The Avalanche

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Fortnite The Avalanche players discuss the video game Fortnite and if they are into it or over it? Landeskog's timely tip-in goal Gabriel Landeskog redirects Erik Johnson's blistering shot into the net to give the Avalanche a lead late in the 3rd period. Rantanen's second PPG pads lead Nathan MacKinnon sends a cross-ice pass through legs and past sticks to Mikko Rantanen, who scores his second power-play goal of the game. Bednar - Postgame Dec. Landeskog's 20th of the season Gabriel Landeskog holds the puck in the right circle before firing a wrister past Anton Khudobin for a power-play goal.

Varlamov's trio of tough saves Semyon Varlamov knocks down Miro Heiskanen's initial shot, then makes two additional saves, including an incredible pad stop on Tyler Seguin. MacKinnon - Postgame Dec. Saugstad felt the snow slow and tried to keep her hands in front of her. She knew from avalanche safety courses that outstretched hands might puncture the ice surface and alert rescuers. She knew that if victims ended up buried under the snow, cupped hands in front of the face could provide a small pocket of air for the mouth and nose.

Without it, the first breaths could create a suffocating ice mask. The avalanche spread and stopped, locking everything it carried into an icy cocoon. It was now a jagged, virtually impenetrable pile of ice, longer than a football field and nearly as wide. As if newly plowed, it rose in rugged contrast to the surrounding fields of undisturbed snow, 20 feet tall in spots. She was on her back, her head pointed downhill. Her goggles were off. Her nose ring had been ripped away. She felt the crushing weight of snow on her chest. She could not move her legs. One boot still had a ski attached to it.

She could not lift her head because it was locked into the ice. But she could see the sky.

Her face was covered only with loose snow. Her hands, too, stuck out of the snow, one still covered by a pink mitten. Using her hands like windshield wipers, she tried to flick snow away from her mouth. When she clawed at her chest and neck, the crumbs maddeningly slid back onto her face. Breathe easy, she told herself. She stared at the low, gray clouds. She had not noticed the noise as she hurtled down the mountain. Now, she was suddenly struck by the silence.

The Cascades are among the craggiest of American mountain ranges, roughly cut, as if carved with a chain saw. In summer, the gray peaks are sprinkled with glaciers. The top of Cowboy Mountain, about 75 miles east of Seattle, rises to 5, feet — about half the height of the tallest Cascades, but higher than its nearest neighbors, enough to provide degree views. It feels more like a long fin than a summit, a few feet wide in parts.

Locals call it Cowboy Ridge. To one side, down steep chutes, is Stevens Pass ski area, which receives about , visitors each winter. It is a term with broad meaning. The name is derived from the Cascade Tunnel, originally a 2. It killed 96 people. Bodies were extricated and wrapped in blankets from the Great Northern Railway, then hauled away on sleds. Some were not found until the snow melted many months later.

To skiers and snowboarders today, Tunnel Creek is a serendipitous junction of place and powder. It features nearly 3, vertical feet — a rarely matched descent — of open meadows framed by thick stands of trees. The area has all of the alluring qualities of the backcountry — fresh snow, expert terrain and relative solitude — but few of the customary inconveniences. Reaching Tunnel Creek from Stevens Pass ski area requires a ride of just more than five minutes up SkyLine Express, a high-speed four-person chairlift, followed by a shorter ride up Seventh Heaven, a steep two-person lift.

When snow conditions are right, the preferred method of descent used by those experienced in Tunnel Creek, based on the shared wisdom passed over generations, is to hopscotch down the mountain through a series of long meadows. Weave down the first meadow, maybe punctuate the run with a jump off a rock outcropping near the bottom, then veer hard left, up and out of the narrowing gully and into the next open glade. Another powder-filled drop ends with another hard left, into another meadow that leads to the valley floor.

