The Day a Mountain Moved

THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, DECEMBER 23, 2012 NY 3 Snow Fall ♦ THE AVALANCHE AT TUNNEL CREEK ♦ The Day A Mountain Moved KEITH CARLSEN chest and neck, the crumbs maddening- The area has all of the alluring qual- After an evening of By JOHN BRANCH ly slid back onto her face. She grew ities of the backcountry — fresh snow, night skiing at claustrophobic. expert terrain and relative solitude — Stevens Pass in Breathe easy, she told herself. Do not but few of the customary inconven- The snow burst through the trees from down. It was not unlike being cart- panic. Help will come. She stared at the iences. Reaching Tunnel Creek from the Cascades in with no warning but a last-second wheeled in a relentlessly crashing low, gray clouds. She had not noticed Stevens Pass ski area requires a ride of Washington on whoosh of sound, a two-story wall of wave. But snow does not recede. It the noise as she hurtled down the moun- just more than five minutes up SkyLine Feb. 18, several of white and Chris Rudolph’s piercing cry: swallows its victims. It does not spit Express, a high-speed four-person tain. Now, she was suddenly struck by those with loose “Avalanche! Elyse!” them out. the silence. chairlift, followed by a shorter ride up The very thing the 16 skiers and Snow filled her mouth. She caromed Seventh Heaven, a steep two-person lift. plans for the next snowboarders had sought — fresh, soft off things she never saw, tumbling Slip through the open boundary gate, day to ski Tunnel snow — instantly became the enemy. through a cluttered canyon like a steel Tunnel Creek with its “continue at your own risk” Creek, the Somewhere above, a pristine meadow marble falling through pins in a pachin- warning signs, and hike 10 minutes to cracked in the shape of a lightning bolt, out-of-bounds ko machine. The Cascades are among the craggi- the top of Cowboy Mountain. slicing a slab nearly 200 feet across and At first she thought she would be em- est of American mountain ranges, When snow conditions are right, the side of the 3 feet deep. Gravity did the rest. barrassed that she had deployed her air roughly cut, as if carved with a chain preferred method of descent used by mountain, Snow shattered and spilled down the bag, that the other expert skiers she saw. In summer, the gray peaks are those experienced in Tunnel Creek, slope. Within seconds, the avalanche huddled around a was with, more than a dozen of them, sprinkled with glaciers. In winter, they based on the shared wisdom passed was the size of more than a thousand fire in the R.V. lot. would have a good laugh at her pan- are smothered in some of North Ameri- over generations, is to hopscotch down cars barreling down the mountain and icked overreaction. Seconds later, tum- ca’s deepest snowpack. the mountain through a series of long weighed millions of pounds. Moving bling uncontrollably inside a ribbon of The top of Cowboy Mountain, about meadows. Weave down the first mead- about 70 miles per hour, it crashed speeding snow, she was sure this was 75 miles east of Seattle, rises to 5,853 ow, maybe punctuate the run with a through the sturdy old-growth trees, how she was going to die. feet — about half the height of the tallest jump off a rock outcropping near the snapping their limbs and shredding Moving, roiling snow turns into some- Cascades, but higher than its nearest bottom, then veer hard left, up and out bark from their trunks. thing closer to liquid, thick like lava. But neighbors, enough to provide 360-de- of the narrowing gully and into the next The avalanche, in Washington’s Cas- when it stops, it instantly freezes solid. gree views. It feels more like a long fin open glade. cades in February, slid past some trees The laws of physics and chemistry Another powder-filled drop ends with and rocks, like ocean swells around a than a summit, a few feet wide in parts. transform a meadow of fine powder into Locals call it Cowboy Ridge. another hard left, into another meadow a wreckage of icy chunks. Saugstad’s To one side, down steep chutes, is Ste- that leads to the valley floor. pinwheeling body would freeze into vens Pass ski area, which receives Tunnel Creek is, in the vernacular of Saugstad was mummified. She was on her whatever position it was in the moment about 400,000 visitors each winter. To locals, a “hippie pow run” — breezy and the snow stopped. unobstructed, the kind that makes ski- back, her head pointed downhill. Her goggles the other, outside the ski area’s bound- After about a minute, the creek