The winter storms in California this week added to the death toll due to avalanches as three back-country skiers were killed in three separate slides near Wrightwood Friday.
The area, the San Gabriel Mountains, rarely experiences avalanches. However, it also rarely receives three to four feet of snow in such a short period of time.
Avalanches are “a freak occurrence” in the local mountains, said Pete Olson, president of Mt. Baldy Ski Resorts.
“We depend on snow-making, and snow-making doesn’t lead to avalanches,” Olson said. “It usually doesn’t snow enough to make anything happen up here.”
The tragedies didn’t stop skiers and snowboarders from swarming to the Mountain High resort. About 6,000 people jammed the slopes Saturday.
In the bookstore: Avalanche (books)
On the web: Avalanche.org
January 28th, 2008 at 7:41 pm
I can’t help thinking this may be yet another result of global warming. They say that freak weather is on the rise because of climate change, and there seem to have been so many freak events like this over the last few years.
Or maybe it’s just chance - I’m not sure who to believe.
Another problem is that now snow coverage is generally decreasing because of climate change, people use artificial snow machines, which use huge amounts of energy up, thus making even more natural snow melt.
I wish people would start respecting our planet a bit more.
December 23rd, 2008 at 8:01 am
Just Another Slide, They Have Been Going On Since The Begining Of Time. Global Warming Means Hot Last Time I Heard. We Are Freezing Here In Hesperia This December 2008. Got A Foot And A Half Of Snow Last Week With More On The Way.