The name Engelberg goes back to a legend according to which the voices of angels from the heights of the Hahnenberg are said to have prompted the founding of the monastery. The village is located in central Switzerland and is known for its heavy snowfalls. The mountains around the 3000 meter high Titlis are the first peaks in the Alps. Clouds coming from the north and west get stuck here first and let their snow fall. This is why the resort has been attracting many freeriders over the years to enjoy the good powder conditions.
Sanne Mona at the Ski Lodge. She is 33 years old and works here part-time in the back office. The hotel is located in the center of the village and was opened in 2008 by two Swedish men. Many winter sports enthusiasts meet in the lodge’s popular bar to enjoy a beer and après-ski.
A half meter of fresh snow has fallen overnight, which is perfect for Sanne Mona in the form of fresh, loose powder for freeriding. The region around the Titlis offers numerous slopes and descents that provide excellent snow conditions due to their northern orientation.
It happened on April 20, 2017. Sanne Mona was buried by an avalanche roughly at the point where the prominent shadow in the shape of a shark’s fin appears in the sky. The relatively short slope actually seems innocuous. But the “relatively short” time in which she was buried alive under the layer of snow until she was dug out by her friends was not to remain without a trace, as it turned out later.
Only when the next winter begins will Sanne Mona realize that something has remained. Suddenly there are fears that she had never experienced before. After several panic attacks and nightmares, she sought out a psychotherapist and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. “Over time, I was able to process what I remember well – but between the time I was swallowed up and the moment I heard myself scream, I’m missing something. I have bigger problems with that.” She dreams of the ocean at night, the waves are swallowing her. Then she wakes up in a panic.
Sanne Mona and her boyfriend often receive guests in their apartment, which is located in the heart of the village of Engelberg. They have just offered their sofa in the living room to a colleague from Denmark. The next day, she will head off with her to a freeride competition in France. They are rivals on the mountain, but in their private lives they support each other, although the income is not always enough to cover the costs, even for well-ranked freeriders.
Sanne Mona with her dog Janne (Deutsches Drahthaar). In addition to this couple, two colleagues live in the 5-room apartment as they have not found another room in Engelberg.
At Mona’s living room.
View from the Restaurant Wasserfall on to the Galtiberg, a descent that is very popular among freeriders and is notoriously wild and alpine. With an altitude difference of 2000 meters from Klein Titlis down to Engelberg, it is one of the longest freeride descents in the entire Alps and leads along some truly impressive rock faces.
After a year of therapy, Sanne Mona is venturing back into the deep snow. “Of course I could have stopped, but I didn’t want to let the fear win,” says Mona. “My life is about skiing.” Sanne Mona is on the slopes around eighty days a season, mostly in off-piste areas, but you can also find her on the pistes when it’s raining, and she still has fun.
The Ski Lodge in Engelberg.
Two years after the accident, she is once again searching the conversation with her colleagues that were involved. “It’s more the custom to keep quiet if you’ve been in an avalanche accident,” says Sanne Mona. She thinks it is possible that in the male-dominated freeride community, it is simply not usual to show weaknesses. “I was somehow embarrassed that I got caught in an avalanche,” she says. Sanne Mona wants to break the silence and raise awareness of the psychological consequences of alpine accidents. She is now working with a Swedish filmmaker on a documentary about the subject.
