Avalanches are among the most terrifying of natural disasters. They occur with little or no warning and, even though they often last only seconds, can cause catastrophic and widespread damage.
With the increasing popularity of winter sports, skiers, snowboarders and campers must go farther and farther "out of bounds" to escape the crowds, putting more inexperienced enthusiasts in the path of avalanches.
The history, folklore and science of avalanches are reviewed in the first part of "The White Death" (Random House, $23.95) by McKay Jenkins.
He describes how the extreme and arbitrary violence of avalanches led many early cultures to attach spiritual significance to them.
Some mountain dwellers even regarded the avalanche itself as a malevolent being, like the latter-day boogeyman. At one time, many lowland cultures simply avoided the high peaks altogether, thinking them to be the realm of demons.
By the 18th and 19th centuries, however, sportsmen were venturing far above the tree line, for pleasure and for the experience of "conquering" nature.
After World War II, thousands of members of the U.S. Army's elite 10th Mountain Division were set loose on the American landscape with years of intensive mountaineering experience and plenty of surplus equipment.
They became not only the seed of the American mountain climbing community, but the forerunners of North American avalanche safety and snow science.
The postwar increase in the popularity of sport climbing and skiing a trend that continues even today caused more sportsmen to venture knowingly into avalanche country.
One such case is chronicled in the second half of the book.
In 1969, five experienced young mountaineers attempted a risky wintertime ascent of Mount Cleveland in Montana's Glacier National Park. When they failed to return, U.S. and Canadian authorities launched a hopeful and heroic rescue effort that culminated six months later in the grisly recovery of bodies.
The climbers were found buried beneath 35 feet of snow and ice, helping authorities realize the magnitude of the avalanche and how such experienced mountaineers could have been lulled into a false sense of safety.
Even experts in snow mechanics express an almost casual frustration at the unpredictability of the behavior of accumulated snow on a mountain slope.
"The White Death" provides a short course in avalanche science and a gripping account of what happens when man takes mountains and nature for granted.