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and complementary talents: Fredston 

 must be one of the few people in the 

 world with a master's degree in polar and 

 ice studies from the University of Cam- 

 bridge. Fesler seems to be a self-taught 

 avalanche gviru who can look at a snow- 

 drift and immediately visualize the in- 

 ternal stresses and strains that hold it in 

 place; "thinking like an avalanche" is 

 what Fredston calls it. Both are skilled 

 winter mountaineers, as comfortable in 

 crampons and climbing harnesses as 

 most people are in La-Z-Boy recHners. 



Siiowstnick tells the stories of the 

 rescues they have taken part in and the 

 avalanches they have analyzed. Much of 

 what Fredston re- 

 counts is pretty grim — 

 experienced skiers 

 who push themselves a 

 tad too close to the 

 edge of an unstable 

 slope, homesteaders 

 buried by a collapsing 

 mountainside. In eigh- 

 teen years, Fredston 

 confesses, she has 

 "chiseled dozens of 

 bodies from avalanche 

 debris and never . . . 

 dug a single person 

 out alive." 



avalanches not only because they 

 know the snow so well, but also be- 

 cause avalanches tend to recur in the 

 same spot. The couple is often called 

 in to create their own avalanches, re- 

 moving dangerous snowpacks to 

 make roads safe for traffic or to clear 

 the backcountry for rescue parties or 

 recreational activities. The author, 

 who grew up in a placid suburb of 

 New York City, now finds herself 

 hanging out the open door of a heH- 

 copter, tossing sticks of dynamite into 

 threatening snowdrifts while a bliz- 

 zard rages below. "A colleague once 

 lit a charge and threw it out the open 



Controlled avalanche, triggered by explosives, harmlessly 

 releases dangerous accumulations of snow near a highway in 

 Colorado before the snow gives way without warning. 



Understanding these tragedies, 

 howe\'er, is a way of predicting 

 the avalanche perils of the future and, 

 one hopes, of preventing prudent 

 Alaskans from taking unexpectedly 

 high risks. Avalanches, Fredston knows, 

 start when slabs of dense snow detach 

 from the layers beneath them, most of- 

 ten on slopes angled at between thirty 

 and forty-five degrees. What happens 

 next depends on the track taken by the 

 detached slab as it accelerates. How 

 much more snow does it pick up as it 

 slides? Does it run out into a wide area 

 or a narrow gulch? The leading edge of 

 the avalanche can stir up a billowing 

 powder blast so powerful that the few- 

 trees left standing after the snow passes 

 will bear deep scars of pebbles that were 

 blown, forty feet above the ground, like 

 shrapnel in the snow-driven wind. 

 Fredston and Fesler can predict 



door of a heUcopter, only to have a 

 blast of wind sHng the bomb back in," 

 she writes. A mad scramble to find 

 the dynamite ensued, and the fuse 

 had only seconds to burn when it was 

 tossed back out into the storm. 



Fredston doesn't hide her opinions 

 about the forces of nature and the fol- 

 lies of humankind, but I wouldn't read 

 her book for its upHfting thoughts. If 

 you have loved ones, you don't have to 

 live in avalanche country to know that 

 life is fragile. Having a free winter 

 evening, a warm fire, and a hot drink 

 is reason enough to curl up with a rous- 

 ing adventure book like Siiowstnick. 



L.'iVRES'CE A. M.'iRSCH.iLL, author of The 

 Supernova Story, /<.■ 11' K. T. Saiim Professor of 

 Physics at Gettysburg College in Peiiiisyluania, 

 and director of Project CLEA, which produces 

 widely used siiindatioii softume pr education in 

 astronoiiiy. He is the 2005 winner of the Educa- 

 tion Prize of the American Astronomical Society 



52 NA1UH.AI IIISUIRY February 2006 



