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NARRATOR: It was the ultimate skiing experience

and nearly the last run of this man's life.

An avalanche can wipe out anyone and anything in its path...

...and trap its victims in a tomb of ice and snow.

By the time we got there, it was already too late.

Its force is irresistible and deadly.

♪ Theme music

Mountain ranges are beautiful.

But for those who live and play on these slopes,

there's a constant danger.

Around the world, there are more than a million avalanches a year.

95% of their victims accidentally trigger the avalanche themselves.

This snowboarder beat the odds and survived.

But another alpine joyrider wouldn't be so lucky.

Woo!

In January 2005,

Sam Kavanagh and his four friends

were celebrating the new year in Montana.

All were highly experienced skiers.

They thought they knew how to have fun and avoid avalanches.

Woohoo!

We were definitely powder-hungry.

We wanted to taste it, feel it and more importantly,

just to go and play in it.

It was an opportunity for us all to get together

and act like 12-year-olds again.

The friends recorded the fun to show their families at home.

Woo! Whoa!

They set up camp 40km from the nearest civilisation

and had no way to communicate with the outside world.

One of the group was Sam's best friend, Blake.

(MAN LAUGHS) Woo!

It was on the last day on the last ski run of the trip

that the fun stopped.

I heard the words 'avalanche' and it just chilled my spine.

Sam's first reaction was to grab the nearest tree.

The thinking was that the avalanche would hit me

and that the snow would rush past me,

the worst case scenario, I'd be partially buried,

but I'd be against this tree.

But Sam hadn't reckoned with the incredible power of the avalanche.

I could feel it vibrate under my skis.

It looked like something reaching out to grab me.

And the energy of it, you know, it was alive.

I mean, it wasn't just on the ground, it was in the trees,

it was in the air, as if you're in the most horrendous blizzard

you've ever been in.

And then suddenly this force out of a cloud of darkness hit me.

It shattered Sam's leg and threw him down the mountain.

Blake had disappeared.

His friends began a desperate search for him.

As they started to kick around the avalanche debris,

they saw a corner of his backpack.

And they rolled him out

and I remember sitting up on the slope 50 yards away

and my thought of just, 'Yes!'

You know, I could see it all happening

and I could see Blake roll out

and I was waiting for my best friend to stand up.

And, um... 40 minutes went by and he never did.

Um...

Blake was dead and Sam badly injured.

It took two full days to get him to the nearest hospital.

Sam was lucky to survive,

but he lost his friend and his leg.

It changed my life.

It changed the life of not just myself,

it changed the life of families, it changed the life

of the four other guys that had to wrestle with it.

And it was... it went from best turns of the year

to the most devastating moment that we'll all experience.

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Avalanches happen without warning.

Research shows that most are triggered on slopes

with a 35- to 45-degree angle.

Even then, some slopes are more likely to slide than others.

When snow falls, it lies like a blanket

and each new snowfall adds a new layer.

These layers don't always bind together

and that creates the perfect conditions for an avalanche.

The problem is it's impossible to tell just by looking at a slope

if you're in danger or not.

The warning signs are hidden deep in the snow.

Ron Johnson is an avalanche forecaster in Montana.

He looks for the crucial indicators in the different layers of snow.

Basically, I'm looking for two layers.

A slab, a cohesive mass of snow

and a weak layer underneath that slab,

cos that's the components for a slab avalanche.

Changing temperatures, wind and sunlight

can all create weak layers in the snow.

This surface, because it's a warm, sunny day, is already wet.

So tonight, if it clears off and gets cold,

this'll be an ice crust tomorrow.

That's the reason these layers are formed.

Same process - wet during the day, cold at night.

These layers can and do slide on top of each other.

Here the weak, underlying layer has fractured

and the top layer has broken away,

sending thousands of tons of snow roaring down the mountain.

An avalanche of this size can wipe out everything in its path.

The worst avalanche disaster in US history

was in 1910 in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State.

On the 23rd of February,

during one of the harshest winters on record,

a passenger train was making its way through Stevens Pass.

