Death in the Sierra

In four days, the heaviest blizzard to hit the High Sierra in 30 years deposited 12 ft. of snow. Near Lake Tahoe, vacationers and mountain residents were stranded when major highways were closed, many blocked by snow slides. Several homes had been crushed by sliding snow masses; one California highway patrolman was buried briefly in his squad car near Truckee, Calif. Throughout the surrounding mountains, avalanche patrols used explosives and 75-mm howitzers to blast away dangerous snow formations, trying to keep pace with the blizzard and avert a catastrophe.

At Squaw Valley, seven miles west of Lake Tahoe, an avalanche crew was trying last Wednesday to dislodge a huge overhang of snow on a ridge overlooking the Alpine Meadows ski resort. The resort, like many others in the Sierras, was officially closed; only about a dozen of its 250 employees were on hand, along with a few valley residents purchasing emergency food supplies at the lodge. Suddenly, in midafternoon, the ridge mass gave way. Propelling 100-m.p.h. winds before it, a wall of snow half a mile wide and 20 ft. high slammed down into the valley snapping off 100-ft ponderosa pines, shattering a utility building and virtually burying the three-story lodge. Then, silence and a deep gash in the mountainside. By nightfall, nearly 100 rescue workers, assisted by dogs, were searching for survivors. Said one rescuer: "It looked like a couple of freight trains had run through that building." Six victims, some buried as deep as 25 ft., were found. Two others were pulled alive from their entombment. At week's end two people were still missing, and more than a foot of new snow had covered the valley.

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