Ashley Polson, from Swansea, recently climbed a famous mountain. Though he was happy to take on the trek, as was left floored after making an unexpected discovery at the top
12:16, 05 Feb 2026Updated 12:16, 05 Feb 2026
He recently climbed the famous mountain (stock image)(Image: Getty)
Just days ago, he made his way to the Brecon Beacons to take in the views from the renowned peak, only to encounter an unexpected twist. Upon reaching the summit at 10am, he confessed it was “absolutely Baltic”, and that was merely the beginning of his tale.
In footage posted to TikTok, Ashley remarked: “While you’re all tucked up in bed, in the warm, I’m up here. Pen y Fan. Oh my god, it is freezing up here.
“I’m up here today for a walk event, some people are running. I’m just walking, I’ve got my sticks. I don’t know if you can hear me, but that’s the top up there.
“It’s snowing. To be honest with you, I feel like I’m going to get blown off before I get back down. I was going to say lovely views up Pen y Fan, but it’s f*****g freezing. So yeah, lovely morning walk, great.”
Ashley cheekily titled his video “scenic walk up Pen y Fan”, seemingly poking fun at the reality that visibility was virtually non-existent. The weather conditions meant he was robbed of the panoramic views, with thick fog obscuring everything.
Life doesn’t always go according to plan. Fortunately, Ashley maintained his sense of humour throughout, appearing upbeat despite being greeted by nothing but a wall of mist instead of the anticipated scenery.
His clip clearly resonated with viewers, racking up hundreds of views. Many were quick to leave comments sharing their own experiences.
One viewer remarked: “I’ve been there. It’s so cold.” Meanwhile, another expressed Welsh pride, commenting: “At our doorstep.”
Ashley responded: “We’re lucky to have all this local.” It’s evident he takes pride in residing in such a stunning nation, though moments like these are undeniably amusing.
Ashley may be familiar to some, as he’s gained recognition for creating viral content about Wales alongside his brother. The duo regularly entertain online audiences with their comedic sketches and humorous footage.
Where is Pen y Fan?
For those unfamiliar, Pen y Fan rises to 886 metres (2,907 ft) and sits within the Bannau Brycheiniog (Brecon Beacons) National Park. It holds the distinction of being the tallest peak in South Wales and southern Britain.
The location draws countless walkers thanks to its spectacular vistas and demanding yet manageable trails. A four-mile circular path proves particularly appealing to visitors.
In terms of difficulty, the trek ranks as moderately to seriously challenging. Walkers should expect sharp inclines, rocky ground and frequently waterlogged paths.
Although accessible throughout most of the year, its popularity means arriving during morning is advisable to dodge the masses.
By midwinter, Los Angeles is defined less by cold than by light. Cool, clear mornings give way to afternoons shaped by the low winter arc of the sun, painting the mountains in long shadows and the sky in improbable color.
And as that low light settles in, my whole body shifts in spirit. Somewhere deep in the limbic system, a synapse fires like a flare, tracing the old circuitry of migration and memory — that annual pull toward the wide-open deserts of the American Southwest.
I dream of lizards, dark skies, sand dunes and sunsets streaked in rose-mauve and smoky violet, the air heavy with the scent of wet creosote and campfire smoke.
A sunrise in the desert.
(Josh Jackson)
But mostly I long for the open road, those forgotten highways where pavement runs through the quaint towns, weathered landmarks and the millions of acres of public land in the desert. It is a nostalgia shared by the chroniclers of the past.
In 1971, Lane Magazine published “The Backroads of California,” a large-format book that delivered trip notes and sketches of 42 backroads by the late artist Earl Thollander.
In the epilogue he writes, “On the backroads of California I re-discovered the pleasure of driving. It had nothing to do with haste, and everything to do with taking time to perceive, with full consciousness, the earth’s ever-changing colors, designs, and patterns.”
