1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche

In this episode of 'History's A Disaster,' hosted by Andrew, we delve into the tragic events of the 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche in California. Leading up to March 31st, unprecedented snowfall and high winds triggered a massive avalanche at Alpine Meadows Ski Resort, destroying buildings and rendering eight people missing. Despite rigorous avalanche control measures led by experts like Jim Plehn and Norm Wilson, the resort was overwhelmed by nature's fury. Rescue efforts were intense and perilous, involving explosives, artillery, and probing for survivors. Ultimately, seven people perished, but one miraculous rescue was achieved when Anna Conrad was found alive after being trapped for five days. The episode recounts the harrowing details, the subsequent lawsuit, and the impact on the Alpine Meadows' avalanche control program. It serves as a sobering reminder of the unpredictable power of nature.

00:00 The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche: An Introduction
00:43 The History and Culture of Alpine Meadows Resort
01:25 Avalanche Control Measures at Alpine Meadows
06:46 The Storm of March 1982
09:57 The Avalanche Strikes
12:05 Rescue Operations and Challenges
19:34 The Aftermath and Legal Battles
20:37 Anna Conrad's Recovery and Legacy
21:22 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Transcript

 In the weeks leading up to March 31st, unprecedented snowfall would lead to over seven feet of snow falling in Alpine Meadows, California. The snowfall and 100 mile per hour wind would lead to an avalanche at Alpine Meadows Ski Resort. That would destroy several buildings. During the avalanche, eight people would go missing.

So what happened? I'm Andrew, and this is History's AA Disaster.

Tonight we are diving into the 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche. The Alpine Meadows Resort opened in 1961 to compete against the nearby Squaw Valley resort. The original owners wanted the resort to be more focused on fun and the enjoyment of skiing versus focusing on turning a profit. It brought a whole different culture to the mountains.

Born mostly out of the hippie culture. Of the sixties and seventies with over 2,400 acres of suitable terrain and a vertical drop of 1800 feet. It is not the biggest ski mountain, but it offers plenty of great skiing opportunities. It also had a shit ton of avalanche slide paths to this. The ski patrol used explosives for aval control every morning.

Jim Plane was Alpine Meadow's Avalanche Forecaster in the early eighties. He was exceptionally skilled at his job. The Avalanche Control program was still relatively new and ran by Norm Wilson, who was one of the few experts at the time of Avalanche Control. He had learned from Monty Atwater, who is considered to be the godfather of avalanche control in the United States, and all of this would be needed at Alpine Meadows.

The area was recognized as one of the most hazardous avalanche areas in the country and was rated as a Class A, which is the highest classification there is for the potential of avalanches. The biggest creator of avalanches is wind-driven snow. And no yelling won't cause an avalanche. That's a stupid myth that Hollywood likes to keep using as a dumbass cliche or movie trope.

The shape of Alpine Meadows is what contributes to it, having such a high classification. The ridge top is perpendicular to the westerly winds and storms and acts as a fence or barrier. So when the wind comes roaring outta the west, it picks up a ton of snow and drops it just on the other side of the ridge.

On the slopes. Add to this, the steepness of those slopes that are getting the snow dumped on it and wildly fluctuating temperatures. You get different layers of snow, some hard, some soft. And with this alternating layer density every now and then, it breaks, which causes the entire layer to break loose in a giant slab of snow.

And of course. They put this ski resort in this nice little valley where the potential for a catastrophic avalanche could occur from any side. No area of the resort was safe.

While this made it an extremely dangerous area, they believed they could keep ahead of it with a rigorous control program that started the day, the resort opened and was continuously refined. The ski patrol would start very early in the morning heading up to the top of the mountains with hundreds of explosive hand charges made from a gelatin dynamite.

They use as many as 500 of these charges a day, tossing them onto the known. Starting points of avalanche paths to try to start an avalanche at a time of their choosing when it's the safest. There is over 300 of these known starting points, so they had their work cut out for them. Another method they developed for controlling them, and remember this was before OSHA was really a big thing, was ski cutting.

They would ski across the top of these starting points, cutting into the. Snow with their skis, the force, an avalanche, and then of course they had to race off to get out of the path of the snow. Sounds exciting and dangerous and no thank you. I would not be caught in doing this job and the other way, which sounds the most fun.

Is with the use of artillery, they would use military surplus artillery and high explosive shells to shoot the mountain from a safe distance. Monte Atwater got this from being a former member of the Army's 10th Mountain Division and seeing the use of avalanches as a weapon of war. The use of artillery became an essential part of Alpine Meadows control plan.

It allowed far more control than hand charges. It allowed them to hit areas that would be inaccessible to the ski patrol and they were good at avalanche control, a tad overconfident, but good

most visitors to the resort. While they obviously knew what was going on with the explosives going off every morning, they were blissfully unaware of just how dangerous. The potential for avalanches was when Bernie Kingery, Alpine Meadow's mountain manager, and a renowned avalanche control expert, brought in Jim Ply as an avalanche forecaster.