(TRAIN WHISTLE BLOWS)

The train steamed through the Cascade Tunnel,

but on the other side, heavy snow forced it to stop

at the small town of Wellington...

...the Great Northern Railway Station high in the mountains.

(BELL RINGS)

A second train carrying mail was also trapped by the snow.

The town was too small to accommodate the stranded passengers and crew,

so they were all forced to sleep on the train.

Four days later, the crowded trains were still stranded

when the weather changed from snow to violent thunderstorms.

(THUNDER CRASHES)

Warm wind and rain began to destabilise the snow on the mountain

high above the trains.

On the sixth night, disaster struck.

A 4.5m high wall of snow swept down the mountain.

The sleeping passengers and crew in the trains never stood a chance.

(PERSON SCREAMS)

(MORE PEOPLE SCREAM)

96 people were killed, including eight children.

There were only 23 survivors.

The search for bodies was quickly called off

because of the deep snow.

The last few were not recovered until five months later.

This is the site of Wellington today.

In 1910, the town was renamed Tye

because of the unpleasant associations of the old name,

but it was soon abandoned and eventually burned down.

After the avalanche disaster,

the Great Northern Railroad began construction

of concrete snow sheds to protect the trains.

Today, 100 years later,

we understand much more clearly

how an avalanche of snow can be so destructive.

European scientists

at the Swiss Institute For Snow And Avalanche Research

have been calculating the enormous internal forces of an avalanche.

There have only been a few research groups

which have been able to look inside an avalanche

and see what the internal velocities are and what the pressures are.

Perry Bartelt and his colleagues

set up monitoring instruments on a slope

to measure the amount of snow an avalanche collects

as it moves downhill.

Avalanches need food to grow

and that food they find on the slope in existing snow cover.

So as they move downwards, they continually eat that snow

and they gain, then energy and then velocity.

The scientists calculate that when a human is hit by an avalanche,

the force is the same as being struck by 100 compact cars.

To carry out their research,

the team triggers avalanches in the safety of a reinforced bunker

on the far side of the valley.

In 1999, they inadvertently set off their biggest avalanche ever.

At first, the scientists were excited.

But then excitement turned to alarm.

The avalanche didn't stop.

It kept on coming towards the bunker.

Inside, the scientists could feel the air being pushed ahead of the snow.

The approaching shock wave threatened to burst their eardrums.

The bunker was buried under 4.5m of snow.

But the reinforced building protected everyone inside.

They did still have to dig themselves out.

Tempting fate is a risky business,

as this TV reporter in New Zealand is about to find out.

Vicious weather, extremely hard rock - I'll start again.

Vicious weather, extremely hard rock

and avalanches all contributed to making the tunnel

through these mountains New Zealand's longest road tunnel,

not in length, but in terms of time taken to build it.

Vicious weather, extremely hard rock and avalanches all contributed

to making the tunnel through these mountains

New Zealand's longest road tunnel,

not in length, but in times of term...

Vicious weather, extremely hard rock and avalanches

all contributed to making the tunnel through these mountains

New Zealand's longest road tunnel, not in terms of length,

but in terms of time taken to build it.

These men were lucky.

Getting swept away in an avalanche is an easy way to die.

Here in the Canadian Rockies,

Hale and the Kicking Horse Mountain Safety Team

are preparing a graphic demonstration

of what happens to the human body when it's hit by a big one.

The purpose of the exercise is to simulate

a real-life avalanche rescue scenario.

To do this, they use two lifelike dummies,

which are accurate replicas of the human body.

Each dummy weighs the same as an average man.

To add realism, they're given snowboards.

Good to go.

Using high explosives, the team triggers an avalanche.

The dummies are right in the way of hundreds of tons of snow

travelling at over 160km/h.

As soon as it stops,

the snow sets like concrete around anyone who's been buried.

That's why it's often impossible for victims to dig themselves out,

so survivors of an avalanche have to move fast to reach their friends.

It takes only minutes for them to suffocate.

If you cannot conduct a self-rescue within your group,

the chances of survival are really slim.

