1910 Wellington Avalanche

The wreckage at Wellington (McKay 2011)

For the past several years, some friends and I have been making an annual snowshoeing

trip during spring break. Last year, we waited until the last minute to reserve our beds at a cabin,

which meant our choices were limited, especially for a weekend during spring break. It came

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down to either the Peter Estin Hut, known for its bountiful opportunities of backcountry skiing,

or any of the huts in the Alfred A. Braun Memorial Hut System, which came with the warning

that the trails were not only unmaintained, but were also known to cross avalanche terrain. Not

knowing much at all about avalanche safety, the Braun huts were out. This meant that even

though we are not backcountry skiers, we really only had one choice: the Peter Estin Hut.

The couple of weeks before our trip seemed a little warm with no snowfall, and we were

a little disappointed because the previous year was about the same, and we ended up having to

strap our snowshoes to our packs and hike up the trail for the first half. The Peter Estin trail was

a little higher in elevation, however, so when we arrived at the trailhead there was plenty of snow

on the ground, and it was forecasted to snow all weekend.

When we arrived at the hut that evening, there was also a group of guys there for the

weekend that came up for the fantastic backcountry skiing. In front of the cabin, they dug out a

snow cave on the slope where they planned to ski, and they were pretty confident that the snow

was consistent throughout. There were no weak layers, which meant it should be safe to ski with

no concerns, except for the fact that it had snowed about 3 or 4 inches that day and there was no

sign of it letting up any time soon. The next morning they showed us their beacons and we

played a sort of hide and seek game, where we each received a beacon and searched the house

for each other. They said they always wear their beacons even when they are pretty sure there is

no avalanche danger, but since it would be snowing all day, they were worried that the new snow

could slide off the snow base. If it was deep enough, that could mean trouble. They had a couple

other items to double check the avalanche danger, including a small snow crystal card that

helped them determine the size and shape of the snow crystals. Other than the hours of

preparation, backcountry skiing sounded extremely fun and my friends and I contemplated

upgrading to skies in the future instead of our snowshoes. This meant we would need to really

understand and be aware of the dangers of avalanches, and as “avalanche fatalities have been on

the increase in the last 20 years due to the rising number of climbers, skiers, snowboarders, and

snowmobilers in the backcountry,” it is not just my friends and I that need to be educated

(UCAR 2010).

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Figure 1 Fatalities in the US have been on the rise (UCAR 2010)

The guys at the Peter Estin Hut were pretty sure that the snow had a stable consistency

throughout, but were worried about the new snow that was falling. This could produce the ideal

conditions for a type of avalanche called a loose snow or powder snow avalanche, which is

“loose snow that originates at a single point on a slope and gathers cohesion-less snow on the

surface of the pack as it descends” (UCAR 2010). At top speeds, a loose snow avalanche can be

quite dangerous, reaching a speed and strength capable of knocking someone down and burying

him. There is another, more destructive type of avalanche called a slab avalanche, which “occurs

when a cohesive layer of snow slides down a slope” (UCAR 2010). Most injuries and fatalities

occur with slab avalanches.

A slab is a denser layer of snow resting on top of a weaker layer. A weak layer forms

during long periods of no snow and very cold temperatures. A slab avalanche will most likely

occur when the weak layer of snow is resting on a sliding surface, which forms when the top

layer of snow melts or rain falls on the surface and the snow refreezes during the cold period

with no new snow. If it snows on top of the weak layer, the dense layers often develop when

heavy winds “fracture the new snowflakes in the air . . . and break them into smaller pieces and

deposit them on the leeward slope as a dense, cohesive layer of snow” (UCAR 2010). The dense

layer does not adhere to the weak layer, and when it becomes too heavy or something triggers

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movement at a weak point, the whole slab will slide off the weaker layer, usually on slopes

between thirty to fifty degrees. When the dense sliding layer is very wet, the avalanche can reach

“destructive speeds comparable to the force of a tidal wave” (Moynier 2006).