Many of those original roads have faded away, swallowed by high-speed highways or erased by suburban expansion. But a handful still survive — routes that don’t carve a straight line but follow the meandering, undulating contours of the land. They are living archives of the West.
This essay marks the beginning of a series exploring those remaining roads. And we begin on Highway 127, a two-lane stretch that runs north from Baker, slowly ascending and descending toward the Nevada border. To the west lies the outskirts of Death Valley National Park; to the east, millions of acres of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management — acreage collectively owned by all of us.
The Baker Country Store.
(Josh Jackson)
I arrived in Baker at sunrise in early December, camera in hand, notebook in pocket. The highway sign was nearly indecipherable beneath layers of stickers and graffiti.
I pulled the car north out of town, the 41-degree air still holding the night’s chill, and was greeted by shifting light and the open, empty scale of the desert. A full moon was dropping toward the Avawatz Mountains as the sun worked its way over the horizon in the east. The dry lake beds and bare mountains were cast in glow and shadow, the whole scene washed in cinnamon and brown sugar — earthy tones that felt almost edible.
Dumont Dunes, a playground for sand dune enthusiasts, is bordered by the slow-running Amargosa River.
(Josh Jackson)
By mile 34, the winter light had begun to settle over the landscape. A short spur leads to the Dumont Dunes, a popular off-highway vehicle area, but I came to witness the miraculous waterway that surfaces above ground on its 185-mile horseshoe journey from Nevada to Badwater Basin: the diminutive but mighty Amargosa River.
Here it pushes and carves through a canyon of mud walls that resemble the color of a wasp’s nest. Ravens circle overhead, croaking at my presence in defiance. The sight of water in the parched desert unsettles your perceptions. The urge to lie down for a soak, even in winter, is hard to resist. I bend down, scoop a handful of cold water and splash it against my face.
Amargosa Canyon is known for its dramatic rock formations.
(Josh Jackson)
The Amargosa Conservancy and local tribes have worked for decades to protect this river for its cultural and biodiversity values. As Executive Director Mason Voehl told me, it is “the lifeblood of these lands. The fates of every community of life in this extreme reach of the Mojave Desert are inextricably tied to the fate of the river.”
Kneeling at the riverbank, I understood exactly what he meant.
The Shoshone post office.
(Josh Jackson)
Built in the 1930s, the Crowbar Cafe & Saloon is like a time capsule.
(Josh Jackson)
Twenty-two miles farther north, Shoshone appears as a small village serving a couple dozen residents. A gas station, post office, general store and the Crowbar Café & Saloon anchor the town.
I met Molly Hansen, the community’s unofficial historian and naturalist, in her low-ceilinged office near the village center. We walked to the end of town, where spring-fed pools hold the fate of the only population of Shoshone pupfish in the world. Once thought extinct, they were rediscovered in a metal culvert in 1986. Today they dart and shimmer through the warm water — tiny, minnow-like survivors whose breeding males flash a bright desert blue.
Hansen gestured toward the springs. “We’re not just trying to save a species,” she said. “We’re trying to restore the entire ecosystem.”
This ecosystem persists in large part because of Susan Sorrells, who owns the town and surrounding thousand acres. As the lead advocate for the proposed Amargosa Basin National Monument, she is working to protect this entire corridor — the river, wetlands and deep cultural history stitched through these desert valleys. Shoshone might be a tiny dot on a map, but it holds something astonishing: the reminder that the desert doesn’t have to be a place where things go to die — it can be a place where they begin again.
Eagle Mountain.
(Josh Jackson)
Just past mile 72, Eagle Mountain begins to tease the horizon. At first only its serrated top breaches the low hills, as if surfacing for air. Eventually the entire massif stands exposed: a solitary block of limestone rising 1,800 feet above the Mojave floor. Its isolation is striking, a misplaced guardian island.