Today, the Kicking Horse team practises procedures

for one survivor and one fatality.

At this point, we've located two subjects.

One is breathing and conscious, the second, no resps.

EMS has been activated and the helicopter is on its way.

It's clear that if these rescue dummies had been humans,

the odds of either of them surviving would have been almost zero.

It's taken our team about five minutes

to excavate the bodies.

And as you can see behind us,

they're quite contorted and banged up.

If this had been a real situation,

we would be lucky to find either of these individuals alive.

Skiers and snowboarders aren't the only ones who get into trouble.

When snowmobilers climb mountains, they risk their lives.

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The majority of avalanche victims are snowmobilers.

They like to see who can ride

their machines the highest up a steep slope.

It's called high-marking.

The weight of a 300kg snowmobile and its rider

powering across the snow can easily set off an avalanche.

Snowmobiler Kemp O'Neill was high-marking with friends

when an avalanche hit him.

There were signs that day that we chose not to pay attention to

and it was snowing hard when we went,

which is not a good sign.

Kemp ignored the signs and that nearly cost him his life.

The mountain above me broke loose.

I heard it snap, I glanced over my shoulder

and my first thought was, 'You're screwed.'

When it hit me, it was like having a bus parked on top of you.

I slid about 600 yards down the mountain

and I never saw anything but snow all the way down.

When the avalanche finally stopped, Kemp was completely buried.

I never knew anything so white could be so black.

It's pitch-black dark when you're 3ft under.

(PANTS)

There's no light.

No oxygen, no light.

It is just, it's quiet.

With the snow packed in around him, he began to suffocate slowly.

So I had the snow right, flat on my face

and the first few breaths, you're breathing snow in

and then what happens is the snow will actually create an ice shield

from the heat of your breath,

which chokes the oxygen off from you.

Using a snow probe,

Kemp's friends frantically searched for him.

They actually found my face first, which is the luck of the draw.

If they'd found his feet first,

he would have been dead before they got to his face.

It was 15 minutes before they got me dug out

and I was conscious probably 12, 13 minutes of that.

I was unconscious when they found me.

And my lips were blue, my face was blue.

I think I was probably just five minutes from being dead

when they found me.

Looking back, there were several dumb things we did

that we should have went and played someplace else.

If Kemp had checked the avalanche forecast for that day,

he might well have gone somewhere else.

Avalanche warnings can save lives.

The Gallatin National Forest Avalanche Center

is issuing a Backcountry avalanche warning.

Today, the avalanche danger is high on all slopes.

Today is not the day to mess about in the Backcountry.

Natural and human-triggered avalanches are likely.

Avalanche forecasters combine weather information

about the present and past to make accurate predictions.

The key lies buried in the snow

and Ron Johnson knows just how to find it.

I'm putting my shovel on the top

and I'm just going to be incrementally increasing the force

on this column.

I'm just going to start out with taps from my wrist.

We have just a little bit of a break.

With that break, you want to take a look at these crystals.

And it's right here that that break occurred.

And this depth is only about 5cm,

so it's not much of a - it doesn't pose a hazard today,

but perhaps it poses a hazard if a predicted storm comes in

and there's enough snow added to this layer

that perhaps tomorrow this is a significant weak layer.

With each new snowstorm,

the weak layer gets deeper and deeper.

This is an avalanche waiting to happen.

Forecasting is one way to protect people,

but perhaps the best way is to make sure

the snow never builds up in the first place.

It's early morning at Bridger Bowl, Montana.

The ski patrol is working high on the peaks

before the holiday skiers arrive.

Their job is to trigger minor snowslides

so that skiers doesn't.

But this is still a dangerous thing to do.

The patrol carries explosives in their backpacks

and targets any dangerous ledges of snow

which have built up overnight.

A simple fuse gives the crew time to set the charge

and get out of the way.

More than 100,000 rounds of explosives

are used in avalanche protection across America every year.

It's not just skiers who need to be protected.

Avalanches can block highways,

threaten vehicles and even sweep them off the road.

For those hard-to-get-at places,

the Bridger Bowl Snow Patrol has another weapon in its arsenal.

