Sometimes it doesn`t pay to be a hotshot. I disembarked with oversized rucksack at the Madrisa ski station in March 2007, intent on capturing a particular sunrise shot the following morning. It was forecast to clear but was still socked in when I arrived, with at best 15 metres visibility. Sorting out my gear by the station, I heard the cries of a young boy by the restaurant opposite.
I wouldn`t have put him more than about six years old, but he had the lungs and mastery of swear words of a teenager. I and the few others there must have made scary apparitions in the fog because he was clearly very frightened in this unfamiliar environment.
He was in hysterical panic in fact, calling after his mummy with a desperation that only a six-year old who thought he`d been forever abandoned could muster. It looked like he had one Swiss-German parent and one Swiss-French one, because he managed fiery expletives in both languages.
Finally mum emerged from the mists above, snow-ploughing her way tentatively down the piste, only to face a mouthful from her nonetheless mightily relieved little one. Roughly translated:
"Where the hell have you been?"
"What do you mean, where the hell have I been? You were the one who zoomed off and left me up there.You know I`m not as fast as you!"
Phew. Panic over.