ODDS’N’SODS — Avalanche! (1)

Avalanches rarely make headlines. Occasionally, they create havoc on the ski-slopes and that’s about the only time we hear of them. But in high-mountain country in winter, they are an ever-present hazard. The gun-emplacements by the side of the Trans-Canada Highway at Rogers Pass, B.C., are testimony to that. Most often though, they occur too far from the beaten track. Few people ever know about them.

Our camp was 45 miles southwest of Rogers Pass. We were a small crew, 14 of us, and our job was maintenance. Mine and mill had operated only four months after a 3-year shutdown. More equipment problems had surfaced than enough and it would be a full-time job getting the plant ship-shape by spring when routine operations resumed.

Christmas had signalled the beginning of the winter shutdown for most of the crew. We were returning and settling in for a lengthy stay. It was the first week of January, 1974.

Our camp was on the verge of the tree line. A thin, straggling cluster of trees continued on one side of the valley for another half-mile, obscuring the view on that side. Everywhere else, the view was unobstructed. We were in an amphitheatre of mountains cresting 2,000 to 3,000 ft. above us. The valley itself came to an end two or three miles farther on, strewn with the bouldery debris of a wasted glacier.

Most of the mine buildings, compressor house and machine shop –plus the portal of the mine’s main-haulage — were situated on a bench carved out of the talus slope near the mountain’s base. The mill and its cluster of facilities were at a lower elevation on the valley floor. Cookhouse and bunkhouses, too, were on the valley floor, though a few hundred feet farther downstream.

A massive bluff rose 200 ft. above the mine portal, giving way to an escalating staircase of promontories, ledges and snow-covered slopes. Where the mountain wall was scoured by constant winds, no snow could lie. But in the web of gullies and draws where snow found refuge, there was stillness. From our distant viewpoint, it was as if the creases of the mountain face were chevrons of white scored in a model of slate. There was no question, “our” mountain and its procession of soaring neighbors were a sight to behold. Those early days of January, 19 years ago, were unusually mild. A good portion of the 35-ft. annual snowfall had arrived, but the warm temperatures were worrisome. Unseasonably high temperatures meant unstable snow packs. Most evenings, in fact, we heard the boom of avalanches a few miles away or the long drawn-out rumblings of those more distant. “No need for concern,” said those who had spent their lives in the mountains. “The builders knew what they were doing — this plant has been standing a good few years now and not a slide has come near it.”

No one heard when the first arrived. It happened at night. The slide barely had enough impetus to coast into the campsite and bowl over a portable fuel tank. No one was too concerned.

The second one came two nights later. A branch of a heavier slide slammed into the side of a 2-storey building at the entrance to the camp area. The whole building seemed to be momentarily lifted by the impact, then jarringly dropped back on its foundations. Part of the building’s rear wall and one of the adjoining walls were staved in on the ground floor up to the ceiling. Two rooms at the back of the building were writeoffs.

In spite of the upheaval, much of the building was intact. Nevertheless, the interior showed the effects of the severe jarring. Walls were tilted, floors warped, door jambs and window frames were crazily squeezed, and the fractured ends of a line of 2-by-4s were spearing through the ceiling. It was still habitable, though.

— The preceding is the first of a 2-part article. The writer is a mining engineer and freelance journalist in Victoria, B.C.