Word: snowing
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...have the right to demand that snow and rain never touch our heads or feet. But we do have the right to ask for secure transportation conditions at more than $20,000 tuition per year...
...seasoned skier, nothing could be more alluring than a descent into a high-country valley carpeted with fresh-fallen snow. And nothing could be more treacherous. The same pristine slopes that offer powder hounds the thrill of carving first tracks can conceal thrills of a more perilous kind: avalanches, known to mountaineers as the "white death." Avalanches have already claimed 19 lives in the U.S. this winter. And last week five Coloradans, who lost their way in a subzero Aspen blizzard, were almost added to that number, raising awareness of the hazard...
...this has been a season of slides. So far, this winter is shaping up as a record breaker. There have already been 2,260 avalanches, some of them powerful enough to topple full-grown trees. The reason for the surge is simple: big storms have dumped record amounts of snow throughout the Mountain West. Too much snow falling in too short a period sets up the slopes for a slide. The most recent avalanches, for instance, occurred in the wake of a storm that dumped as much as 8 ft. of the white stuff...
Avalanche danger is highest just after a storm because the snow crystals have not had time to forge bonds to one another and to crystals in the existing snowpack. Typically, bonding occurs over a few days' time. Under certain conditions, however, the crystals never bond, but remain loose like a pile of poker chips. This dangerous situation commonly occurs in Colorado, where temperatures are very cold (snow crystals bond most readily close to their melting point). The shape of the crystals is important too. A layer of graupel -- soft hailstones that behave like miniature ball bearings -- substantially increases the avalanche...
...caught in several small slides. "Sometimes the avalanche releases quietly, like rustling silk." Traveling at speeds that can exceed 80 m.p.h., the rushing snowpack compresses the air at its prow, generating a wind blast strong enough to smash windows and hurl skiers into trees. Once the avalanche stops, the snow mass solidifies, entombing its victims in an icy grip...