The University Corporation for Atmospheric Research lists several scenarios that make

an area at a higher risk for avalanches:

1. Dense snowfall of more than six inches on slopes around forty degrees

2. More than twelve inches of new snowfall on top of a weak snowpack

3. More than six inches of new snow and high winds from the same direction for more than

six hours

4. Rain on top of snow (the heavier the rain, the larger the avalanche)

5. Warm temperatures and high density snow following cold temperatures with low density

snow

6. Warming temperatures during the day increasing the settlement of snow

7. More than 24 hours of above freezing temperatures (this deepens the slab)

8. A cold, calm day followed by significant snowfall, which increases instability of the pack

(UCAR 2010)

Because none of the conditions above existed during our weekend at the Peter Estin Hut,

the backcountry skiing was relatively safe. Unfortunately, almost all of the above criteria were

met during the snowstorm in the Cascades near Wellington, WA in the winter of 1910. These

conditions caused the most deadly avalanche in American history.

The final report in the Monthly Weather Review records the official cause of the

Wellington avalanche as “Heavy snowfall, followed by rain,” with the character of country as

“burned over with numerous dead snags,” where “two Great Northern Railway trains were swept

from track, with crushing power due to weight rather than velocity.” Although this area of the

Cascades regularly sees avalanches throughout the winter, this report documents how the

weather in the year of 1910, between February 21st and March 3rd, caused possibly thousands of

avalanches, not only in the paths where they occur every year, but also in places where they had

never occurred before. This series of avalanches was detrimental; “if we include the losses due to

stoppage in traffic as well as the cost of repairs, the total will be nearly three-quarters of a

million dollars, besides the loss of over 100 lives.” The report goes on to explain that it was not

only the large amount of snow that fell, but also the way the snow fell that caused the

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avalanches. It started in January, with rather heavy snowfalls followed by a short period of

warmer temperatures above freezing that were present all the way up to the tops of the 7,000 ft

peaks. “Some slides occurred at this time but there was nothing unusual about them and they

attracted little attention.” After a couple days of this warm weather, it became much colder, and

the top layer of snow developed an ice crust on most of the high mountain slopes. This was

followed by another round of heavy snowfall early in February, “but on account of the prevailing

cold weather its consistency was light, being either fleecy or granular.” The wind blew the light

snow into deep drifts in the canyons, on the overhung crags, and on the ridges at the summits. A

low pressure area came in off the Wellington coast on February 23rd, which brought with it

“milder weather, high winds, and a heavy fall of snow in the mountains.” This caused another

round of numerous avalanches, but there were always snow slides in these places every year and

this was typical with this pattern of weather. This storm had barely moved through “when

another low pressure area made its appearance on the north Pacific coast, and it was quickly

followed by a third disturbance.” Each of these three storms followed the same track, and it took

them nearly a week total to move through. High winds and heavy rains accompanied the last two

storms, extending well up the slopes of the mountains. At the peaks of the mountains, the

precipitation was snow, but it was very moist and heavy. “As a result of these two storms, all the

recent falls of snow became soaked with moisture, while underneath was a layer of old snow

having less moisture, and beneath this was the first snow which had almost the consistency of

ice.” During the night of March 1st, these ideal conditions caused the slide that swept two trains,

three locomotives, four electric motors, the depot, a water tank, and over a hundred people off

the ledge and into the canyon 150 feet below (Beals 1910).

The events that led up to how these trains and people ended up in such a precarious

situation are documented through journals, memoirs, and historical records in the book The

White Cascade by Gary Krist. Krist explains that it all began with trying to keep the trains on

schedule during the beginning of this winter storm in February, 1910. The two trains involved,

the Seattle Express passenger train and the Fast Mail train were both very important, time

sensitive trains. The superintendent of the Great Northern Railway Cascade Division, James

O’Neill, kept very busy with the Fast Mail train, in particular, because they had an agreement

with the United States Post Office Department to move the mail from New York to the West

Coast in three days, with penalties for late arrivals. The Fast Mail had only started running the

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previous September, with the first couple months hitting its target schedule perfectly. However,

the past few months had seen bad weather, and “by January the mudslides had turned into

snowslides, coming down with such frequency that a wrecker train sent up into the mountains to

clear up a slide-damaged freight had itself been demolished by a slide” (Krist 2007). Now, by

the night of February 22nd, the Fast Mail had missed its deadline at least four times. Already

running late, passing over the Cascades in the current snowy conditions would probably put it

even further behind schedule.