Despite trends toward extreme skiing now called freeskiing , with improbable descents over cliffs and down chutes that test the guile of even the fiercest daredevils, the ageless lure of fresh, smooth powder endures. But powder and people are key ingredients for avalanches. And the worry among avalanche forecasters, snow-science experts and search-and-rescue leaders is that the number of fatalities — roughly around the world each year — will keep rising as the rush to the backcountry continues among skiers, snowboarders, climbers and snowmobilers.

The backcountry represents the fastest-growing segment of the ski industry. More than ever, people are looking for fresh descents accessible by helicopters, hiking or even the simple ride up a chairlift. Before , it was unusual to have more than 10 avalanche deaths in the United States each winter. There were 34 last season, including 20 skiers and snowboarders. Eight victims were skiing out of bounds, legally, with a lift ticket. And many of the dead were backcountry experts intimate with the terrain that killed them.

No one knows how many avalanches occur. Most naturally triggered slides are never seen. Those set off by humans are rarely reported unless they cause fatalities or property damage. But avalanches occur in Tunnel Creek regularly. Its slopes, mostly from 40 to 45 degrees, are optimal for avalanches — flat enough to hold deep reservoirs of snow, yet steep enough for the snow to slide long distances when prompted. The long elevation drop means snow can be fluffy at the top and slushy at the bottom.

Temperatures, wind and precipitation change quickly, and something as welcome as a burst of sunshine can alter the crystallized bonds deep inside the snow. And because Tunnel Creek is outside the ski area, it is not patrolled or specifically assessed for danger. Having been carried into a stand of trees, he was unburied by friends within minutes and found dead. It has about 2, vertical feet.

The snow changes a lot in that distance. Even those who are not leery of Tunnel Creek on the best days heed the pass-it-on warning of the experienced: To head straight down to the bottom is to enter what experts call a terrain trap: Few go that way intentionally. Chris Rudolph, the effervescent year-old marketing manager for Stevens Pass, knew the preferred route down. Tunnel Creek was his favorite at-work diversion.

Earlier that weekend, he mentioned plans for a field trip to Tunnel Creek to a select group of high-powered guests and close friends. From the bottom of Tunnel Creek, it is about a half-mile trek through deep snow to U. It was Saturday, Feb. Outside the Foggy Goggle, a bar at the base of the ski area, the snow continued to fall, roughly an inch an hour. By morning, there would be 32 inches of fresh snow at Stevens Pass, 21 of them in a hour period of Saturday and Saturday night. That was cause for celebration. It had been more than two weeks since the last decent snowfall.

Finally, the tired layer of hard, crusty snow was gone, buried deep under powder. Rudolph promoted Stevens Pass with restless zeal. In seven years there, he helped turn a relatively small, roadside ski area into a hip destination. He unabashedly courted ski journalists and filmmakers to take a look. The young family pulled a pop-up Coleman camper around the West and skied at the areas around Lake Tahoe. The grown siblings continued to vacation with their parents, climbing peaks like Mount Whitney in California and Mount Rainier in Washington. He was an Eagle Scout with a marketing degree.

When he applied at Stevens Pass years earlier, he sent a video of himself speaking, skiing and mountain biking. He included a bag of popcorn for the viewer. He got the job. Children knew Rudolph because he kept his pockets full of Stevens Pass stickers. He starred in self-deprecating Webcasts promoting Stevens Pass. He wrote poetry on his blog and strummed a guitar.

He drank Pabst Blue Ribbon, the unofficial beer of irony and the hipster generation. Tunnel Creek was where he took special guests. And it is where he wanted to take the tangled assortment of high-caliber skiers and industry insiders who, as if carried by the latest storm, had blown into Stevens Pass that weekend. Among them were professional skiers like Saugstad , 33, a former champion of the Freeride World Tour.

There were executives from ski equipment and apparel companies. There were Stevens Pass regulars, some with broad reputations in the niche world of skiing, glad to spend time with the assortment of guests. Rudolph was the connecting thread. Some visitors, like Saugstad, were at Stevens Pass for a promotional event aimed at expert female skiers, sponsored by Salomon, the ski equipment maker.

