Avalanche The snow on the mountainside is on the move No it’s not just snowflakes falling down from the clouds This is more than mere precipitation A giant slab of fallen snow has broken loose and it is coming down the mountain fast It’s an avalanche As the avalanche of snow comes rapidly down the steep mountainside it covers everything in its way It covers skiers and snowboarders It covers snowmobiles and mountain cabins Nothing can stop it Ninety percent of avalanche victims die in slides triggered by themselves or a member of their group 4
LOVELAND PASS ELEVATION 11,990 FT CONTINENTAL DIVIDE Snowboarding Disaster On a Saturday afternoon in April 2013 six snowboarders went up the mountain to Loveland Pass in Colorado But only one came home alive The six were snowboarding at nearly 11,990 feet 3,655 meters when they triggered an avalanche The slide almost 600 feet 183 meters wide and 8 feet 2 43 meters deep buried the entire party One snowboarder dug himself out of the snow and called for help Located in the Rocky Mountains of north central Colorado Loveland Pass is a high mountain pass that is both beautiful and deadly 5
Snow in the mountains is a way of life At some elevations there is snow on the peaks year-round Farther down the mountainside the snow is more than just beauty to appreciate As the snow melts it flows into the aquifers that we use for our water supply So how do mountain dwellers cope with avalanches They look for the signs If you know what to look for you can actually predict an avalanche Did You Know Avalanches can change the ecosystem Avalanches break trees in half or pull them out of the ground This makes room for new trees to grow An old forest will have new growth 6
Before skiing hiking or snowmobiling in the backcountry an area not maintained by a ski resort or the National Park Service taking an avalanche safety course is a good idea Members of the American Avalanche Association teach classes They are for people who want to go out into the backcountry Before they go out in the snow they need to know about avalanches They need to look for these six red flags Red Flag No 1 Recent Avalanches If there are new avalanches in the area that means more avalanches could happen The conditions that cause the snow to break apart and slide downhill don’t just occur in one location If one part of the mountainside is coming down chances are another section may slide downhill too 7