For the Southern Paiute and Western Shoshone, Eagle Mountain holds profound cultural significance — woven into their creation stories and Salt Songs, understood as a “passage to the sky.” Even with my limited knowledge, the mountain radiated a kind of gravity, as though the desert itself were remembering.
Amargosa Opera House.
(Josh Jackson)
By mile 83, the Amargosa Hotel and Opera House appear — one of the strangest and most enchanting landmarks in the Mojave. Its stucco walls and Spanish arches were once part of a Pacific Coast Borax company town, later abandoned when the boom ended. In 1967, Marta Becket, a professional ballet dancer from New York, serendipitously got a flat tire nearby and fell in love. Soon after, she moved to the outpost, bought the hotel and spent the rest of her life preserving the landmark and restoring the opera house, where she performed for audiences large and small until 2012. Today, the hotel and theater remain open — faded, fragile and utterly magnetic.
The final seven miles of Highway 127 passed quickly, the sun slipping toward the western horizon as I crossed into Nevada, eight hours after I began.
Turns out, Thollander was right: This experience had nothing to do with haste. These backroads teach a different rhythm — the wonders of going the long way, of stopping when something catches your eye, of noticing beauty that doesn’t shout for attention. In a world increasingly defined by speed and distraction, this slow way of seeing becomes more than nostalgia; it becomes an antidote to the frantic pace of our modern condition, a necessary pause to see not what has been forgotten, but what endures.
Road trip planner: California Highway 127
California 127 illustrated map.
(Illustrated map by Noah Smith)
The route: Baker to the Nevada state line
Distance: 91 miles (one way)
Drive time: 1.5 hours straight through; allow a full day for stops
Best time to go: Late October through April. Summer temperatures frequently exceed 110°F
Fuel and essentials:
Baker (Mile 0): Last major services. Fill your tank and stock up on water/supplies here.
Shoshone (Mile 57): Gas station, general store and post office available.
EV charging: Fast chargers available in Baker; Level 2 chargers available at Shoshone Inn.
Food and drink:
Los Dos Toritos Restaurant in Baker: Authentic Mexican.
China Ranch Date Farm (Mile 48): A historic desert oasis along the Amargosa River; famous for date shakes.
Crowbar Café & Saloon in Shoshone: The local watering hole. Hearty meals and cold beer.
Camping:
Dumont Dunes: A wind-shaped sand dune complex designated for off-highway vehicle recreation. Primitive camping (permit required, purchase on-site or online).
Shoshone RV Park: Full hookups, tent sites and access to the warm spring pool.
Lodging:
Hike and explore:
Amargosa River Crossing (Mile 34): Pull out safely to see the rare sight of water flowing in the Mojave.
China Ranch Trails (Mile 48): Creek Trail is an easy, short walk through riparian willow groves; Slot Canyon is a moderate 2-mile hike into spectacular mud-hill geology.
Shoshone Wetlands (Mile 57): Short walking paths to view the Shoshone pupfish habitat.
Amargosa Opera House (Mile 83): Tours of Marta Becket’s painted theater typically run daily (check schedule online); walk the grounds to see the historic borax town ruins.
Safety Notes:
Water: Carry at least one gallon per person per day.
Connectivity: Cell service is spotty to nonexistent between Baker and Shoshone. Download offline maps before leaving I-15.
Wildlife: Watch for wild burros and coyotes on the road, especially at dawn and dusk.
California once had specialists dedicated to resolving conflict between people and wolves, mountains lions and coyotes. But after funding ran dry in 2024, the state let all but one of them go.
The move came as clashes between us and our wild neighbors are increasing, as climate change and sprawl drive us closer together.
Now, a coalition of wildlife advocates is calling for the state to bring back, expand and fund the coexistence program, at roughly $15 million annually.
Sen. Catherine Blakespear (D-Encinitas) will soon introduce legislation that would create the program, her office confirmed. Nonprofits Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Federation are co-sponsors.