Rudolph skied with the group all day Saturday. He organized and hosted a catered dinner for the women later that night in Leavenworth, a serious outdoors town dressed as a Bavarian village, 35 miles downhill to the east. Powder had come to spotlight Stevens Pass for a feature article on night skiing. Inside were keys to the car, keys to a slope-side cabin and two Pabst Blue Ribbons in the cup holders. At the bar, Rudolph mentioned an idea to a few people: Tunnel Creek on Sunday. Invitations traveled in whispers and text messages, through a knot of friendships and slight acquaintances.

Meet at the fire pit, on the stone deck at Granite Peaks Lodge, at Rudolph thought his Sunday morning staff meeting would end by then. As darkness enveloped Stevens Pass on Saturday night, stadium-style lights flooded the slopes in white light, and snowflakes fell in cotton-ball clumps. Rudolph and those with the Salomon event left for dinner in Leavenworth.

Stifter, 29, and Carlsen, 38, headed outside to work on their article for Powder. There was so much new snow. With the daytime crowds gone, the nighttime atmosphere was festive and the faces were familiar. Families played in the deepening snow. More serious skiers and snowboarders sought the freshest powder. There are no public accommodations at Stevens Pass, only a parking lot available to a few dozen campers and recreational vehicles.

As the evening wound down, several of those with loose plans to ski Tunnel Creek the next morning huddled in the R. Carlsen continued taking photographs. Stifter and others ducked inside one camper to watch homemade videos of others skiing Tunnel Creek over the past couple of decades. The flames in the fire died to orange embers. The last beers were sipped empty, and people slipped into the night. The campers were blanketed with snow.

Beyond the lights glowing from the ski area, snow still fell over the ridge, too, in the vast darkness of steep meadows and narrow gullies just past the western edge of Stevens Pass. Each snowflake added to the depth, and each snowflake added to the weight. It might take a million snowflakes for a skier to notice the difference.

It might take just one for a mountain to move. D awn cracked with the intermittent sound of explosives near the top of Cowboy Mountain. Chairlifts rumbled to life, ferrying the crews up the dark mountain. Three two-person teams assigned to Cowboy Ridge removed their skis and filed through the boundary gate. They took turns plowing a path through the fresh snow with their bodies. Their boots forged an icy stairway to the top of the skinny ridge. Back on their skis, facing down into the ski area and with their backs to Tunnel Creek, they spread across the ridge to stamp and destroy wind-swept cornices, small balconies of crusty snow.

They removed the charges from their packs. Like party poppers that spew confetti, charges have a pull-wire, an ignition that lights a second fuse. The patrollers lobbed the lighted charges into the many steep chutes below them. The lines for the ski lifts began forming about 7, two hours before they were to open. When the gathering skiers and snowboarders heard the explosions echo down the mountain, they cheered. It signaled a powder day. In Leavenworth, Chris Rudolph awoke in his two-bedroom house on Ash Street, the one that he and his girlfriend, Anne Hessburg, painted a rich blue and accented with a garden out front.

It was where he wanted to show off for friends. They planned to marry in March. Michelson, 30, was the freeskiing editor for ESPN. Abrams, 34, was a founder and the president of Flylow, maker of apparel marketed to backcountry users. The couple lived in Seattle, but had come to Stevens Pass on Saturday for the Salomon promotional event. Michelson and the other women stayed at a Leavenworth hotel. He and Michelson drove to Stevens Pass together. There were similar conversations elsewhere. A year-old with graying hair pulled into a short ponytail, Moore had a feeling it could be a busy weekend.

