By MOLLY ABSOLON
Sometimes you hear a crack or a roar. More often the first sign is snow shifting around your feet. The snow starts in a slab and then breaks into blocks that knock you off your skis, careening down in a slide moving as fast as 60-80 mph. If youâre lucky, you live through it, plastered with snow; if not, youâre entombed, hurtled over a cliff, killed.
There have been 36 avalanche fatalities in the United States this winter, a streak of avalanche deaths not seen since 1918.
The accidents all occurred at a time when forecasters had rated the avalanche danger considerable or high. Both ratings mean avalanches are likely and travel in avalanche terrain is not recommended, and yet people, including me, chose to venture out despite the warnings. The question is, why?
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Credit Bridger-Teton Avalanche Center
In the first week of February, avalanches in the United States killed at least 14 people. That s the highest number of deaths in a seven-day period for at least a century.
Experts say it s partly because more people are out in the backcountry. I think starting in March, with the closure of so many ski resorts, many people turned to ski touring in the backcountry in order to recreate outside in perhaps a safer way in the pandemic standpoint, said avalanche educator Jenna Malone. Malone works for the American Avalanche Institute.
Most of the deaths are a result of a persistent slab avalanche problem. That means there is weak snow in the snowpack, andthe normal signs and stability tests that people are trained to do to avoid avalanches aren t there, Malone said.