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The money supporters want would be used to pay 50 to 60 staffers to focus on the Herculean task of balancing the needs of people and wildlife, as well as buy equipment like “unwelcome mats” to shock bears or fencing to protect alpacas from hungry lions.
Wildlife agencies acknowledge that education is key for coexistence, said Pamela Flick, California program director for Defenders of Wildlife, at a hearing Tuesday at the state Capitol dedicated to human-wildlife conflict. “But then staff time and resources don’t get allocated by agencies that are already chronically understaffed and underfunded.”
The hearing gave floor time to local law enforcement, representatives of affected regions and academics.
Since the funding expired, “I want to make it clear, the Department [of Fish and Wildlife] recognizes that we have potentially seen a gap in service, and folks have felt that,” Chad Dibble, deputy director of the department’s wildlife and fisheries division, said at the hearing.
Some aspects of the program live on — notably, a system that allows people to report run-ins with wildlife that may prompt the state to take action.
Both tragedies unfolded in rural Northern California, with the fatal lion mauling occurring in El Dorado County.
Assemblymember Heather Hadwick — a Republican who represents El Dorado, as well as Lake Tahoe, which is ground zero for bear problems — called conflicts with predators her district’s biggest issue. “We’re at a tipping point,” she said.
Along with El Dorado, Los Angeles County, at the opposite end of the rural-urban continuum, leads the state for the highest number of reported wildlife “incidents.” These range from just spotting an animal to witnessing property damage.
Debates over how to manage predators can be fierce, but beefing up the state’s ability to respond is uniting groups that are often at odds.
A coalition that includes ranchers, farmers and rural representatives supports bringing back the conflict program, and also wants $31 million to address the state’s expanding population of gray wolves.
Most of that money would go to compensate ranchers for cattle eaten by wolves and for guard dogs, scaring devices or other means to keep them away from livestock.
The wildlife advocates support funding wolf efforts, but believe ranchers should be compensated only if they’ve taken steps to ward off the predators.
Asked his thoughts on it at the hearing, Kirk Wilbur, vice president of government affairs for the California Cattlemen’s Assn., a trade group, called it “a complicated question.”
“Ranchers should be doing something in the realm of nonlethal deterrence, and they are, but we have to be careful to make sure that our nonlethal solutions are not overly prescriptive,” he said.
The elephant in the room: The state’s budget is strained, and many are clamoring for a piece of the pie.
More recent wildlife news
Twenty starving wild horses stranded in deep snow near Mammoth Lakes recently survived an emergency rescue by the Forest Service, I wrote last week. Several died, including one after the rescue, from starvation and exposure. Some, beyond saving, were euthanized.
For some, the Forest Service acted exceptionally, but others questioned the handling of the situation. It’s the latest controversy for these horses. Wildlife advocates have long opposed relocating a large portion of the herd, which the feds say is necessary to protect the landscape.
If you need a pick-me-up, take a gander at a video of an Austrian cow using a long brush to scratch herself. It’s not just adorable; as noted by the Washington Post’s Dino Grandoni, it’s the first documented case of a cow using a tool.
Need even more awww? Read about sea turtle Porkchop’s recovery journey at Long Beach’s aquarium. She had a flipper amputated and a fishing hook removed from her throat, and could return to the wild in a matter of weeks.
Coyote mating season is here and that means you are likely to see more of the animals in your neighborhood, per my colleague Karen Garcia.
A few last things in climate news
More than a year after the Palisades and Eaton wildfires, contamination remains a top concern. A state bill introduced this week aims to enforce science-based guidelines for testing and removing contamination in still-standing homes, schools and nearby soil, my colleagues Noah Haggerty and Tony Briscoe report.
Highway 1 through Big Sur (finally) fully reopened after a three-year closure from landslides. As fellow Times staffer Grace Toohey writes, the iconic route is expected to face more challenges from the effects of climate change: stronger storms, higher seas and more intense wildfires.