The avalanche center, based in Seattle, is one of about 20 regional avalanche forecasting centers in the United States, most run by the Forest Service. During the winter, one of its three employees arrives in the middle of the night, analyzes weather maps and computer models, and examines data — snowfall, temperatures, wind, humidity and so on — from 47 remote weather stations scattered across the mountains, including five in the vicinity of Stevens Pass. They take calls from ski patrollers and highway crews. The biggest storm of the season increased avalanche concerns.

But it was not just the new snow that concerned Moore. It was what lay nearly three feet beneath — a thin layer of perfectly preserved frost called surface hoar. The frozen equivalent of dew, created on crisp, clear nights, it features fragile, featherlike crystals that grow skyward. On the surface, they glimmer like a million tiny diamonds. When frosted and protected by soft blankets of fluffy snow, they are weak stilts supporting all that falls on top.

When they finally give way, falling like microscopic dominoes on a steep slope, they provide an icy flume for the snow above. A shot of rain or above-freezing temperatures, both common in Cascade winters, usually destroy the fragile crystals, melding them into the snowpack. But five days of dry, cold weather, from Feb. Sporadic light snow, never more than an inch or two a day, delicately shrouded it over the next 10 days. By the weekend, as snow fell heavily over the Cascades and powder-hungry hordes took to the slopes, the old layer was long out of sight, and mostly out of mind.

Changes in temperatures, precipitation, humidity and wind can turn a benign snowpack into a deadly one, and vice versa. Sometimes weather is enough to start an avalanche. The top of Cowboy Mountain is nearly 6, feet. The Tunnel Creek terrain descends off its southwest side to roughly 3, feet.

The snow had stopped at Stevens Pass by the time the lifts opened Sunday morning. The runs were quickly doodled with curvy lines. And I read it out loud to Keith. And he listened, and I read it again — I read it twice — and looked at it. Stifter left Carlsen behind and headed to the lifts.

He found Jim Jack. If anyone could judge terrain and snow in the backcountry, it was Jim Jack. To most everyone else, he was Jim Jack, blended into one name, accent on the first syllable: Jack was the head judge and former president of the International Freeskiers Association, which oversaw a world tour of competitions. At 46, he was a sort of Peter Pan of the ski world, a charismatic, carefree boy who never grew up, beloved by like-minded skiers and snowboarders half his age. He spent winters traveling the world, spreading the gospel of freeskiing, professing the beauty of finding improbable ways down precarious slopes with grace, nerve and flair.

He had been a competitor on the tour, distinguishable from great distances by the silkiness of his loose form, until he landed hard and took his own knee to his face, shattering the bones around his right eye. You could feel the screws when you touched his face. He was a party accelerator with a penchant for streaking. He did drama in high school and never declined the stage as an adult. On Halloween, his costumes played off his name: Wearing lederhosen, Jack starred in a cheeky promotional video for Leavenworth. Jack shared a bungalow off the highway, near the Howard Johnson, with his longtime girlfriend, Tiffany Abraham.

They danced late at night in the kitchen and built bonfires in the backyard. The covered front porch held a pile of ski gear and a futon couch, perfect for watching the world go by, beer in hand. Widely recognized on the highways and in ski area parking lots around the West, it was held together largely by duct tape and bungee cords.

If it is too loud, Jack told passengers, just roll down the window. Jack and his camper rolled into the R. On weekends, when the snow was good, the lot filled with dozens of pickup campers and motor homes. I saw that Jim Jack was next to me. I thought, cool, I got a great neighbor this week. Jack and Wangen had skied a couple of runs Sunday morning by the time Stifter caught up to them.

Wangen knew Tunnel Creek as well as anyone, having skied it since he was a boy. Jack traveled the world, scouting courses for extreme skiing. He knew how to avoid danger. The fire pit sits at the center of the bustle on busy days. At the corner of the patio, in front of the lodge, it is a crossroads for people coming and going.

