Fife mountaineer’s lucky escape from Mont Blanc avalanche

A Fife climber has described the moment he was swept 2,000ft down an alpine cliff by an avalanche.

Ally Swinton, 23, from Leven, thought he was going to die after being catapulted off a ridge as he attempted to scale Mont Blanc last week.

The experienced climber, who now lives in Chamonix Valley, France, was with two friends when the ridge he was walking on slipped away from beneath his feet, hurling him into free-fall.

“All I could see was white,” he said.

“My mouth was gagged with snow. I spat it out but it just filled up again. I shoved my fingers in my mouth to unplug it.

“I felt gutted because I knew I was going to die this was the way I was going to go.”

After an initial vertical drop of 200ft, Ally was carried more than 1,500ft down the mountainside by the momentum of the avalanche.

About half an hour after his ordeal, a rescue helicopter came to Ally’s aid, called for by his fellow climbers Ben Tibbetts and Misha Gopaul.