THE AVALANCHE OR THE WHIRLWIND
I ask a lot of my characters, landing them in some dicey situations:
In VOLCANO WATCH, protagonist Cassie Oldfield gets caught in an avalanche. She's returning to her hometown, which has just been evacuated under threat of an eruption. She's returning in search of her partner, who she believes is stranded there. She's returning on skis, coming cross country via a steep canyon. There's a sudden roaring sound, and she sees a slab of snow detach from the canyon wall. Avalanche. It catches her, tumbles her, envelopes her. Buried with only a small air pocket, she must dig her way out. But the snow is like ice. And then mother nature throws her a rope: there's an earthquake, cracking the icy snow roof enough that she can escape. Of course, she escapes into more trouble.
In BADWATER, the villain is in a slot canyon in Death Valley, having just unleashed an act of sabotage, and now he's trying to escape. Suddenly, there comes a roaring sound from upcanyon. He's desert-wise and knows there could be a flash flood, caused by summer storms in the watershed above. There's no escape--the canyon walls are vertical, and he can't outrun a flood. The sound intensifies. And then around the upcanyon bend comes something totally unexpected: a black whirlwind of dust and pebbles. It seems alive, snaking its way down the twisting slot canyon. The villain presses against the canyon wall and the whirlwind just grazes him as it passes. A flood would have drowned him. This thing spooks the hell out of him.
Which is dicier, avalanche or whirlwind?
The avalanche, surely, because avalanches can kill. I've never, thankfully, experienced one but I did take a nasty fall in deep powder skiing the back country and I was, technically, buried. Only about half a foot deep, but for half a minute, my heart rate ramped waaay up. I channeled that experience writing the VOLCANO WATCH scene.
For me, though, the whirlwind is the winner in the pounding-heart category. Because I did, unhappily, experience it. Alone in a slot canyon in Death Valley, mindful that I was in flash-flood territory. And then came the roaring, and the devilish twister. I plastered myself against the canyon wall. As the thing disappeared downcanyon, my heart rate was off the charts. I reproduced that experience, almost exactly, when writing the BADWATER scene (vengefully unleashing it on the extraordinarily bad bad guy).
I don’t know what caused my real-life whirlwind. I asked a desert expert, who said: “Whirlwinds generally form on sunny days with fairly cool temperatures. They usually form on fairly flat terrain as sun heats the ground and warm air rushes upward. I suspect the one you encountered formed on the alluvial fan and then moved into the canyon areas.” And yet, it was coming downcanyon when it passed me. So, did it form on the fan, move upcanyon, then backtrack? I wonder.