Some pull up chairs and relax, facing the bowl of ski runs strung before them. When the clouds lift, Cowboy Mountain dominates the view high to the right. It can feel close enough to reach and touch. By midmorning, the fire pit began attracting a growing but confused band of expert skiers. Some were local, some were visitors. Some knew others, some did not, but most knew either Chris Rudolph or Jim Jack. They traded nods and handshakes, unsure if others were headed to Tunnel Creek, too.

He did not intend to ski Sunday until he awoke in Leavenworth and could not resist the lure of the fresh snow. He drove to Stevens Pass and sent a text message to Rudolph, still in a staff meeting. Hammond told Jack that he had the latest model of skis in his truck, then left to retrieve a pair for him to try. Stifter bought coffee, a couple of Americanos, from the stand for himself and Jack.

Tim Carlson and Ron Pankey , both 37 and childhood friends from Vermont, had spent the morning on the inbounds side of Cowboy Mountain, navigating near-vertical chutes and rock outcroppings. During a break, they spotted familiar faces near the fire pit. Pankey was a former competitor on the Freeskiing World Tour, so he had known Jack since the mids.

Like Jack, he eventually worked competitions around the world, including the X Games. Carlson was a snowboarder, not a skier, and a regular at Stevens Pass. The three merged with those waiting for Rudolph. Skiing over the weekend without his wife and infant daughter, he hung around the Foggy Goggle and the R. He, too, sent a message to Rudolph on Sunday, confirming the plan. I went to the fire pit and I met the whole group. You could tell they were a different level of skier by how they acted and how they dressed. Among the strangers he saw was Rob Castillo , a year-old father of two and former competitive skier.

He had exchanged text messages with Jack. Castillo and Jack lived together in Alta, Utah, for several years in the s. They went helicopter skiing in Alaska and skied down mountains they had climbed in Washington. More than anything, Castillo wanted to ski for the first time all season with his two best friends at Stevens Pass — Jack and Johnny Brenan. Brenan, 41, grew up comfortably in the Seattle suburbs, not far from Jack. He followed his passion for skiing to Breckenridge, Colo. He was sitting on the pool table, and he had an open spot next to him.

They married in and moved to Leavenworth. Brenan worked as a cabinetmaker, then resurrected Cascade Contracting. The Brenans bought a deteriorated year-old farmhouse on a hill in an apple orchard. Johnny Brenan lifted the structure on jacks, rebuilt the foundation and gutted the inside, intending to resell it as a bed-and-breakfast.

The Brenans kept it for themselves to raise their family. Brenan zipped from one construction site to another in his truck. He coached soccer teams.

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He held Monday night poker games in the garage, which Nina always helped prepare. He built a chicken coop in the yard. Then they bought 30 more chickens. But the more the merrier for Johnny, even with chickens. Sunday began perfectly for Brenan. Brenan was at the front of the lift line at dawn. He offered to fetch coffee for those behind him, a trick he used to keep his place while he helped Laurie get their daughters fed and dressed. He returned to the line, excited for an increasingly rare chance to ski with old friends like Jack. They were like little boys in a candy store.

They were so excited. Back with his family for lunch, Brenan ate an egg sandwich and discussed a business deal on the phone. It was after 11, and he was afraid he would miss the Tunnel Creek run. But Rudolph sent a couple of people text messages at about He apologized for running late, and said he would be out in about 10 minutes. Brenan strapped on his avalanche beacon, also called a transceiver, a device that emits a silent signal for others to detect your location in case of burial. A friend in the R. Brenan replaced them with fresh ones.

Not many people survive avalanches. He would say that. He was surprised by the size of the group waiting for him, but he barely broke stride. It looked like such a fun crew. Stevens Pass opened in the winter of with a rope tow on Big Chief Mountain. A lodge and five new tows were added in the s, including a mile-long T-bar that pulled people up the side of Cowboy Mountain. The ski area took shape in the bowl below the crescent-shape ridge that connects the two mountains.