Their program would get even better. Jim developed a way to track the over 300 starting points. He developed a snowpack observation program. And this was all done by hand and a time before computers. It was a lot of hard work, and Jim did it nearly single-handed. His work was so advanced and cutting edge.

It's still the core of the program today. I. Things progressed rather smoothly for Jim and the ski patrol.

Then March of 1982 hit, they got hit with massive amounts of snow. Within seven days, they would get over 11 feet of new snowfall. The ski patrol was hard pressed to try to keep ahead of the storm, attempting to purge the mountain snow. Before it could be built up to a massive avalanche. The geography of the mountains had changed to be barely recognizable with huge piles and drifts built up with just deep snow.

The members of the ski patrol working Avalanche control the morning of March 30th had to call it off. Areas of the mountains were just not safely accessible. Three members of the patrol would end up staying overnight. In a building on top of the summit so they could start again early in the morning.

They were in for a long, violent night. As the wind blasted the check, the snowstorm had gotten worse. They woke up to the wind roaring over the mountaintops at speeds in excess of 120 miles per hour. The snow was blowing sideways as the wind howled amid the trees, the surrounding community would be paralyzed by the snowfall.

The morning of March 31st at the Summit Terminal Building at Alpine Meadows. The ski patrol was getting ready to work avalanche control when Bernie made the call to the resorts and general manager advising him not to open the ski area, he told the managers at the condo complex to stay there and not let anyone come to the ski area.

It was just too dangerous. With the decision made not to open ski lift, operators were told to stay home. A few ignored this and came up anyways.

Beth Morrow was an operator who loved the mountains and wanted to be more involved with the ski patrol, so she came to the resort to act as support for Bernie and help out any way she could. Anna Conrad, another ski lift operator. And her boyfriend, Frank Yeaman, would show up a few hours later. They would be sent up to the lodge and told to stay there until they were done with avalanche control.

The snow rangers came up to fire the artillery. They shot off twice the numbers of rounds than normal. They felt confident that they took care of what they needed to. However, visibility was extremely limited. And there was no way to be absolutely sure they were overconfident and did not feel the need to seal off the parking lot to stop people from accessing the ski area and conditions at the summit were getting worse, and the members of the ski patrol had to abandon control efforts for safety reasons and stay in the shack.

While a crew of ski patrol was heading up to do avalanche control over the alpine Meadows access Road, Jake Smith was sent up to the north side of the road to act as a guard to make sure no one drove through when there would potentially be an avalanche coming through. The snow was crackling and shifting as they drove up the road.

When they reached the lift at Squaw Valley, they heard the frantic and staticky radio calls.

One of the first calls to come over the radio was from Jake Smith. He yelled out Avalanche as he hit the throttle on a snowmobile, desperately trying to outrun the rushing snow. Bernie quickly got on the radio and asked for more information, but there was no response. The terminal building rattled as steel eye beams shook violently.

A terrifying sound screamed on the wind. The oncoming snow swept down the mountain sides. Trees were knocked aside and ripped from the ground as it kept coming downward, it would not be slowed in the slightest. An air blast pushed ahead by the snow smashed into the summit terminal building before the avalanche smashed into it.

The building was crushed. Several people disappeared. When the avalanche swept through the building, the few who survived made it out thanks to the huge counterweight of the lift blocking the air blast in the snow. The snow continued onward to the parking lot. Mike Vez, the heavy equipment manager, was in the parking lot when he spotted three people walking through the lot.

David Hanh, bud Nelson, and his daughter Laura, when he heard the sound of snapping twigs. Within seconds, Mike was forced to watch helplessly as the avalanche swept the trio away.

Within minutes of the avalanche ending, the ski patrol and concerned citizens were on the scene of devastation. The remnants of the terminal building were scattered for hundreds of feet across the area. Snowcat were tossed aside like child's toys. They quickly got organized and went immediately into rescue operations using shovels and chainsaws.

To clear away debris they needed to get to survivors quickly, and an avalanche. After 30 minutes of being buried, chances of survival dropped dramatically. Time was of the essence. People were given quick lessons on the use of probe poles to search the dress for bodies. Rescue attempts would be hampered by the lack of available equipment.

Their main cache of avalanche rescue equipment was in a building that had been destroyed and buried beneath the snow. The nearest available equipment was in the lift shack at the top of the mountains, so not very accessible. Conditions were still very bad, and no one wanted to risk the lives of three more people to get the equipment brought down.

Within an hour of the Avalanche Rescue dogs were on scene to help out, but they would not have an easy time searching the wreckage. The avalanche destroyed the locker rooms and the summit building, spreading its contents over hundreds of feet, making the entire scene a confusion of scents for the dogs to hone in on.