The other train, the first-class passenger Seattle Express train, was about as time sensitive

as the Fast Mail, and was also headed toward O’Neill’s division in the Cascades. O’Neill had one

rotary railcar (see Figure 2) available in that area to clear the tracks. The Seattle Express was a

couple of hours ahead of the Fast Mail, so

O’Neill was faced with the decision of

whether to hold the Seattle Express with the

rotary and wait for the Fast Mail, or go

ahead and send the Seattle Express and the

rotary up to Stevens Pass and hope the Fast

Mail caught up soon enough that the tracks

were still clear. He did have one more

choice – reroute the trains to the tracks

further south out of the hazardous weather –

but this would mean setting both trains even

more behind schedule. O’Neill had dealt with winter storms for many years now, and “to reroute

the trains now, because of something as normal as a late winter snowstorm, would be to admit

defeat even before the battle was truly under way” (Krist 2007). When the Seattle Express

arrived at Leavenworth, the Great Northern division point where locomotives were readied for

the steep trek up to Stevens Pass, the winds had not yet picked up, so Superintendent O’Neill

decided to waste no time and instructed the Seattle Express passenger train and rotary X802 to

proceed up to the pass and hoped the Fast Mail could catch up quickly.

When the passengers of the Seattle Express awoke on the next morning, Wednesday,

February 23rd, they were surprised when they noticed their train was not moving. The Fast Mail

train had caught up, but both trains were stalled at the east portal of the two and a half mile

Figure 2 A rotary snow plow was used to clear the tracks (McKay 2011)

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Cascade Tunnel under the summit of Stevens Pass.

This was not a planned stop, and since there was no

dining car on the Seattle Express for this section of the

pass, the dining arrangements were made to feed the

passengers at the “beanery” cook shack where the

engine crews ate. At breakfast, the passengers

overheard the crewmen talking about the delay.

Apparently, west of the tunnel, one of the rotary

plows, “those magnificent specimens of twentieth-

century snow-removal technology, had gotten stuck in the very snowdrifts it was supposed to be

clearing” (Krist 2007).

The Seattle Express and the Fast Mail would have to wait until the rotary had cleared the

mainline before they could proceed through the tunnel. Unfortunately, as soon as the stranded

rotary cleared its way through the slide that it was first trapped in, it ran into another slide

another mile down the line near Windy Point, a particular stretch of track that “even the officials

of the Great Northern itself regarded ‘the weakest link in our transportation train’” (Krist 2007).

Until O’Neill could get this section of track cleared, he had trains delayed at all points

throughout the line, and the Fast Mail and the Seattle Express train could not go forward, nor

could they backtrack without running into other stalled locomotives. They would have to sit tight

where they were until the line was clear, but with the snow lasting over 24 hours so far, O’Neill

could reasonable expect this storm to pass sometime soon.

While the trains were stranded at the east side of the tunnel, the Seattle Express had to

pull forward into the tunnel to make room for the Fast Mail to pull up enough to reach the water

tank. It lasted only about thirty minutes, but it was a decidedly disagreeable experience for all

passengers and railroaders, with one engineer calling it “the dirtiest, blackest hole that a man

ever went into” (Krist 2007). Although the tunnel was a great improvement over the previous

route over the pass, which was a series of switchbacks up 3.5-4% grades, it had drawbacks of its

own. Besides being dark and dirty, the steam locomotives produced too much smoke, gas, and

heat causing serious ventilation problems. The passengers were getting restless, and incidents

like this only agitated them further.

Figure 3 The entrance to Cascade Tunnel (Sky Valley Chronicle 2010)

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Figure 5 Schematic Plan of Wellington (Krist 2007)

Finally, by late Wednesday night into Thursday morning, the rotary plows on the west

side of the tunnel had plowed between Windy Point and the small town of Scenic, just a couple

of miles further down the line, and then re-plowed back up again to the Cascade Tunnel. O’Neill

could finally get the word out to the Seattle Express and Fast Mail that they could continue west.

However, it had snowed so much on Wednesday that before they could get moving they had to

dig themselves out. It would not be until Thursday evening that the two trains would emerge

from the west side of the tunnel into the town of Wellington. Unfortunately for them, there was a

new slide near the snow shed (See Figure 4) at Windy Point, and the rotary plows were again

stuck in this section of the

pass. Because the rotary

plows had not cleared the

path, the trains were now

stalled on the west side of

the pass in the small town of

Wellington on the side of

Windy Mountain. The

residents of Wellington were mainly railroad workers and their families, and the structures other

than the shacks the residents lived in were mainly railroad maintenance buildings, a hotel where

the train passengers could eat, and a tavern. The trains were parked on the passing tracks cut out

of the mountainside (See Figure 5), “perched on a narrow shelf, with a steep ravine below and

acres of heavy wet snow

above” (Krist 2007). The

wind picked up that

night, sweeping snow

into deep drifts above the

trains onto the slope

above. This unpleasant

wind continued through

the next morning, so most

passengers were comfortable in their warm accommodations or just waking up when they heard

the news of the first fatalities.

