Author’s note: As I finish this article on the tragic 1982 Alpine Meadows avalanche, the bodies of nine skiers swept away by an avalanche while returning from a tour to the Frog Lake huts in the Castle Peak area have been recovered. Six skiers in the party were rescued by search and rescue team members in some of the most horrific winter weather I’ve seen in my 47 years here.
This is the largest loss of life in an avalanche in California ever, with the 1982 incident a close second. My thoughts are with the devastated families and the rescuers. Please donate to Tahoe Nordic Search and Rescue at tahoenordicsar.org/donate. These volunteers risk their own lives in deadly conditions to try to save others.
Much has been written about the 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche, the 44th anniversary of which is March 31, and the rescue of Anna Conrad. Just as we have learned that three skiers were rescued from the Feb. 17 Castle Peak avalanche by other members of their group, this piece is about the three men rescued immediately in ’82 by fellow employees, a fact that has largely been forgotten to time.
January 1982 had been a record setter with almost 15 feet of new snow on an 80-inch base, and we locals were exhausted from dealing with mountains of snow in our driveways, roads, and workplaces. A break in February gave many of us the opportunity to get caught up and maybe even enjoy some time on skis ourselves. But the snow gods had other plans. Storms brought 10 inches of snow in a single event early in March, and 10 inches more over the week of March 14, 1982. As we looked for signs of spring toward the end of the month, the jet stream instead blew the storm door wide open.
The first storm arrived March 27, bringing white-out conditions and 13 feet of new snow at Echo Summit. Wind speeds of over 60 mph with gusts well above 100 mph created constant blizzard conditions for several days and nights. Alpine Meadows ski area and its neighbor, Palisades, are classified by the US Forest Service as Class A avalanche areas, the highest level of avalanche risk.
In the early morning hours of March 31, veteran Alpine Meadows Mountain Manager Bernie Kingery made the decision to close the resort and told Lift Ops Manager Bob Lynn to send most employees home. Bob recalled, “that decision undoubtedly saved lives. If we had been staffed as normal, many more of us may have been killed.”
Only necessary personnel remained, including Kingery’s assistant Beth Morrow. Trail crewman Jake Smith was on a snowmobile to keep people off the road while the patrollers released the slopes above Alpine Meadows Road and the resort parking lot. At 3:45 p.m., Kingery heard a static-filled radio message from Smith. The one clearly understood word was: “Avalanche!” No other transmissions were heard.
The avalanche had broken loose from the Poma Rocks, Pond Slope, and Buttress areas on the northeast side of the resort. A 3,000-foot-wide wall of snow, ice, and debris roared down toward the Summit Terminal Building, the Kangaroo lift, and the main lodge.
Jeff Skover was standing in that building next to Kingery and Morrow; Randy Buck and Tad DeFelice were at desks across from them. Off-duty lift operator Anna Conrad and her boyfriend Frank Yeatman were also in the building, heading to the locker room to retrieve some gear. The entire building began to shake as the pressure wave in front of the avalanche blasted the walls. Skover grabbed a shelf and hung on. The 100-mile-an-hour-plus gust struck the Summit Building first, blowing out the walls and windows, taking Kingery and Morrow out the back as the wall of snow and debris punched through the sturdy building.
As thousands of pounds of snow flowed around the Summit Lift’s 22-ton counterweight in the middle of the building, the three men were pulled into the flow and blown out of the destroyed building. The giant counterweight probably saved the three men – who were standing behind it – by diverting the force of the powerful slide.
Mike Davisson, a groomer in his sixth year at Alpine, was walking back to the lodge from the east side of the parking lot. “It was quiet, the way it’s quiet in heavy snowfall, when something hit me in the head and I went down,” he told Moonshine Ink.
Davisson had no idea what had knocked him down. He felt disoriented but stood and headed to the lodge. He was shocked to see the stairs in the breezeway between the lodge buildings completely covered in deep snow and snow boulders. As he stumbled through it and began to crawl hand over hand up where the stairs should have been, he saw an 8,000-pound Bobcat loader upside down in the breezeway, like a child’s discarded toy. He first checked to see that no one was in or under the vehicle, then kept climbing. As he peered over the rubble pile, he saw what remained of the Summit Terminal Building and realized what had happened.
“All the walls and windows were gone, just the metal frame and roof were standing,” Davisson said. “I thought, ‘There are people in there!’ I waded and thrashed my way towards the wrecked building and saw Gerald “Scoop” Skalinder, Billy Patterson, and Mike Troeger making their way from the grooming offce.”
Davisson saw DeFelice standing but dazed, and Buck, who was bleeding from the head and buried to his waist. Davisson was certified as an EMT and he told DeFelice to head for help in the lodge. He then applied pressure to Buck’s head wound.
“Billy and Scoop started digging Randy out to take him to the lodge,” Davisson recalled. “Troeger and I were probing with anything we could find, when I saw a speck of blue in the sea of white, among the shattered brown framing and pink insulation. We thrashed over to it and frantically dug until we found Jeff Skover. He was unconscious and not breathing. I cleared his airway and gave him a jaw thrust, he took a big breath – thank god! We dug him out and carried him to the lodge.”
The mountain-facing windows and doors of the lodge were blown in, the power was out, and the fire sprinkler system had activated, soaking many areas of the lodge. The huge deck was 20 inches deep in snow and run-out, which had flowed into the lodge.
Karen Strohmaier, a communications supervisor, was in the lodge when it hit. After radioing for help, she began moving the injured into the lodge. She made her way down to the first aid room below, finding it filled with snow and ice. Grabbing oxygen and first aid gear, she brought it upstairs, where the team put together a makeshift aid room to care for the three men.
Later, the bodies of two men who had been walking in the parking lot, David Hahn and Bud Nelson, were found buried deep in the slide, deceased. The body of David Hahn’s 11-year-old daughter Laura was found the next day. Jake Smith’s snowmobile was found in the parking lot, but it was too late. Smith was dead. The body of Beth Morrow was recovered 100 feet from the Summit Terminal wreckage, while Frank Yeatman’s body was found inside what once was a hallway under snow and rubble.
Lift operator Anna Conrad was miraculously rescued alive after five days under a set of lockers that was pinned against a bench. Mountain manager Bernie Kingery’s body was found the same day, fist clutched above the snow as if to punch an air vent, or his last stand of defiance against Mother Nature.
The toll from the 1982 Alpine Meadows avalanche was three rescued immediately, seven dead, and one rescued five days later. Though Anna Conrad lost part of her right leg and left toes to frostbite, she remains immensely grateful to have survived. Skover, Buck, and DeFelice recovered from their injuries.
We are lucky to live in such a beautiful, vital place. We should not forget that we don’t control it.
To learn more about the 1982 Alpine Meadows avalanche, watch Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche by Steven Siig and Jared Drake, available via streaming. Wall of White by Jennifer Goodlief, and several articles on the avalanche by local author Mark McLaughlin, are excellent reads.
~ Pat Dillon happily served our community for 31 years as a firefighter/paramedic. When he’s not writing for Moonshine about the history and people of Tahoe/Truckee, he can be found camping in the Sierra or walking dogs in the woods with his wife, kids, and granddaughter.
