Chloe Boulle was 16 when she went on a school trip to the snow, but the outing quickly became her (and every parent’s) worst nightmare.
The holiday to a popular ski resort in New South Wales was Chloe’s first – and last – time snowboarding, after a series of events left her stranded on the slopes and quickly losing hope.
The now 24-year-old Gold Coast woman told FEMAIL she was enjoying a beautiful day on the slopes with lots of people around her when things suddenly went wrong.
Chloe, her class, teachers and resort staff took a shuttle bus to the top of the mountain, doing their best to stay in a group.
“We got to a point where the track turned left and went around a mountain. I saw all my friends, teachers and instructors turning around and behind me I knew there were other people on vacation snowboarding and skiing,” she said.
“But when I turned the corner, everyone was gone. The people behind me should have followed me, but no one came.”
Chloe suddenly found herself in the middle of nowhere, with no one in sight.
“I think I was just in shock and completely confused, I couldn’t comprehend what was happening,” she said.
Chloe Boulle was thrilled to go on a school trip to the snow at the age of 16, but the outing quickly became her (and every parent’s) worst nightmare
Chloe said she was only five seconds behind her group and couldn’t understand how they could all have disappeared so quickly.
“I tried to justify everyone’s disappearance with logic — I thought maybe everyone had beaten me to the end of the track somehow. Maybe everyone behind me had somehow gotten past me when I looked down,” she recalled.
“But that was impossible because of the large number of people in the snow. It was such a sunny day and there were people everywhere, until suddenly there were no more people and I was all alone.”
Chloe shared the terrifying yet relatable experience in a now-viral TikTok video.
The trip to a popular ski resort in New South Wales was the first – and last – time Chloe ever went snowboarding
“I picked up my phone to call my best friend and I remember my phone was at 75 percent charge, but as soon as I pressed the little circle to enter my phone, my entire screen went black. The ‘no battery’ sign came on,” she said.
“The only way I could understand what was happening was that somehow everyone was ahead of me at the bottom of the track and somehow everyone behind me had passed me without realizing it. I was just grasping at straws.”
Not knowing what to do, she continued snowboarding down the hill, hoping she would reach the bottom.
“I tried my best to snowboard, but I kept falling, so I decided to give up, unclip my snowboard, and walk,” Chloe said.
Chloe said she was only five seconds behind her group and couldn’t understand how they all disappeared so quickly
She walked for an hour with the heavy snowboard through the thick snow, which felt like ‘walking through sand’.
Chloe remained hopeful and was determined to get back to safety.
After a walk she came across an old, ‘dirty’ ski lift.
“I thought it would be best to get on this ski lift so I could get up high and have a look around. Maybe I’d find the main area,” she continued.
‘But… there was nothing but snow and trees. I was of course completely panicked, because it was sunset, it was almost dark. But then I also thought: how the f*** did this happen?’
At that moment she burst into tears. She didn’t know what to do and thought she was going to die.
“The sun was setting fast and I didn’t know if I would survive a night outside in the freezing cold alone. And besides, I was so hungry because it was dinner time,” she continued.
“I remember crying and wishing I was home warm with my mom. I remember telling my mom, sisters, and pets out loud that I loved them, and basically saying goodbye.”
Day turned to night, there were no city lights anymore, she could barely see anything and she couldn’t use the flashlight on her phone.
When she thought all hope was lost and no one would find her, she saw a glowing light in the distance that led her to a staircase and an underground train.
“How that got there, I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense that there would be a real station there, because I was in the middle of nowhere,” Chloe said.
“But sure enough, the metro came, I jumped on it and it took me to the shuttle buses. I took a bus back to the cabin.”
Relieved to be back in a safe place, Chloe watched her group of school friends and teachers eat together, wondering where she was (stock image)
Relieved to be back in a safe place, Chloe saw her group of school friends and teachers eating together. They had been wondering where she was.
She said she wondered why they didn’t seem concerned.
“I thought, was no one looking for me? Everyone, very casually and not even rudely, was just like ‘oh hey Chloe, there you are,'” she said.
“It was almost like they were hearing me through a filter and they didn’t understand the gravity of what I was trying to say. It was all weird. The energy was gone.”
Later she refused to go on the slopes again and stayed in her hut until the end of the trip.
“My mother was very upset. She thought it was strange what had happened (that everyone disappeared), but she was also angry with the teachers,” she said.