Figure 4 Snow sheds were built as protection in areas prone to avalanches (Sky Valley Chronicle 2010)

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Very early in the morning of Friday, February 25th, 1910 just hours after the trains had

arrived on the west side of the tunnel, there had been a powerful avalanche at the Cascade

Tunnel Station on the east side. It smashed into the beanery there, killing the cook and his waiter

instantly. Until now, the passengers had only been concerned about the delays in arriving at their

destination, but hearing of the deaths at the very place they had eaten breakfast just the day

before, the passengers began wondering about their own safety as they examined their dangerous

situation. The wooded hill above their train was hardly dense enough to anchor the snowpack, as

“wildfires in the area had been allowed to rage unchecked for years, leaving the woodlands

around Wellington little more than a forest of charred stumps tangled in huckleberry brush and

cedar seedlings” (Krist 2007).

When the news of this avalanche reached O’Neill, he was not surprised. The temperature

had risen above 30 degrees on Thursday, and he knew heavy snow, wind, and rising

temperatures often led to sliding. However, he was certain that the Fast Mail and the Seattle

Express were safest where they were. The passengers inquired if they could move into the snow

shed down the path, but this would move them off the passing lanes and onto the mainline. If a

rotary plow need to come through, they would be blocking the way. Not only that, but there was

a reason a snow shed was built here; it was known avalanche terrain and Wellington was not.

They argued that the east side of the tunnel where the beanery was hit was not supposed to be

avalanche terrain either, and even though the passengers had encountered such a horrible

experience in the tunnel for only a short time period a few days before, they were thinking

maybe backtracking a short distance to park in the tunnel would be safer. However, they would

not be able to burn coal to keep the trains warm inside the tunnel because of ventilation issues, so

they were told that this was not an option, either.

On Saturday, February 26th, rotaries plowing both east and west of the tunnel were

breaking through drifts and slides, in an effort to somehow get these trains off the mountain, but

it was slow progress. The rotaries were running out of coal, and there was no clear route for

anyone to bring up more. Overnight, a third avalanche had come down near the recently cleared

area of track near the snow shed at Windy Point. In addition to all this, back at Wellington, the

Great Northern manual laborers were feeling underpaid and underappreciated as they continued

in vain to chip away at the snow on the tracks (See Figure 6). At 15 cents an hour, many had

decided the snow was too high and the work was too hard to even negotiate for more pay. They

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began to leave in groups of two or three, willing

to make the trek west to Scenic, just four miles

away by foot. This would be risky because snow

was sliding across the tracks along the path, and

the shortcut into town was a thousand foot steep

descent. As the passengers watched them leave,

some men considered doing the same thing, but

as the temperature continued to warm, the snow

was melting and the footsteps were filling with

cold water. No one on board the train had come

prepared with shoes for this kind of hike, and

very few wanted to cross the avalanche prone terrain. Some men didn’t want to leave their wives

and children, and there were several older and incapable men as well.

By the morning of Sunday, February 27th, the rotaries near Windy Point and the two

trains stranded at Wellington were down to only enough coal to keep the engines running and the

passengers warm. It had warmed up enough throughout the day that the snow was turning to rain,

and O’Neill, realizing that he had been defeated by this storm, was considering any other

possibilities he might have to get the stranded passengers and railroad workers off the mountain.

The tracks to the town of Scenic were a long, winding eight miles, which he was not certain all

the passengers could handle on foot. The four mile shortcut ending in a steep descent that the

manual laborers had slid down the day before seemed too steep to consider. O’Neill and two

other railroad workers, who had been working on the rotaries near Windy Point, decided to use

this shortcut to retreat down to Scenic to figure out what to do. Unfortunately, before they

arrived another avalanche was triggered, sweeping one of the workers away while O’Neill could

only watch in horror, realizing “whatever options he had left for getting those people off the

mountain, bringing them down on foot – at least until the rain stopped and the snowpack had

stabilized – was not going to be one of them” (Krist 2007).

