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The deadly avalanche that came to define a community in Lake Tahoe
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Dick Gilmore/AP
The snow came down fast and didn’t stop for days. Inch by inch, then foot by foot, the late-season storm arrived with the force of 120 mph wind gusts and buried the mountains in a sea of white.
March 31, 1982, was the fifth day of the storm. Conditions were so unrelenting, Alpine Meadows Ski Area shut down for the entire day. The resort was struggling to manage the 7 feet of snow that had fallen, while the storm’s onslaught continued.
Alpine Meadows is marked by its terrain rocky cirques and bowls spill off the crest of the Sierra Nevada, bottoming out in a hanging valley that sits at 7,000 feet. The same features that make it a world-class destination for skiing also make it prone to avalanches: heavy snow and steep slopes exposed to the elements.