The Patrol Team has borrowed a 75mm recoilless rifle from the army.

They're going to use this anti-tank gun

to blast the snow off the mountain.

Rather than target the snow, they aim for exposed rock.

Vibrations from the impact are enough to trigger an avalanche.

(WHISTLE BLOWS)

Trains that travel through snowy mountains

are particularly vulnerable.

Where avalanches are common,

sheds deflect the snow over the top of the rails.

But it's just not possible to protect every bit of track with sheds.

In British Columbia, Jim Bay has a contract

with the Canadian Pacific Railway to keep avalanches off the tracks.

With his local knowledge and 35 years of experience in the mountains,

Jim knows exactly which slopes are a threat.

He also knows the best way to clear the snow.

Avalanche control is still based largely on explosives

and, in our case, explosives thrown from a helicopter.

Lighting dynamite fuses in a helicopter

is dangerous work.

They get into position right over the avalanche starting zone.

Leaving a long enough fuse is vital.

Jim looks out for overhanging ridges of snow known as cornices.

If you can use a relatively small explosive charge

to drop a large cornice that could weigh many, many tons,

it forms a very effective triggering force to that slope.

Despite all his years in the mountains,

Jim is still fascinated by the sight of an avalanche.

Avalanches are beautiful natural events

that are fascinating to watch,

much like when you find yourself staring at a fire.

It's very difficult to take your eyes off them

because of the constant motion and the interplay with light

and the incredible, awesome force that they can generate.

It's just mesmerising.

But sometimes the snow is a little too hypnotic.

This professional cameraman was so focused on filming the avalanche

he didn't realise it was heading straight for him.

Luckily for him, he escaped with his life.

To save lives, it's vital to understand

the underlying cause of an avalanche

and exactly how the dangerous weak layers form.

In the Swiss Alps at the Institute For Snow And Avalanche Research,

Martin Hegley is studying how tiny changes in the microstructure of snow

can have big consequences.

Martin needs to wear a full thermal bodysuit.

His lab is kept well below freezing

to recreate temperatures found on the world's highest mountains.

To guarantee consistency in his experiments,

Martin makes his own snow.

We really imitate the process

that happens up in the clouds up in the sky.

To copy nature in the lab, steam is blown over suspended threads.

Because the temperature is well below freezing,

the steam turns into perfect snowflakes.

Martin's snowflakes are truly beautiful under a microscope.

These are the real thing.

And no two are exactly alike.

This freshly created snow

binds together well because the arms of each flake

interlock in a complex mesh.

But as the temperature varies, the crystals change shape

and can develop smooth edges which don't mesh.

It's crystals like these that create weak layers in the snow.

That's a type of snow that I as a skier, I don't like

because this will form a layer where avalanche can then slide,

so these are very dangerous conditions.

The tiniest changes in the structure of snow crystals

can have dramatic consequences for the unsuspecting.

In 1999, a tremendous build-up of snow in the Alps

caused the worst avalanche disaster in 40 years.

The small Austrian village of Galtur

is surrounded by mountains.

The residents thought they were safe.

They'd never been hit by an avalanche before.

But on the 23rd of February 1999, all that changed.

170,000 tons of snow broke loose from the slopes above.

In the village, the first sign of the approaching danger

was a violent shuddering.

The avalanche reached 300km/h.

On its way down, it doubled in size.

As it hit the village,

it weighed over 300,000 tons.

57 people were buried alive.

Rescuers began to look for survivors.

Over the next 24 hours, they saved 26 people, but 31 died.

Since the disaster, all new buildings have to be avalanche-proof

and above the village, they've built avalanche fences for protection.

Defences like these can protect built-up areas.

But when people venture out on remote mountain slopes,

they become much more vulnerable.

When an avalanche strikes in Gallatin County, Montana,

the Search And Rescue Team goes into action.

Over here!

Today, they're in training

and their challenge is to find two bodies

that could be buried anywhere in the snow.

The team has a well-rehearsed routine

to ensure they stand the best chance of getting a victim out alive.