Without knowing what was ahead of them, five passengers from the Seattle Express also

decided to try to walk to Scenic that day. As they continued forward along the tracks in the

heavy, wet snow, another avalanche was triggered behind them. If at any point they wanted to

turn around, they now had no choice. After several hard hours, they finally arrived in Scenic.

Figure 6 Great Northern laborers clearing the snow from the tracks (Mapes 2010)

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They found O’Neill had also made it, and a relief train had arrived from the coast that morning

with a crew preparing to bring supplies to the stranded passengers in Wellington. Everyone was

surprised to find that O’Neill’s workman that had been carried down the mountain by the

avalanche had also made it to Scenic. By latching onto a tree trunk as snow and debris were

carried down all around him, he had managed to survive with only some bruises and a dislocated

knee.

On Monday morning, February 28th, after hearing news that the path down was quite

treacherous, not many passengers or railroad crew in Wellington were too eager to make the

journey. The passengers that left the day before, “hiking in their street clothes through deep drifts

and sliding hundreds of feet down the mountainside on their rumps had made it safely out, but it

was a desperation move that the children aboard the train could not possibly attempt, and that

many other men and women aboard also thought better of” (Mapes 2010). The night had been

long and restless, with the rumbling of avalanches in the distance. “After six days of heavy

precipitation, the surrounding mountains had simply reached the limit of their capacity to hold

any more, and whole snowfields were now losing their grip on the slopes and plummeting into

the canyons below” (Krist 2007). The passengers didn’t want to hike through these conditions,

but at this point staying would be just as dangerous. Late the night before, the telegraph wires

had gone down, and to leave now meant heading out into unknown conditions in another round

of heavy snow. The relief train with extra supplies was much needed, and the rain on Sunday

evening had melted enough snow to make the path more visible, so another group of workers and

passengers set out into the relentless snow to get help. One man noted in his journal that the trek

was not nearly as bad as he thought it would be until they got to the steep descent, where once

they landed at the bottom, they had to run “as fast as we could down the road, to avoid the

boulders and gigantic snowballs that followed us” (Krist 2007).

Sometime that afternoon, the last of the working rotaries that had been unsuccessfully

working through the slides on the track the past few days ran out of water and the crew resorted

to shoveling snow into the tank to cool the motor. Eventually, the dirt and debris in the snow

clogged the tank and there were no more rotaries able to work on this stretch of track. O’Neill

was devastated. In his entire railroad career, he had never seen a storm as relentless as this one.

Although it snowed several more feet that day, a couple of men decided to head back up to the

trains from Scenic to help organize getting another group down on Monday. When they made it

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back to Wellington, they helped many more passengers prepare themselves for the promise of

escape the next morning.

These passengers would not escape. Late Monday night, into the early morning hours of

Tuesday, March 1st, the rumbling of more avalanches continued. The slopes all around them

were layers of unstable snow and ice, now topped with dense, wind-packed new snow. The

northwestern winds carried in a thunderstorm from the coast, which was an unheard of

phenomenon in the mountains in the winter. Perhaps it was lightning; some insist it was the clap

of thunder; but whatever it was, “at 1:42 A.M. something caused a break in the surface integrity

of the snowfield on the side of Windy Mountain, and a buried weak layer somewhere in the

snowpack possibly collapsed with an enormous whump, sending a horizontal fracture shooting

across the face of the slope about a thousand feet above the trains” (Krist 2007). The entire slab

began sliding down the mountainside, sweeping with it the heavy, wet snow, boulders, rocks,

and trees. The slab picked up the two trains and carried them, with all the passengers and

workmen inside, down into the ravine. “When the coaches reached the steep declivity they were

rolled nearly 1,000 feet and buried under 40 feet of snow" (Sky River Chronicle 2010).

There were more than a hundred people on the trains that night, but there were only

twenty three survivors. Ninety six men, women, and children did not make it out alive. It took

through July before they found all the bodies. Most were killed instantly by the force of the

crash, but many more froze to death

or were buried too deep to dig out,

and suffocated.

The next several years were

spent trying to decide if this tragedy

could have been prevented.