They had many false alerts

prior to this. Alas. There had not been a single successful rescue of a living survivor by rescue dogs. They found Jake's mangled and smashed snowmobile first after what felt like forever. They located and dug up his body. It was a massive blow to the rescuers' morale. Hope was the ling. Now that they knew death was a definite possibility, they had to push down despair and keep going.

Later that night, the bodies of Bud Nelson and David Han would be found in the parking lot. There was still five people missing as the night dragged on. Everyone was cold, wet, and miserable. No one had eaten since the search began, the three bodies were loaded onto a snowcat to be taken to the morgue before they called it quits for the night.

It was too dark and there was too great a risk of further avalanches to continue.

The next day, they were able to get the use of a helicopter from Reno to go up and drop bombs in the area to try to stabilize and lessen the risk of further damage. There was some confusion when a news chopper landed. They kicked the cameraman out and commandeered the news chopper to make their run from the air.

They got their first view of how bad the avalanche was. Four separate slide paths had combined into one. None of their control work had been successful. And there was still several dangerous areas. They cleared away tons of snow as they hit all the slopes and used every charge they had. These efforts would take until mid-morning before it was deemed safe enough to resume rescue operations.

Heavy equipment was brought in to start clearing snow. It was assumed there was no survivors at this point. Laura Nelson's body was the first to be recovered near the parking lot. Beth Morrow would be found closer to the Summit Terminal building. Shortly afterwards, Frank Yeaman's Freshed and Buried Body would be found later that day.

There was still two missing as they headed into the second day of searching. Avalanche control operations that morning saw very little success, but they continued on with the search. The search dogs kept the wording to all the scents around them until rescue dog Bridget suddenly took off into a small hole near the Summit Terminal Building.

She came out bouncing and excited, barking repeatedly at her handler. Roberta Huber. Bridget alerted adamantly that she had found a survivor

at this point in the day. A snowstorm had been ramping up, making the rescue operations very dangerous, and they were debating on calling it off for the day outta concerns for the safety of the rescuers. When Roberta alerted everyone that she strongly believed they had found a survivor, a crew quickly started to work on digging out the hallway the dog had alerted on.

They were going to have to dig out over 15 feet of snow and debris. It would take hours to complete, and the storm was only getting worse. They were hopeful they had found a survivor, but with conditions getting worse, they had to make a heartbreaking decision, continued to dig and put the rescuers at greater risk.

All on the word of a dog, or protect the rescuers and pull out for the day. Rescue operations would be suspended for the day they hoped to get back in the morning. Over the next two days, a blizzard ravaged the area and no one could get back to the resort. On Monday, five days since the avalanche, the call went out, that operations would be resuming.

The expectation of finding a survivor were down to zero. The weather had cleared up enough that a helicopter was sent out to get the three ski patrol members off the top of the mountain. When they got back to the site, they quickly got to work, digging out the building, trying to work their way down to the level the dog had alerted.

As they got down to the level, a piece of plywood was moved and the hand came reaching out miraculously. After five days trapped beneath the rubble without food or water, Anna Conrad was alive. She had laid, trapped in a pitch black pocket of air with barely any room to move. She was extremely sick and frostbitten, but alive.

After being dug out, she would be taken by an air ambulance to a nearby hospital. The entire crew was ecstatic to find a survivor. It was hope. Where there had previously been none. Unfortunately, Anna would be the only survivor. Bernie King Ray's body was found Hours later, bringing rescue operations to an end with seven dead and one survivor.

A lawsuit would eventually follow filed by the families of David Hahn and Bud and Laura Nelson. The lawsuit alleged that Alpine Meadows had avalanche danger that it wasn't telling anyone, so they were negligent. Jim P Pine having to stand in for Bernie, spent 11 days on the witness stand being bombarded and harassed by lawyers.

It was a grueling testimony where the lawyers pointed all the blame at Jim, but all Pine Meadows would win the lawsuit. The ruling was the unprecedented storm that led to the avalanche was an act of God and all. Pine Meadows did everything they could to mitigate the danger. The following winter, Jim had had enough and left Alpine Meadows, but his legacy still lives on at the core of their avalanche control program.

Ana hit a hard road to recovery. Fighting off infections and her body trying to shut down. The doctors would end up amputating part of her right leg in May, but she was determined not to be handicapped in June during her college graduation from uc, Davis, she was bound and determined to walk across the stage.

With the help of crutches and a prosthetic leg, she walked across the stage to a standing ovation to get her diploma. In December, she would return to ski at Alpine Meadows. I. And that was the 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche. A deadly reminder that despite all of our hubris and our belief that we are in control, mother Nature can always come along and fuck us over at any time.

Thanks for listening. And if you like the show, please consider leaving a rating or review on your Apple Choice, and you can reach the show at Histories a disaster@gmail.com or through Facebook and Instagram at Histories a disaster. And don't forget to share the episode 'cause sharing is caring. And if there is more caring in the world, maybe history wouldn't be a disaster.

Thanks and goodbye. I.