Today’s Violently Tumbled Yet Truly Morbid Fact!
Monty Atwater was a veteran of the 10th Mountain Division which utilized explosives to create strategic avalanches during World War II. After the war he was immediately hired to research and control avalanches at Alta, a ski resort in the middle of one of the most notoriously dangerous mountain chains in North America, Utah’s Wasatch, just east of Salt Lake City. Needless to say, working with avalanches is dangerous business, and Atwater did not manage to retire unscathed. In January 1951, after a two-day blizzard that dropped 38 inches of snow, Atwater was out with his partner, Hans Jungster, checking the slopes before turning skiers loose. In those days, he figured the only way to test the stability of slopes was to ski them. If they didn’t slide under the feet of the snow rangers, presumably they wouldn’t slide under anyone else. As the two experts crossed a series of fields, one would watch from a safe position while the other advanced; at one point, however, the new and inexperienced Jungster came onto a steep, concave chute called Lone Pine Gully, before Atwater was off it, and triggered an avalanche that released the entire slope at once. Atwater fell though the cascading snow until his skis hit the hard base of old snow underneath.
“I was knee deep in boiling snow, then waist deep, then neck deep,” he wrote. “Through ankles and knees I felt my skis drift onto the fall line. But I was still erect, still on top of them. The books tell you, ‘If you’re caught in an avalanche, try to ski out of it.’ With mine trapped under six feet of snow I wasn’t skiing out of anything.
“Very fast and very suddenly I made two forward somersaults, like a pair of pants in a dryer. At the end of each revolution the avalanche smashed me hard against the base. It was like a man swinging a sack full of ice against a rock to break it into smaller pieces.”
Years of training and countless hours spent observing avalanches meant that Atwater knew exactly what he was in for. Tumbled violently beneath the snow and in utter darkness, he suddenly popped to the surface again, spat out a chunk of snow stuck in his mouth, and sucked in a breath of air. “I thought, ‘So that’s why avalanche victims are always found with their mouths full of snow. You’re fighting like a demon, mouth wide open to get more air, and the avalanche stuffs it with snow.” The next time he surfaced, Atwater took two lungfuls of air, and the cycle continued. “On top, take a breath, swim for the shore; underneath, cover up, curl into a ball. This seemed to go on for a long time, and I was beginning to black out again. Then I felt the snow cataract begin to slow down and squeeze. The squeezing was the result of the slowdown, with snow still pressing from behind. Whether from instinct or a last flicker of reason, I gave a tremendous heave, and the avalanche spat me onto the surface like a seed out of a grapefruit.”
Culled from: The White Death: Tragedy and Heroism in an Avalanche Zone
