When writer Robert Frohlich sent a copy of his newspaper article about the 1982 Alpine Meadows avalanche to his friend Jennifer Woodlief, a non-fiction book writer living in the Bay Area, he imagined it was only an exchange of information between peers. But upon reading it Woodlief thought the tragedy merited closer attention. She suggested Frohlich write a book.
A North Tahoe resident, Robert Frohlich is well-known for the many memorable stories he’s published about ski culture and mountain life. His work has made him a near expert on two tragedies: the Alpine Meadows avalanche and a 1978 Squaw Valley cable car accident. Nevertheless, when Woodlief suggested he expand the Alpine Meadows story into a book, Frohlich paused.
‘I’d known Jennifer from working with her on a book about Bill Johnson,’ Frohlich says. ‘I was too close to the story. Jennifer’s perspective would help her to get the information that we who’ve been here for awhile take for granted.’
Encouraging Woodlief to write the book herself, Frohlich offered contact numbers, research material and introductions. That was in 2006. During the next year and a half, Woodlief, an ex-lawyer who’s prosecuted first-degree murder cases and done case work for the CIA, conducted more than 100 interviews coaxing long-buried details.
To many people involved, the memory of March 31, 1982 is nearly unbearable. The winter had been brutal enough, and yet another storm hit just at the time when some skiers were listening for spring birdcalls. For four and a half days, snowfall sandwiched light, cold crystals between warmer, water-soaked ones, creating a perfect setup for an avalanche. At Alpine Meadows, avalanche control was a serious operation handled by a diligent crew. As more than 100 inches fell between March 27 and 31, the patrol members used a 75mm recoilless rifle, a 75mm pack howitzer and hand charges to keep the mountain from avalanching on its own. On March 31, with the ski resort closed, many workers stayed home. Still on site were patrolmen, mechanics, maintenance workers and three vacationers, some of whose names are forever linked to that day: Bernie Kingery, beloved, rough-spoken mountain manager; Beth Morrow, Kingery’s dependable scribe; college students Frank Yeatman and his girlfriend Anna Conrad; the affable Jake Smith; Bud Nelson with his young daughter, Laura; and David Hahn. At 3 p.m. Kingery sent a patrol crew to Squaw Valley, where they would ride the KT-22 lift to a ridge and use hand charges to access slide areas above Alpine Meadows road. At 3:45 the patrolmen heard the hand-held radio call everyone dreaded: ‘Avalanche!’
In her book ‘Wall of White,’ published last month by Atria, a division of Simon and Schuster, Woodlief writes lucidly about how the mountain unzipped that day. ‘The slope shattered into a buckling snarl of smaller shards until the entire sky was obliterated by a wall of white, a churning, boiling swell that grew larger and larger until it became the only view. The avalanche pounced on the mountain like it was crushing a can, not just knocking trees down but shredding them.’
The patrollers raced back up Bear Creek Canyon toward Alpine Meadows, but because snow had swamped the roads, they didn’t reach the site until 5 p.m. What they found bowled them over. Larry Heywood, a patroller with the returning crew that night, was shocked. ‘There were trees three- and four-feet across knocked over and carried down-slope like matchsticks,’ Heywood says. ‘The snow was 15 feet deep or more in places. It was beyond my imagination that something like that could have happened.’
While many people onsite survived because of their locations or by sheer luck, seven did not. Rescuers recovered the bodies of Smith, Hahn, the Nelsons, Yeatman and Morrow within the first two days. By April 2, Bernie Kingery, and Anna Conrad were still missing. With growing concerns about avalanche safety, the rescuers suspended their operations.
For Woodlief, recovering the painful memories was rarely easy. ‘Some would start with their arms folded,’ she says. ‘I’d ask them what avalanche control was all about back then, how the dynamite was used, what the mornings were like. Soon, people leaned forward and started to remember things.’ In the end, most people wanted to share their memories, including Laura Nelson’s mother, Katy. ‘Initially she said she’d talk about their lives, but she didn’t want to talk about their deaths,’ Woodlief says. ‘We met for 10 hours. I stayed at her house all day looking at pictures of Laura and locks of baby hair. I was very much trying to remain professional and not cry. In the end she decided she did want to talk about the event.’
Woodlief gathered details from the victims’ parents, siblings and friends. ‘There are details I spent so long chasing down that the average reader wouldn’t even notice, but that were important to the story. The people who died – I liked them so much. I wish I could have known Jake. Beth is someone I would have wanted to be friends with.’
While mourning those lost, it is Anna Conrad’s story that many people today cling to. The last big news story to come from Alpine Meadows that week was a vitally important one. When rescuers returned to the mountain on April 5, they found a miracle: A fallen crew locker had preserved an air pocket and some space. Inside that space was Anna Conrad, alive.
‘This story is intriguing because it affected such innocent victims,’ Woodlief says, ‘not people taking too many risks, but tourists walking in a parking lot, patrolmen trying to keep people out of the area, ski lift operators taking a break from college – unbelievably innocent victims. And it had amazing twists of fate of who was where when. Then there’s the miraculous silver lining of Anna’s rescue.’ Along with the sadness, Wall of White preserves the many wonders that also occurred in late March 1982, the moments of sacrifice, heroism, hard work, survival, and, for some, the ultimate joy and relief. And that is a gift.
