Jennifer Woodlief

This book attracted my attention because I had read of the incident in Accidents in North American Mountaineering which included a picture of a mass of melted metal that had been climbing gear carried by the victims of the lightening strike.

The author covers many technical details, especially about the use of helicopters in high altitude rescues. The writing is interesting, though not gripping. This is a book that tells you the how of things very well, but doesn't always pull you in to the incident from an emotional perspective.

There were some useful pictures, but they were not integrated into the text, which always annoys me as printing technology can easily put black and white photos in with text and pictures can really make a difference in books of this type. I also wished there were more pictures, particularly of the environment in which the rescue took place and of the climb route.

Overall, worth reading and worth owning if climbing, epics, rescues, disasters or lightening are your thing.… (mehr)

This book was amazing. The way Woodlief incorporated the history of Grand Teton National Park, the ranger's careers, and story of the amazing rescue made the book exhilarating from start to finish. The story of the rescue of five injured climbers read like an action movie, but still respected the lives of the victims lost and injured. I have great admiration for the Jenny Lake rescuers and will never think about park rangers the same. For anyone interested in the outdoors or survival stories, this is one of the best I've read.… (mehr)

A Wall of White tells the story of the massive avalanche that occurred at Alpine Meadows ski resort near Lake Tahoe, California, in 1982. I remember following the news stories of the avalanche and the subsequent rescue efforts, so I was very eager to read this book, and I wasn’t disappointed.

The story gets off to a slow start, as Woodlief describes the large cast of characters. As other reviewers have commented, a key to the characters would have been helpful. I found myself becoming a bit annoyed by the laudatory bios of those who would be lost in the avalanche - they read like something one might recite at a funeral, rather than fully developed portraits - and by the much sketchier bios of those who would survive.

Suspense builds as the storm develops and the ski patrollers work under desperate conditions, in a futile effort to control the snow buildup on hazardous slopes. We follow the employees and guests of Alpine Meadows as they make decisions that seem inconsequential, but ultimately make the difference between life and death. Finally, the story covers the post-avalanche rescue and recovery efforts by employees, rescue dogs, and eventually volunteers responding from outside.

Woodlief provides credible descriptions of the destructive forces of avalanches, and the technical aspects of avalanche forecasting and mitigation. The narrative and photos evoke the times and the unique subculture among the Alpine Meadows employees. She emphasizes how the limited communications of the day (no cell phones! no text messages!) affected the initial assessment and the flow of information to survivors and potential rescuers.

I would have liked a good topo map of the area. Only one map is provided; it appears to be a simplified handout used to identify the various ski runs, and is so small as to be unreadable.

The most notable omission in this book was the failure to discuss the hubris of developing a ski resort in an area where the ski runs, the base facilities, and even the access road are in a Class A avalanche zone. The topo map on Google Maps shows the base area surrounded by steep slopes on 3 sides. With prevailing west winds during the winter, those ridges must build up some huge cornices. After the 1982 disaster, the resort added one category to the avalanche control plan, calling for complete evacuation of the resort under extreme avalanche hazard conditions.

For those interested in more details, a summary of the evidence from the subsequent trial can be found here; a 25 year commemorative video here, and a map of the Alpine Meadows resort as it exists today here.… (mehr)