Seventh Heaven, a two-person lift up a steep wall of Cowboy Mountain, changed the complexion of Stevens Pass when it was built in It opened a high swath of expert terrain, now marked as double diamond — experts only — on posted signs and the ski map. It also provided easy access to the top of the high ridgeline. Back then, few people dared to remove their skis and hike the few hundred extra feet to the summit. Now there is a steady procession of expert skiers and snowboarders through the boundary gate next to the top of the lift. Most drop off the left side of the ridge, back into the resort, through the rocky and narrow chutes.

Ski areas that once vigilantly policed their boundaries, from Jackson Hole, Wyo. While that has led to wrangling over liability issues and raised debate over search-and-rescue responsibilities, most areas note that they are carved out of public land. They really cannot keep people from going there. But ski areas also see the potential to attract more ticket-buying customers, and more influential ones, by blurring the boundary lines.

Many areas slyly promote not just the terrain inside their borders, but the wilder topography beyond, using the power of media and word of mouth — as Rudolph did for Stevens Pass. Skiing adjacent to ski areas, however, can numb people to risk. Easy access, familiar terrain and a belief that help is just a short distance away may lead people to descend slopes they might avoid in deeper wilderness.

While most backcountry users would not consider entering known avalanche territory without a beacon, one study last winter at Loveland Ski Area in Colorado found that fewer than 40 percent of people who passed through a boundary gate wore one. Equipment advances have emboldened people. Popular ski bindings now temporarily detach at the heel, allowing skiers to glide up rises like a cross-country skier, then reconnect so they can descend like a professional downhiller.

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Snowboards have borrowed from skis, too. Some models can be quickly split into two pieces, allowing users to stride up short hills in pursuit of bigger descents. Similar advances in safety gear, such as easy-to-use digital beacons and air bags , have helped make the backcountry feel less dangerous. Beacons help rescuers find people buried under the snow, while air bags deploy a large balloon meant to help keep the skier closer to the surface of an avalanche.

A leading American manufacturer of safety gear is named, appropriately, Backcountry Access. Companies, including Salomon and Flylow, have marketed heavily to ride the backcountry trend. They are keenly aware that many buyers will never ski the backcountry but want to dress the part. Those marketing shifts have coincided with a generation raised on the glorification of risk.

From X Games to YouTube videos, helmet cameras to social media, the culture rewards vicarious thrills and video one-upmanship. This generation no longer automatically adheres to the axiom of waiting a day for safer conditions. The relative placidness of inbounds skiing is no match for the greater adventure of untamed terrain. Among avalanche forecasters and the growing cottage industry of safety instructors, there is pride in noting that the number of fatalities has risen at a slower rate than the number of backcountry users.

But they see themselves as part of a difficult race between the coming hordes and the tools to protect them. Then you also have this lifesaving technology. At the top of Seventh Heaven, the members of the group took off their skis and snowboards. Do you have a partner, beacon, probe and shovel? Explosives may be used in this area at any time. Continue at your own risk. A smaller sign read: No ski patrol or snow control beyond this point. To the right was a gray steel box.

While there are no laws dictating what equipment people carry into the backcountry, there is a code. Carry a beacon for sending and receiving signals , a probe for poking for victims in the snow and a shovel for digging them out. One member of the party did not elicit a beep: Erin Dessert , a year-old snowboarder who was early for her afternoon shift as a Stevens Pass lift operator.

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Wesley invited her along. She thought everyone was riding off the front side of Cowboy Mountain, back into the ski area.

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The group marched single file along the narrow ridge for a few minutes until it reached a wider area to convene. Tracks dropped back over a steep edge and into the ski area to the left. To the right was nothing but deep powder, hidden by thick trees, like a curtain to the big attraction. T here were 16 people, although no one thought to count at the time. Their ages ranged from 29 to It was about The storm had passed. A low, pewter sky hid the surrounding peaks. Castillo glanced around at the others, wearing helmets and rainbow hues, a kaleidoscope of color amid the gray surroundings, like sprinkles on vanilla ice cream.

