Snow, Ice, Avalanches, and Glaciers - Mountain Geography: Physical and Human Dimensions - page 168

ice and the sheets on the surface disengage themselves from the ones below be-
fore they are melted entirely by the sun. (Cited in BADER et al. 1939: xi)
Early records from the Alps reveal considerable avalanche destruction. Avalanches
became a sizable problem between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries, when in-
creased population and widespread cutting of the mountain forests coincided with the
increasing snowfall and glacial advance associated with the Little Ice Age. Avalanches
causing the deaths of 50 to 100 people were commonplace in early records from the
Alps, but the greatest disaster awaited the twentieth century. During World War I, in
December 1916 on the Austrian-Italian Front, a series of huge snow slides annihilated
10,000 soldiers in a single day (Atwater 1954).
In North America, the first major problems with avalanches arose during the Gold
Rush, when prospectors swarmed into the mountains of the West and numerous mining
towns were established. Telluride and Aspen in the Colorado Rockies, Atlanta in the
Sawtooths, Mineral King in the Sierra, and Alta and Brighton in the Wasatch are but a
few of these. Many prospectors lost their lives, and whole mining towns were destroyed
by snow slides. One of the earliest reliable records is from Alta, Utah, where in 1874 the
mining camp was buried and 60 lives were lost. During the next 35 years, avalanches
killed 67 more people in the same area (U.S. Department of Agriculture 1968:4). As min-
ing decreased in importance, expansion of railroads and highways across the mountains
raised the avalanche danger at other sites (Fig. 4.17). In 1910, a huge snow slide at
Stevens Pass in the Washington Cascades swept away three snowbound trains, killing
108 people and resulting in several million dollars in property loss. In 1926, 40 lives
were lost when an avalanche buried the mining community of Bingham Canyon, Utah.
More recently, the popularity of winter sports, particularly skiing, snowboarding, and
snowmobiling, has attracted more people to mountains than ever before. There has
been an equally rapid development of recreational facilities in mountains, often in the
same areas as the old mining camps (e.g., Aspen, Colorado, or Alta, Utah). Today, a typ-
ical avalanche accident involves only one or a few people recreating in the backcountry
who trigger the avalanche that buries them. As more recreation and development comes
to the mountains, avalanche fatalities continue to rise. More than 2,800 avalanche fatal-
ities occurred in IKAR (International Commission on Mountain Rescue)-affiliated coun-
tries worldwide in the 18 years from 1985/86 to 2003/04 (CAIC 2006).