The California Avalanches
By: Nitzaliah Festinger
Recently, on February 17th, and March 1st there were major avalanches in the Lake Tahoe, and Sierra Nevada areas, in California. These resulted in the near fatality of one man, and the deaths of nine others.
On February 18th, Carson Schmidt, and his friend who is unidentified, happened upon a deep mound of snow, seemingly from a recent avalanche. Schmidt was filming their excursion, when he noticed ski poles sticking out of the snow. Him and his friend worked quickly digging through the snow, and luckily were able to save the man, who remains unidentified.
Similarly, another avalanche nearby buried a total of fifteen people, only six of them surviving. Of the nine who passed away, were three ski guides, and six women, a friend group of mothers and wives. They were on the last day of a three-day backcountry ski trip. All the fatal victims ranged from ages thirty to fifty two.
Of the survivors, three men, one of the ski guides, Anton Auzans, and Jim Hamilton were the first to dig their way out of the snow. Together they saved the three others. Once the six of them had gotten out, they had to make an impossible decision. Stay back and try to uncover the other nine skiers, or flee the area before any other avalanches could hit. Thinking of their family and friends, they decided to leave. In an interview with the New York Times, Auzans said, “We were all in danger. We did as much as we could,” adding, “We pushed until we started finding people that were deceased. Making the decision to stop the search was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.”
There was a memorial held for the fatal victims at the Victory Highway Eagle Monument in downtown Truckee. Many locals, as well as mourners, and employees of the ski resort attended. They stood together in solidarity of the tragedy. A choir was there reciting Amazing Grace, moving many to tears. A local woman attending said “as a small community that loves backcountry skiing, there’s one degree of separation between all of us,” she said. “It’s the mom factor. If something happens to one of my family members or friends, I want to feel the whole community is there for me.” She said this to Leslie Hsu Oh, who discussed this statement in her article for Outside. She discusses the beauty of this mindset, and how important community is.
All in all, this disaster was extremely tragic. It’s important that skiers, and ski resorts are more aware of the possibility of this occurring again, and hopefully it won’t.
Sources:
https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/rescue-california-lake-tahoe-avalanche-skier-buried-snow
https://metro.co.uk/galleries/images-show-scale-of-california-avalanche-that-buried-nine-skiers-alive-27121359/
https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/snow-sports/tahoe-avalanche-truckee-memorial-moms/
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp9m0zp04xyo
https://people.com/avalanche-survivor-was-reading-book-about-another-disaster-days-before-tragedy-11917634
https://people.com/avalanche-survivors-saved-3-lives-then-made-difficult-decision-leave-9-behind-11917324