Ultimately, it was decided that

“avalanche science was barely in its

infancy in 1910, and as the

Washington State Supreme Court

noted, avalanche predictions at that

time were ‘clearly beyond the

knowledge of men’” (Krist 2007). A Figure 7 Blanket covered bodies (Sky Valley Chronicle 2010)

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snowstorm that lasted this long was unusual; it was within reason for O’Neill to assume the

storm would pass. These two trains were not the only trains stranded during this storm, and as

the conditions grew worse, the Great Northern Railway was doing everything they could to get

the trains back on schedule.

However, something would have to be done in the Cascades before another incident

occurred. It took the Great Northern Railway more than three weeks to repair the tracks at

Wellington, and there were many more areas of tracks, including Wellington, where more snow

sheds would be needed. Edward Beals quotes a local postmaster as saying, “It is very likely a

form of snow shed could be devised which would protect the track of a railroad from ordinary

slides, but it is hardly possible to provide for so many avalanches as were noted this year,

especially when such a large proportion of them came down in places where slides were never

before known to have occurred” (Beals 1910). He also notes that unless they plant new trees

from the top of the slope to the bottom, more avalanches may start occurring in these same areas,

and it probably will not take as much snow in the future to trigger a new slide. In the meantime,

Wellington changed its name to Tye, hoping that it was not forever associated with the avalanche

disaster. Finally in 1925, the Great Northern Railroad began construction on a new, longer

tunnel, which completely bypassed this disastrous section of tracks. Eventually, with no railway

coming through, Tye emptied out and became obsolete.

Knowing the incredible destruction an avalanche is capable of, I would like to think that

if I decide to go backcountry skiing, I will be as responsible and as knowledgeable as the guys

we met at the Peter Estin Hut. The morning we left the hut, a new group had arrived to enjoy the

skiing. They had no beacons and even though they realized that more than a foot of new snow

from the past weekend could lead to an avalanche, their only plan was to stick closer to the trees.

I am sure that plenty of people enjoy more extreme sports all the time without knowing exactly

what they are getting themselves into, and most of the time they get lucky, but the number of

avalanche fatalities will continue to rise as more and more inexperienced people venture out into

avalanche territory. There was a reason all the Alfred A. Braun huts still had availability that

weekend during spring break last year; at least most inexperienced people stay out of the known

recurring avalanche areas. However, we have to consider that even areas with no previous

history of avalanches are still a real danger when the conditions are right, especially with the

changing terrain of our mountains due to forest fires and beetle kill. “Despite the popular notion

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that avalanches ‘strike without warning,’ these deadly winter phenomena, which kill an average

of 25 people in the United States each year, rarely occur unaccompanied by telltale signs that the

risk for such disasters is high” (Potter 2009). We must take the proper precautions and use better

judgment, so there will never again be a situation where more than a hundred lives are put in the

dangerous path of an avalanche like they were during the storm of 1910 in Wellington.

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References Beals, E. A., 1910: Avalanches in the Cascades and Northern Rocky Mountains during winter of 1900–10. Monthly Weather Review, 38, (June 1910): 951–967. Available from http://dx.doi.org/10.1175/1520-0493(1910)38<951:AITCAN>2.0.CO;2 Krist, G., 2007: The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche. New York: Henry Holt and Co. Print. Mapes, L. V., 2010: 1910 Stevens Pass avalanche still deadliest in U.S. history. Local News. The Seattle Times. Available from http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2011211746_wellington28m.html McKay, J. J., 2011: The Wellington avalanche, 1910." Archy. Available from http://johnmckay.blogspot.com/2011/02/wellington-avalanche-1910.html Moynier, J., 2006: Avalanche Aware: The Essential Guide to Avalanche Safety. 2nd ed. Guilford, CT: Falcon. Print. Potter, S., 2009: March 1, 1910: The Wellington avalanche." Weatherwise 62, no. 2 (March 2009): 12. MasterFILE Premier, EBSCOhost Sky Valley Chronicle, 2010: The great Wellington train disaster in the Sky Valley 100 Years Ago. Available from http://www.skyvalleychronicle.com/SKY-VALLEY-101/THE-GREAT-WELLINGTON-TRAIN-DISASTER-IN-THE-SKY-VALLEY-br-100-Years-Ago-313790 University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR), 2010: Avalanche Weather Forecasting [Internet]. Available from http://www.meted.ucar.edu/afwa/avalanche/index.htm