I nearly died in an avalanche - the eerie visions of each heart-stopping second still haunt me and almost drove me to suicide

‘This greeting I’m being buried alive. I will slow tally retired of aerial and suffocate nether nan snow.

‘They’ll find my assemblage successful nan outpouring erstwhile my orangish down suit emerges from nan pouring snowfall and feathers float from nan tears.’

These were nan thoughts tumbling done nan mind of adventurer and National Geographic photographer Cory Richards erstwhile he was caught successful a devastating avalanche connected nan 13th-highest upland successful nan world.

In his caller book, The Color of Everything, Richards describes successful heart-stopping item really his life flashed earlier him - astatine times bizarre, and astatine others almost mundane.

Richards was nan first (and still nan only) American to climb 1 of nan world’s 8,000m peaks successful winter, reaching nan acme of Gasherbrum II successful Pakistan successful February 2011.

He and his chap climbers - Denis Urubko and Simone Moro - were connected their descent from that record-breaking climb erstwhile they were swept distant by nan abrupt avalanche.

‘A portion of crystal falls aliases 1 excessively galore crystals onshore aliases nan upwind blows conscionable incorrect and I perceive it earlier I spot it,’ he writes, recalling nan infinitesimal nan avalanche hit.

‘It sounds for illustration thunder and a freight train and upwind each astatine once.

‘I effort to run, but nan snowfall is waist-deep and excessively heavy. I return 3 steps earlier nan aerial blast lifts my assemblage and I’m weightless.

‘I slam backmost into nan lingua of nan avalanche… tumbling complete and complete successful an exploding heap of down and nylon… and it has only 2 colors. Black and white. Black and white. Over and complete and over.’

As snowfall filled his unfastened rima and his nostrils - causing him to struggle for activity - he was powerless to scream.

‘Colorful splinters look amidst convulsive flashes of achromatic and achromatic arsenic nan weight of my assemblage is sucked deeper into nan debris. Down is up. Up is down,’ he writes

Meanwhile, his emotions moved from fearfulness to small heart to anger and, eventually, to resignation.

Richards - who has been outspoken astir his intelligence wellness struggles - reveals that, convinced these were nan last moments of his life, memories appeared for illustration disjointed fragments: ‘A birthday. A date. A vessel of Cheerios. Parking tickets. Song lyrics and books and movies. Faces and things unsaid and words I wish I could unspeak and actions I wish to undo and things I ne'er did, and I retrieve that I person taxes to pay.

‘Life does flash earlier my eyes but location is nary poesy to it. It’s conscionable Polaroids of a postulation of things, emotions, and questions.’

This, he writes, is what it feels for illustration to dice successful an avalanche: a tumbling conflict of sensations and thoughts and helplessness.

Gathering each his remaining strength, he threw his caput and his manus towards what he hoped was ‘up’ and, miraculously, recovered air. Entirely buried but for a azygous arm, holding his chin supra nan snow, he grabbed his first frenzied gasps of aerial and started frantically trying to free himself earlier nan adjacent avalanche came.

Thrashing astir successful nan snow, whimpering and convinced his friends were dead, he abruptly heard Simone’s voice: ‘Cory, everything is okay.’ Then Denis: ‘Simone! I excessively americium okay!’

All 3 were alive, against astonishing odds. 

The climb made Richards famous. As good arsenic his ice-encrusted look gracing nan screen of National Geographic's milestone 125th issue, he created nan award-winning documentary 'Cold'.

But each nan mag covers and speaking engagements concealed not conscionable his ongoing struggles pinch utmost slump and bipolar disorder, but besides crippling PTSD, which would manifest successful outbursts of unit and an flight into alcoholism.

Then, successful 2020, he received a telephone that thrust him into nan headlines again for each nan incorrect reasons.

By now sober, he was accused of intersexual impropriety successful nan past - a drunken prank that came backmost to haunt him successful nan property of #metoo.

The soul investigation astatine National Geographic was yet concluded and Richards’ sanction was cleared, but location was nary measurement back. And, moreover though nan mag decided not to trim ties pinch its prima photographer, he knew his profession location was astir apt over.

A twelvemonth later, heavy successful a movie task astir his life and astir to climb a caller way connected Everest, his life yet came crashing down successful epic style.

He'd spent days simply sobbing successful his tent. Sleep-starved, his thoughts spiraled from nightmares astir nan avalanche done illusion daydreams, to screaming into his sleeping container until he was hoarse.

‘I hug my legs to my thorax and bounce my jaw connected my knees, rocking backmost and distant and holding my head,' he writes. 'I can’t extremity crying but americium startled to announcement that I’m crying astatine all.

‘At immoderate constituent I commencement talking to myself successful measured tones, assuring myself that everything is OK. But yet nan only words that are coming retired are “I’m sorry” and “No, no, no.”’

Knowing that he couldn't spell connected pinch nan climb, he walked disconnected nan upland unsocial and abandoned nan movie project, leaving his colleagues furious. Years of planning, tens of thousands of dollars, and a movie unit successful spot were each torched successful his wake.

Back location successful Colorado - broke, physically spent, his profession successful tatters, and fielding angry emails from those he'd fto down truthful severely - he googled ‘how to necktie a noose’ and stood, naked, connected a stool.

'I ablution for location betwixt 2 minutes and an hr because I want to beryllium cleanable erstwhile they find me,' he writes. 

‘I put nan statement astir my cervix and mildly thin onto nan noose.’ 

He describes nan emotion arsenic it becomes harder to respire then, conscionable earlier he blacks out, nan stool tips complete and he catches connected to it pinch his feet. 

Crawling off, shaking, he realizes he doesn’t want to die. He conscionable doesn't want to unrecorded for illustration that.

By penning truthful honestly astir his bipolar section connected Everest and consequent termination attempt, Richards hopes to thief destigmatize intelligence wellness issues and promote much openness - peculiarly among men.

'I’ve spent astir of my life trying to flight my ain communicative of madness,' he writes. 'I’ve chased nan horizon, confusing it for a cleanable early wherever everything will make sense.

'I chose to unrecorded madly to outrun madness itself. I’ve thought that by rebellion, doing more, being better, and being different, I mightiness beryllium capable to out-climb, out-explore, aliases out-create nan disquiet of my mind. But what if nan sound and madness were nan gift?'

He adds: 'Speaking astir pain, anger, frustration, and everything other isn’t anemic and it doesn’t make anyone a “snowflake”. It requires existent vulnerability, which is simply a accomplishment of strength. 

'In silence, we collapse. In silence, we die.'

The Color of Everything: A Journey to Quiet nan Chaos Within by Cory Richards is published by Random House, July 9