Per Inside Climate News’ Blanca Begert, the Bureau of Land Management has revived an effort to open more of California’s public lands to oil extraction. Will it be successful this time?
This is the latest edition of Boiling Point, a newsletter about climate change and the environment in the American West. Sign up here to get it in your inbox. And listen to our Boiling Point podcast here.
After an enormous storm dumped 3 feet of snow on Mammoth Mountain, rookie ski patroller Claire Murphy and a partner scrambled to help make the resort safe for guests ahead of a very busy — and very lucrative — Presidents Day weekend.
In howling wind and blowing snow, the patrollers labored to clear enormous piles of fresh, unstable powder from a steep, experts-only run, one of a group appropriately named the “Avalanche Chutes.”
Ski patrollers use hand-held explosives, and their own skis, to deliberately trigger small slides in the chutes before the resort opens, to prevent an avalanche from crashing down later in the day on thousands of paying customers gliding happily — and obliviously — along the much gentler slopes below.
Mammoth Mountain ski patrol members Claire Murphy, left, and Cole Murphy (no relation) both died while doing avalanche mitigation on the mountain.
(Courtesy of Lisa Apa; Tracy Murphy)
But something went horribly wrong that day. Instead of remaining safely above the sliding snow, Murphy and her partner got caught in it. He was buried up to his neck but survived. She was trapped beneath the collapsing wall of white and got crushed to death against a towering fir tree. She was 25 years old.
The avalanche that killed the young patroller on Feb. 14, 2025, stunned Mammoth’s tight-knit ski community. Her friends and colleagues were consumed with grief, but most regarded it as a freak accident, something that hadn’t happened before and was unlikely to be repeated.
But then, less than a year later, it happened again.
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In late December — after a “Christmas miracle” storm dumped more than 5 feet of snow on the previously parched resort — 30-year-old ski patroller Cole Murphy (no relation to Claire) and his partner were hurrying to clear the same chutes before the busiest week of the year.
They, too, were caught in a deliberately triggered slide. Cole’s partner suffered a serious leg injury, but he survived.
Signs on top of Lincoln Mountain at Mammoth advise skiers that the runs are for experts only.
Cole was swept away and carried hundreds of feet down the mountain, where he suffocated beneath more than a meter of avalanche debris, according to two sources. Both were involved in the effort to save Cole, but asked not to be identified because they are not authorized to speak to the media.
With the sudden deaths of two young patrollers in such a short span, and in such distressingly similar circumstances — Claire and Cole came to rest within a few hundred yards of each other — questions began to swirl.
Were the resort’s managers pushing too hard to open the mountain after major storms? Had training standards slipped, pushing relatively inexperienced ski patrollers into dangerous situations? Are young ski patrollers afraid to speak up, even when they think they’ve been asked to take unreasonable risks?
Lisa Apa, Claire Murphy’s mother, said she begged mountain officials to take a hard look at their training and safety procedures after her daughter’s death — to figure out what went wrong and make sure it never happened again.
They blew her off, she said.
A small memorial remains at a tree, where an avalanche claimed the life of ski patrol member Claire Murphy.
When she heard about the second death, Apa said she immediately fired off a text to a senior ski patrol manager at Mammoth: “You killed another ski patroller … you’ve learned nothing!”
She told a Times reporter last week, “Claire would be f—ing furious if she knew this happened a second time.”
Mammoth Mountain officials have remained measured in their public response.
In a statement emailed to The Times, Mammoth Mountain President and Chief Operating Officer Eric Clark wrote that, after Claire Murphy’s death, the ski patrol had been empowered to “pursue a slower, phased opening of the mountain on storm days.”
After Cole Murphy’s death 10 months later, Clark wrote that resort managers “immediately instituted” measures to “de-pressurize storm mornings,” giving ski patrol more time to work and more latitude to keep chair lifts closed until the mountain is deemed safe.