There was loose banter and a few casual introductions. Not everyone met everyone else. Someone pulled out marijuana to smoke, and passed it. Wesley, the snowboarder known as Tall Tim, saw the size of the assembled group. More than a dozen, he thought. There was little doubt that those with Tunnel Creek experience knew the way. About half the group had been down dozens of times each, if not hundreds. The others would follow. There was no broad discussion of the route down. Pockets of the group talked about staying left, not being too greedy by going too far down the meadow before cutting across.

Unspoken anxiety spread among those unfamiliar with the descent. The mere size of the group spooked some. Backcountry users of all types — skiers, snowboarders, snowmobilers and climbers — worry about how much of a load a slope can absorb before it gives way. They worry about people above them causing an avalanche. When it comes to the backcountry, there is usually not safety in large numbers. That is not only because of the physical impact on the snow.

It is because of the complicated dynamics that large groups create. Deadly avalanches are usually the product of bad decisions — human nature, not Mother Nature. So I just followed along. He tried to convince himself that it was a good idea. After a few minutes, the small talk faded. It was grab a partner so you. Jack, on borrowed Salomon skis, paired with Joel Hammond, the Salomon representative. Carlson looked at Pankey, his childhood friend.

Wesley gave a little whistle to Carlson and Pankey and nodded downhill. He wanted to be first. The conditions were too good to waste time, and he did not want to be slowed by the huge pack. With little warning, Wesley dropped straight through the large cluster of trees, using firs as a slalom course. Pankey and Carlson followed. Rudolph, always up for competition, sped around the trees, not through them. He curved around a banked C-shape turn that dropped him a couple hundred feet into the broad meadow below.

He arrived just in time to see Wesley, Pankey and Carlson burst from the trees into the open powder. Rudolph pointed his ski poles and playfully shouted invectives as their tracks crossed. Earlier that morning, Wesley and Carlson had skied the opposite side of Cowboy Mountain, in the ski area. It had been cleared of avalanches by the ski patrol at dawn, but the two still triggered several slough slides — small, shallow avalanches that washed at their feet and petered out before snagging victims.

Pankey and Carlson followed Wesley and looked back, too, wondering why Rudolph and the others were not following them toward relatively safer terrain. Within a minute, long enough to be well out of sight of the group they left behind, the three men found something that made them stop.

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Alarmed, the three decided to go farther left. They crossed through trees and avoided big meadows and steep pitches. They soon found evidence of another avalanche, this one cutting through the forest. Wesley had disappeared in the pale light. He left nothing but a track through the deep snow that the others tried to follow. Rudolph stopped on the left edge of the upper meadow, above a cluster of trees. Others filed behind him, spilling down the mountain in plumes of spraying snow.

Erin Dessert did not follow. She was once a Tunnel Creek regular, until a nonfatal avalanche captured five friends in and scared her away. I thought we were doing the front side. She headed hard to the right, away from the others. The other snowboarders that she knew, Carlson and Wesley, were gone in the opposite direction. Some in the remaining group noticed Dessert heading away in the distance and dismissed her as an oblivious backcountry rookie.

She dipped out of sight in a lonely panic. Rudolph and the others, now a group of 12, were focused downhill.

Rudolph did not wait for the back of the pack to arrive before continuing to demonstrate the way. It was right there. And she made these turns that were like: Those are pro turns. She dipped through trees at a pinch in the meadow and disappeared out of sight. You know, several-hundred-year-old trees. A very good indication that this is a safe place. From where Rudolph and Saugstad stopped, they could not see the subsequent skiers approach.

Castillo went past and cut left. His camera recorded Rudolph and Saugstad whooping their approval as he stopped in a shower of powder, about 40 feet below them. His helmet camera showed that 14 seconds after Castillo stopped, Brenan appeared through the trees above Rudolph and Saugstad.