T he snow avalanche is one of the great natural forces, not inferior in destructiveness to the tornado, earthquake or flood. The only reason it is not so well recognized as a killer and destroyer is that it takes place in winter in remote mountain fastnesses where it less often hits human targets. During the Gold Rush snow avalanches buried many of the prospectors who swarmed into the mountains of the Northwest. In 1910 a snow slide in the Cascade Mountains of Washington swept away three stormbound trains, with the loss of 108 lives and more than a million dollars in property damage. Within the last decade skiing has lured into the mountains a greater horde of people than Gold Rush days ever saw.
Avalanche research is therefore a matter of more than purely academic interest.
Perhaps the most striking recent illustration of its practical importance is the fact that transcontinental television did not become a reality until a way was found to solve an avalanche problem at the site of a microwave relay station in Nevada. The safety of increasing numbers of people and enterprises depends upon avalanche studies. Either as a research subject or as a problem in the field, avalanches are elusive. The forces at work are numerous and difficult to measure. Avalanches can not readily be subdivided, reconstructed or educed to laboratory scale.