mountains but since the weather forecast was now showing signs of a possible snowstorm and Mister Coutell had not paid attention to the safety briefing, you decided to basically fuck it.
Besides, if one wanted to climb the mountain, they needed different kind of gear; crampons instead of snowshoes and there was no mention about crampons in the contract, which meant that you were not obligated to provide such service. It would or could have been an added bonus since gear like that was available at the resort and could have been easily arranged but now, after witnessing the somewhat casual and borderline careless attitude of Mister Coutell and his groupies, there was no way you would take them to the higher slopes, above the tree line where you needed longer metal spikes on your shoes to make sure that you would not accidentally slide down and fall off the cliffs.
Yes, the snow in the forest, below the tree line, behaved differently than on the exposed mountainside where the surface layer melted and froze into ice while in the forest the snow maintained somewhat fluffy due to shade provided by the trees. However there were small crampons on the snowshoes too so they were ideal for hiking in the mountainside. "Safety first" you always said and even though your goal was to provide your clients with excitement and adventures that seemed extreme and somewhat risky, you always made sure that you had minimized the risks as much as it was possible. However, in the wild nothing was totally risk-free and whenever one was dealing with idiots that neither minded their surroundings nor respected the mountain, it was easier to get into trouble. Fortunately, you had Scott, who looked like a mountain man, to deal with that kind of situations.
---
You coughed violently as an automated reaction, filled your lungs with air and after that you finally gained full consciousness, well, nearly at least. You opened your eyes and stared at the pines, the brown branches and the green conifer needles painted against the blue sky, while your body slowly woke up. The surrounding nature was silent and your body felt numb... until every part of your form started to hurt due to being thrown against rocks and trees when the avalanche had grabbed you. You whimpered and cried from discomfort when you tried to move but when you did, you almost instantly passed out from the pain.
---
It was the morning of the second day. You had woken up the group well before the sunrise and after packing your bags and loading them to the snowmobiles, you headed towards the mountains. The guys raced on the ice and took full advantage of the snowmobiles' horsepower for the first time. When you had driven from the resort to the cottage there had not been open plains like a surface of a frozen lake that would have allowed taking the vehicles to the limits of their performance due to the challenging terrain, forcing them to keep the speed at modest forty-fifty kilometers per hour, so understandably it was time to have some fun and even you enjoyed racing a bit.
When you reached the far end of the lake, you all parked your snowmobiles to a safe place and put on your snowshoes. Then you headed towards the mountainside, slowly getting higher in the sparse forest. Once more there were endless monologues and retakes, different action shots of Whit standing on some rock and staring at the horizon with a determined look on his face, his hair glowing in the sunshine and the wind playing with his fancy scarf. He looked at the scenery like he was the first one in the entire world to see it and to be honest you found that attitude kind of attractive. However you knew that most likely it was just a role that he was playing; you had seen his latest short film and cringed at many scenes.
Now, you weren’t and never had been a big fan of Whit Coutell and his documentaries but you acknowledged the brilliance in his filmmaking. He had, after all, won an Oscar a couple of years ago but the thing was that in your opinion his style had changed after that; he had focused on interesting places and people who lived in them and the conflicts they faced in their everyday lives and this had brought him fame and glory, few awards as well. He had had a fresh way of making films and despite his young age, being twenty-something at the time, had really impressed you with the profoundness and insightfulness of his films. But then his style had changed and instead of filming documentaries about others he had started to film them about himself and the tone of his pieces had become somewhat pretentious, arrogant and self centered.
This made you feel very conflicted because at the same time you wanted Whit to find greatness again, you wanted him to rediscover the soul and the heart of his work, the realness and the rawness that had touched you when you had come across his documentaries and short films for the first time, but at the same time you were getting annoyed due to the constant delays and changes of plan. At the cottage you had reminded Whit and his minions that you were in charge and Scott was the second in command and Whit had agreed, but now Mister Coultell was behaving like this was his expedition and he was the leader.
It was time to make a camp because this time you were not going back to the cottage for the night. You and Scott, who was not very talented at organizing logistics, equipment and timetables and therefore had refused the title of the ‘leading guide’, showed Whit and his groupies, how to make igloos and use snow to protect oneself from the elements. You also showed Whit how to start a fire and again followed him silently while rolling your eyes as he gave a speech about the divine gods of fire and how this very element had shaped the fate of the entire mankind. “Fire has made me who I am today” Whit stated and this statement made you burst into laughter… which then led into more retakes.
After having some open-flame roasted dinner your group got into the two igloos, made by you and Scott… unfortunately the one Whit had made had collapsed soon after being finished… and said goodnight to each other. Whit and one of his groupies slept in the same igloo with Scott and the other two of them slept in the same igloo with you. It was safer this way, safer not to have a third igloo even though the igloos were quite small for three people, especially when Scott and Whit were both big guys… because if something happened, both igloos had a trained professional who knew what to do in a case of an emergency. You got into your sleeping bags that were designed for sub-zero temperatures and after listening to Whit for a while as he summarized the day to the camera like it was his personal diary, you fell asleep. “He has a nice voice” you thought and this time you were too tired to even scold yourself for even thinking like that.
The next morning you continued forward into the wild, getting further and further away from the cottage. Now there started to be problems and bigger disagreements between you and Whit; he wanted to get higher to the mountain and get gorgeous shots from the lake while you opposed this idea. However since there were four of them and two of you and you were in the middle of nowhere, on the forest-covered slope of a big mountain, you couldn’t really do anything when the filmmaker’s group refused listening to your instructions. Now you were left with only two options; you either returned to the cottage and notified the authorities, there unfortunately was no cell-service in that area so you couldn’t call anyone from the spot you were currently… or you could continue with the group and do your very best to steer them away from any dangerous spots. The reality was that you and Scott knew the mountain, well, kind of, and Whit and his groupies did not and therefore you decided that the more responsible thing to do was to continue forward with them and try to convince Whit to return to the lower altitudes and safer paths.
