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Hello, I'm James Reynolds.

Welcome to the documentary from the BBC World Service.

In BBC OS conversations, we bring people together to share their experiences.

This time, we hear from three people who've all had a close

encounter with an avalanche. Avalanches can happen at any time of the year. In the past few days,

there have been a number of deaths on ski slopes in the Alps. And in recent months, hikers in Greece,

climbers in Italy's Dolomite mountains,

and guides in the Himalayas have all lost their lives.

You may have seen the video earlier this week of the Spanish skier Alas Maseip and her dog came

being swept down a mountain in the Pyrenees by an avalanche.

Fortunately, they were not hurt.

The peak season for these huge and potentially lethal mass movements of snow is now underway in the northern hemisphere.

To understand the dangers and what it's like to experience an avalanche, we're going to hear from three survivors.

Benton Hodges was caught in an avalanche while skiing with three friends in the US state of

Wyoming. J.T. Holmes, a professional skier, was in California when he was buried by an avalanche. We're going to

start, though, with Mountaineer and author Corey Richards, speaking to us from Cape Town in South Africa.

He described to my colleague Luke Jones what happened to him

when he was climbing the world's 13th tallest mountain in Pakistan. We were descending after doing

the first winter ascent of Gashabram 2 in the Karakoram Himalaya of Pakistan. And it had been

snowing for about two days,

and there was at least a meter of fresh snow.

...