How long were you at the ski lodge?
One year almost. So now it is winter. I feel strong again from skiing. But once again an adventure comes to me that I survive once again. See I tell you – my survival habit.
I always liked to go on top of the mountain and look over the skies there. So I went on the side of the slope; there were plenty of bushes, little bushes, but at that altitude the trees don’t grow. So I’m only twenty feet from the top, and I decide I want to traverse it and see the other side. You know – dolina. What do you call dolina in English?
I don’t know. A suburb,? a town? a community? um,
(Henry begins singing a song ‘Dolina, Dolina . . . ‘ Laughing he mentions that to see the other mountains you had to ski down one mountain to a valley, and then up to the top. We figured out that dolina means ‘valley.’) This is how I get to Zakopane when I need to.
One day I was traversing, the snow not far from my roztoka. You know, the roztoka was below the Wołoszyn Mountain. The snow was like ice and suddenly I see something moving at the top of the snow. Suddenly there is an avalanche and my feet go out from under me. I am in the middle of an avalanche, tumbling and tumbling. We’re talking about 2-3,000 feet of snow falling. There are rocks and debris mixed in with the snow. So luckily I don’t see nothing. The snow in an avalance is like a powder of snow – you don’t see the rocks So I began just floating in the snow.
The avalanche came down and covered the Roztoka completely. The river was covered; everything was covered with snow. I find myself hanging on to the bushes – I must have grabbed them as I was falling. I am hanging there. But! I’m alive! Nothing else, and my shoes are ok. And I go down slowly, and a friend of mine from Slovakia side, friend of mine, two of them, Slovakian who was up there come running like hell!
You know like “Who, who, oohhh” – and I said “OOooh ooohh” . And they say son of a gun what happened,?! We saw someone going there, and right after that, avalanche cover the lodge, cover everything, we see nobody! So we thought there was going to be some dead here, covered in snow.
Survival habit. (Grinning.) Survival habit! (laughing) “Ooh, heh heh, And my ‘rescuers’ were so happy, I had a little vodka I gave them. They were very nice. They were hunters and border people and always liked something to eat. They lived in the mountains and had good, good meat.