When you first arrive to the scene, you go to areas of high probability.

You look for clues - gloves, skis, mitts -

try to figure out where there's a good likelihood they'll be.

Using that high probability area, you do random probes

around clues that might be on the surface of the snow.

Probe poles allow rescuers to feel deep beneath the snow's surface,

but it's still like searching for a needle in a haystack.

A pole can narrowly miss a victim and the rescuers would move on.

They need more sensitive equipment.

They need Tucker the rescue dog.

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MAN: One patient for transport to the hospital.

We've got another one that we're not required to move.

There is no detector more effective at finding avalanche victims

than the nose of a highly trained rescue dog.

On this training exercise,

Tucker demonstrates his impressive skill.

His canine sense of smell

and ability to move quickly in snow

make him a lot better at finding buried people

than a human with a probe.

The last thing you want to do

is have to probe an entire slide path.

It's exhausting and it's incredibly time-consuming.

So our ace in the hole's the dog.

Whenever we have a Backcountry avalanche,

we try to get a dog and a handler there as fast as we can.

I think we've got something here. Can I get some probers, shovellers?

When it comes to finding a victim, Tucker is fast.

Thatta boy! Good boy! OK, let's go!

Victim No.1 is just a dummy,

but many real people have reason to be grateful to Tucker

and rescue dogs like him.

Now the team goes after the second test victim.

A buried skier stands a much better chance of being found alive

if they carry a radio transceiver.

This transmits a signal that can be picked up by rescuers.

(DEVICE BEEPS)

If you're going to be travelling in any sort of avalanche terrain,

it's imperative that you carry a avalanche transceiver.

It's important not only you have one, but your partners have them.

(DEVICE BEEPS)

The team home in on the beacon's signal

and quickly locate the buried victim.

We've got two signals. Go ahead and take the...

I got something!

Hi. What's your name? Stewart?

Hi, Stewart.

More shovels are needed to help dig out the volunteer victim.

Speed is essential.

After 30 minutes, chances of survival drop to 50%,

40 minutes after being buried, chances are just 30%.

Survival also depends on how deep a victim is buried.

Burials less than 3ft,

you have a much greater chance of survivability.

Anything deeper than 3ft, your odds go down.

As far as survivability after about 6ft to 8ft,

the chance of survival's very, very, very, very low.

It's vital to get them off the mountain as quickly as possible.

We have the patient wrapped up in the burrito on the sled.

We're ready for transport, so you can send the helicopter in. Over.

Even after a victim's rescued, they can die from hypothermia or shock.

The reality is that the power of an avalanche

is often too much for a skier to endure

and no amount of technology can save them.

In January 2008, ski guide Justin Lozier was skiing and snowboarding

with two friends in the Gore Mountains of Colorado.

It seemed like an average day,

but it didn't turn out to be like that.

It was probably the worst day of my life.

Justin and his friends Jim Muguerza and Jesse Brigham

were well-trained in avalanche survival techniques,

but when disaster struck, it caught them completely off guard.

I ran the line, I got down to the safe zone, signal,

Jim came down, same line, and then I signalled again.

Jesse came down and on his second turn in,

just the whole slope exploded.

I saw it rushing at us and just started freaking out.

I couldn't believe what was happening.

I was extremely surprised

by how much energy and how much force that avalanche had.

When the avalanche stopped, their friend Jesse was nowhere to be seen.

We pulled out our beacons immediately, starting searching.

(DEVICE BEEPS)

And then once I got the signal, I just immediately started digging.

By the, by the time we got there...

...it was already too late.

It was so hard to get him out.

Um, he was literally just,

he was just encased in concrete

and you could barely budge him.

It just took all our strength to just pull him out.

When we pulled him out, it was... just horrible.

I think those images will haunt me for the rest of my life.

Around 200 people are killed by avalanches every year.

And the number is steadily rising

as more and more skiers, boarders and snowmobilers

venture into wilderness areas.

Most victims have plenty of mountain experience,

yet they still get caught by the unpredictable

and deadly force of an avalanche.

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