In a follow-up interview, Clark insisted the pressure on Mammoth’s managers to open quickly after big storms comes from customers desperate to ski fresh powder, not from corporate executives chasing profits.
Chair 22 takes skiers to the top of Lincoln Mountain at Mammoth, where two ski patrollers have been killed by avalanches in the last year.
“Maybe 10 years ago that was different,” Clark said. But after the most recent accident, the message from the resort’s owners — Alterra Mountain Co., a privately held, multibillion-dollar conglomerate that owns 19 resorts across the U.S. and Canada — was to use caution.
“Make sure you’re taking your time,” Clark said they told him.
Apa, who sobbed talking about her daughter, gasped when she heard that.
Of course senior executives offer reassuring words after a tragedy, she said. But as a former business journalist, who once anchored a show called “Street Smart” on Bloomberg TV, Apa said she spent her career around top corporate officers. Anyone who believes profit motive doesn’t drive such decisions is naive, she said.
“Maybe you’re not getting a phone call, or an email, from the CEO saying, ‘get this mountain open today!’” she said. But any manager who develops a reputation as someone who’s afraid to open after a storm, on the busiest day of the year, “won’t be around very long,” she said.
No doubt, many skiers are desperate to hit the slopes after a storm brings fresh powder.
The sensation of floating down the hill with almost no resistance is dreamlike and addictive. No other conditions compare.
That’s why social media is full of influencers bragging about their epic “pow days,” and why hordes of paying customers start champing at the bit when the mountain is covered in a fresh blanket of white, but the ski patrol won’t let them at it.
A former Mammoth ski patroller recalled years of riding lifts with eager customers complaining that the steepest runs with the deepest powder were still closed for avalanche control.
Mammoth Mountain‘s summit is more than 11,000 feet high and averages nearly 400 inches of annual snowfall.
“I’d point to all of the mountains around Mammoth,” he said. There are dozens of beautiful, towering summits in the surrounding eastern Sierra with absolutely no rules and nobody to stop an adventurous soul from climbing up and skiing down.
But there are no chairlifts, so getting up those mountains is a physically exhausting test of will. And there’s no avalanche control, so you’re on your own when it comes to determining which slopes are safe, which are death traps.
“If you’re such an expert, why aren’t you over there,” the ski patroller said he’d ask, usually ending the conversation.
Within the boundaries of commercial ski resorts, avalanche control takes many forms.
At Mammoth, the steepest slopes near the 11,000-foot-high summit are controlled with a howitzer — an actual cannon. When the resort is closed, crews fire explosive shells across a valley up into the highest, heaviest and most threatening piles of fresh snow. Their aim has to be excellent, since stray shrapnel can do serious damage to ski lifts. But it’s a remarkably efficient way to get enormous quantities of snow sliding down the mountain without putting anyone at risk.
The ski patrol office at the top of Lincoln Mountain.
Another option is called a “Boom Whoosh,” which looks like an industrial chimney and is installed just above spots where dangerous piles of snow frequently accumulate. It works by remote control, igniting a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen — like lighting a gigantic camping stove — to create a shock wave that triggers an avalanche. Mammoth has one at the moment, near the summit above a run called Climax, and officials are hoping to install more.
Then there’s the old-fashioned technique: sending ski patrollers into the steepest, most technical terrain with backpacks full of explosives.
That’s what happens in the Avalanche Chutes — known locally as “the avis” — a handful of natural rock and snow slide paths carved by thousands of years of erosion into the side of a 10,000-foot sub-peak called Lincoln Mountain. Patrollers start early in the morning after a storm and ride a snowcat — like a school bus on tank treads — to a plateau just above the chutes.
Big red signs with black diamonds are everywhere on Lincoln Mountain, indicating its trails are for experts only. The chutes are the steepest trails of all, marked on maps with two black diamonds, the highest rating possible. Casual skiers go weak in the knees at the thought of making a wrong turn onto a vertigo-inducing “double-black.”