In the evening you set a camp again and when you woke up the next morning you were greeted by a snowstorm. The previous days had been so beautiful and sunny, hiking had been easy and enjoyable and now the visibility was poor, almost zero, and there was a near-complete whiteout. You got out from the igloo and had a conversation with Scott who agreed that it was not safe to go anywhere now – the smartest thing to do was to wait it out in the shelter and to continue the hike after the storm had cleared.
Whit was not very happy about this due to his project being behind the schedule already, but he understood your reasons and this time even agreed. After few hours the weather got slightly better and the filmmaker decided to head out to shoot some storm footage a little bit higher. You told him “No, absolutely not!” with a firm tone but after he had made it perfectly clear that he and his groupies were not going to waste a day by sitting in an igloo, you had no other choice than to pack your belongings and accompany them on their journey… getting higher and higher slowly. “It’s fine” Scott said and added “The storm is clearing anyway” but you had a bad feeling about this; you knew that these conditions increased the possibility of an avalanche and made it easier to walk off a cliff when one couldn’t see the mountain clearly… if the storm got any worse, that was.
However in the late afternoon the storm got worse once more and this time it was impossible to say where anyone was. You tried to call out everyone by their names but the wind howled so loudly that you couldn’t even really hear your own voice. You tried to follow the tracks left by the members of your group but since the wind was pushing snow into every direction, it was almost impossible to see any snowshoe tracks in the snow. Finally the storm passed, cleared away like someone had waved a magic wand and sun came out, revealing your position; you had climbed just above the tree line and on the left side there was a steep slope that ended in dangerous cliffs and on the right side there were few trees here and there… and where the rest of your group was… you did not know.
You were tired and cold, you had lost your sunglasses at some point and now the brightness of snow, the vast whiteness sparkling in the sunlight, was hurting your eyes. You scanned the mountainside and finally you noticed all five group members standing on a small plateau about forty meters higher than you. You waved at them and sighed relieved because for a moment you had really feared for the worst. Then it happened; the combination of the warming temperatures, melting the snow and changing its density and making it heavier, sunshine and the extra weight added by the freshly fallen snow stirred the fragile stability of the snow cover somewhere high up on the mountain. You felt the snow beneath your snowshoes tremble a little… or perhaps you just imagined it due to the low rumbling sound that echoed in the distance but got louder by every passing moment, like an approaching thunder.
---
You recoiled back into consciousness when you heard someone shouting for help somewhere nearby. You got up despite the pain and after quickly making sure that you had no broken bones or any tree branches sticking out from your stomach or something, you stood up… just to sink thigh-deep into the snow again. You had lost your snowshoes as well as your gloves and after digging yourself out from the snowy trap with your bare hands, you decided to crawl towards the sound, spreading your weight as widely as you possibly could. You followed the noises and after fifteen minutes found Whit laying in the snow on his stomach in a position that looked fairly uncomfortable… or painful even. You spoke to him with a calm voice, helped him to roll over and then checked his body for injuries, even though it was challenging because your fingers were getting stiff and numb from the lack of gloves.
When you got to his right leg, he suddenly yelled from pain and you knew instantly that he had gotten injured. In fact, his thigh had gotten impaled by a sharp twig and snow under the spot was turning deep red. The injury was not as bad as it could have been but you were sure that it was painful and there was a real possibility of infection if you didn’t get Mister Coutell into a hospital soon. You took off your backpack, found some basic first aid supplies and cleaned the wound after telling Mister Coutell to bite on a twig and to keep as still as possible because any sudden movements could trigger another avalanche. The mountains were dangerous during sunny afternoons in the spring, especially the vast bare slopes that faced south and were exposed to the sun the most... and it had been sunny for several days before today. Yes, sure, you had originally planned to take Mister Coutell and his groupies up to the mountains but the difference was... you would have never chosen a sunny afternoon after a blizzard.
You tied the wound, dug Whit out from the snow and made sure that he was not in a life threatening danger and then you started to search for other survivors. However the mountain was covered with an eerie silence and the only thing you could really hear was the sound of your own breathing. All of a sudden you heard silent cries from somewhere below. You slid on the snow, using your own body as a sledge, and finally came across Scott who was badly injured. You wiped snow and debris off his face and spoke to him with soft reassuring voice as he coughed blood and whimpered from pain. “You’ll be alright” you said and squeezed his bare hand tightly.
There was no sign of the three other guys. You could see the contents of their backpacks scattered all around the slope between trees but you couldn’t see them which made you realize that they had been either swept off the cliff or they had been buried under the snow. This meant that they had already suffocated… or been crushed to death. In fact, after fifteen minutes of being buried under snow the chances of survival dropped to forty percent and after twenty the number was down to thirty... and you had no idea how long it had been already. Besides you didn't know how far down they had been carried by the avalanche and therefore the 'search and rescue' -mission would be impossible to accomplish in time... especially without anything that could be used as a shovel. It was a paralyzing thought but you couldn’t allow yourself to freeze – not now because you were the leading guide and it was your job to take care of the ones that were still alive; Whit and Scott.
Suddenly you heard Whit’s voice again, it echoed in the sparse forest, floating down from somewhere above and making the entire situation feel even more unreal, almost like you had been caught into one of his artsy short films. He was making a speech about the cruelty, sheer magnificence and unpredictability of nature, filming himself and documenting every gruesome detail of this horrifying accident and making it about him… while his friends had died and your coworker was in the process of dying right in front of your eyes.
Yes, Whit Coutell’s camera had survived the avalanche and he had continued documenting his great adventure… during the worst moment of your entire life.