bed ary to what is considered the back of ers giggle in glee as they descend were off. Her nose ring had been ripped away. vomited the debris into a gently sloped Cowboy Mountain, is an unmonitored meadow. Saugstad felt the snow slow play area of reliably deep snow, a “pow- and tried to keep her hands in front of der stash,” known as Tunnel Creek. her. She knew from avalanche safety It is a term with broad meaning. The courses that outstretched hands might ship’s prow. Others it captured and add- name is derived from the Cascade Tun- puncture the ice surface and alert res- nel, originally a 2.6-mile railroad tube ed to its violent load. cuers. She knew that if victims ended up Somewhere inside, it also carried peo- completed in 1900 that connected the buried under the snow, cupped hands in east and west sides of the Cascades, a ple. How many, no one knew. front of the face could provide a small The slope of the terrain, shaped like a boon for the growth of Seattle and Puget pocket of air for the mouth and nose. Sound. The mountain pass that it bur- funnel, squeezed the growing swell of Without it, the first breaths could create rowed beneath was named for the churning snow into a steep, twisting a suffocating ice mask. project’s engineer, John Frank Stevens, gorge. It moved in surges, like a roller The avalanche spread and stopped, who later helped build the Panama Ca- coaster on a series of drops and high- locking everything it carried into an icy nal. banked turns. It accelerated as the cocoon. It was now a jagged, virtually In late February 1910, ceaseless snow- slope steepened and the weight of the impenetrable pile of ice, longer than a storms over several days marooned two slide pushed from behind. It slithered football field and nearly as wide. As if passenger trains just outside the tun- through shallower pitches. The energy newly plowed, it rose in rugged contrast nel’s west portal. Before the tracks MUSEUM OF HISTORY & INDUSTRY raised the temperature of the snow a to the surrounding fields of undisturbed could be cleared, the trains were buried Wreckage after couple of degrees, and the friction snow, 20 feet tall in spots. by what still stands as the nation’s through a billowing cloud of their own carved striations high in the icy sides of Saugstad was mummified. She was deadliest avalanche. It killed 96 people. soft powder and emerge at the bottom the Wellington, the canyon walls. on her back, her head pointed downhill. Bodies were extricated and wrapped coated in white frosting. Wash., avalanche Despite trends toward extreme skiing Elyse Saugstad, a professional skier, Her goggles were off. Her nose ring had in blankets from the Great Northern in 1910, which wore a backpack equipped with an air been ripped away. She felt the crushing (now called freeskiing), with improba- Railway, then hauled away on sleds. buried two bag, a relatively new and expensive weight of snow on her chest. She could Some were not found until the snow ble descents over cliffs and down chutes part of the arsenal that backcountry us- not move her legs. One boot still had a melted many months later. that test the guile of even the fiercest passenger trains ers increasingly carry to ease their ski attached to it. She could not lift her To skiers and snowboarders today, daredevils, the ageless lure of fresh, marooned by smooth powder endures. minds and increase survival odds in head because it was locked into the ice. Tunnel Creek is a serendipitous junction snowstorms case of an avalanche. About to be over- But powder and people are key ingre- But she could see the sky. Her face of place and powder. It features nearly outside the taken, she pulled a cord near her chest. was covered only with loose snow. Her 3,000 vertical feet — a rarely matched dients for avalanches. And the worry She was knocked down before she knew hands, too, stuck out of the snow, one descent — of open meadows framed by among avalanche forecasters, snow-sci- Cascade Tunnel if the canister of compressed air inflated still covered by a pink mitten. thick stands of trees. Steep gullies drain ence experts and search-and-rescue and killed 96 winged pillows behind her head. Using her hands like windshield wip- each spring’s runoff to the valley floor leaders is that the number of fatalities people. She had no control of her body as she ers, she tried to flick snow away from and into a small, short gorge called Tun- — roughly 200 around the world each tumbled downhill. She did not know up her mouth.

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