There are a lot of words to describe up and down, or vertical, shafts of air. We need to fully understand the peculiarities of wind management in the mountains or stay out, but our orientation/belief/prior experience/etc. impacts that somewhat. Often, I get the feeling some pilots believe downdrafts will drive the airplane into the ground. This worries me because, with that orientation, the obvious action to respond to a "we're going down" observation is to pull back on the stick (power in low powered airplanes will most like be full.) The accident report will not say the wind slammed us into the mountain. It will say we "failed to maintain airspeed."

So! What do we do when we are going down? First, the escape route is generally down drainage so the target becomes the bottom of the drainage going down drainage. If in the desert or a park (large valley in mountains,) simply point the nose down to fly through the downdraft as quickly as possible. If riding the downwind ridge forming a valley going up to a saddle, the target is the bottom of the valley going down valley. But! If we were riding updrafts on the downwind ridge, how are we going down? The tactical situation is always fluid.

Yes! Downdrafts put pilots with poor orientation and poor planning in positions where they may have to choose to control fly into terrain or fall into terrain. Mountain training should involve good orientation and wind management.