After hopping out of the snowcat, patrollers divide into pairs and work their way toward the chutes. Sometimes the wind is so strong it scours nearby boulders free of snow, so they have to take off their skis and climb over the bare rocks in their awkward, plastic boots to get to the edge.
Once in place, one of the patrollers tosses a hand-held explosive — it looks like a cartoon stick of dynamite — down the hill. The patrollers cover their ears, wait for the boom, and hope the explosion has loosened the big stuff and sent it sliding.
Then they ski down in carefully choreographed zigzags, sometimes hopping up as they go, to dislodge any remaining loose slabs beneath their feet.
A view of the Avalanche Chutes at Mammoth, where two ski patrollers have died in the last year.
The key to “ski cutting,” as it’s called, is to make sure your partner is anchored in a secure spot, usually off to the edge of the chute and out of the way of a potential slide, before you start moving.
In normal conditions, it’s just another day at the office. But after a massive “atmospheric river” storm, the risks increase.
This season’s Christmas storm was a monster, and it arrived with the biggest crowds of the year.
To keep the customers happy, Mammoth executives opened the lower part of the mountain on Christmas Day, the portion least exposed to avalanche risk. But there was so much fresh snow, patrollers spent the day digging out people who had simply gotten stuck in huge drifts, even on the relatively flat terrain.
And then, in the early afternoon, Raymond Albert, a 71-year-old regular known to fellow skiers as “every day Ray,” was spotted in a pocket of deep, fresh snow beside a well-traveled run near the bottom of Lincoln Mountain.
He had somehow popped out of his skis, which were behind him, and pitched forward, ending up with his head in the snow and his feet in the air, according to a written report of the incident provided to his family.
Looking down one of the Avalanche Chutes at Mammoth Mountain.
It’s unclear how long he was in that position before bystanders dug him out. When ski patrollers arrived he had no pulse. With so much fresh snow on the ground, the patrollers struggled to find a firm enough surface to lay him on his back and perform CPR. They finally used a bystander’s legs as a makeshift platform, according to the report, but could not revive him.
In a normal week, Albert’s death would have been big news, but it received almost no public attention because early the next morning, Cole Murphy and his colleagues headed up Lincoln Mountain to clear the chutes.
It’s still not publicly known what caused the slide that buried Murphy and his partner, but according to two people involved in the effort to save Murphy’s life, witnesses said that an avalanche triggered by an explosive in a neighboring chute might have “propagated” horizontally to where Murphy and his partner were working — taking them by surprise.
Resort officials declined to answer detailed questions about either Claire or Cole Murphy’s deaths, saying their lawyers advised them not to offer specifics during ongoing investigations by the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health.
As soon as Cole Murphy disappeared in that wall of white, the clock started ticking. More than 90% of avalanche victims survive if they can be freed within 15 minutes, according to the Utah Avalanche Center, but the odds drop “catastrophically” after that.
It took Cole’s desperate colleagues 18 minutes to locate him and dig him out, sources said. When they finally pulled him free, his skin was blue and he wasn’t breathing, the sources said.
He was airlifted to a hospital in Reno and pronounced dead days later.
Tracy Murphy, Cole’s mother, said her son loved Mammoth Lakes and the tight bonds he forged on that “little island” of outdoor enthusiasts, surrounded on all sides by hundreds of miles of mountains and desert.
After Claire’s accident, Tracy Murphy said her son was “shaken to the core.”
Cole’s roommate was the patroller in the chute with Claire that day, she said. Last month, the roommate was among the patrollers frantically trying to dig Cole free.
She’s waiting for OSHA’s report, but for now, Murphy said, “I believe that Mammoth would not have knowingly put any patroller in danger. I feel, in my heart, that this was just an extremely unlucky event.”
Her son had been on the job for a few years before his accident; Claire Murphy had been a ski patroller for only a couple of months before hers.
The wind was howling “like a jet engine” that day, according to accounts Apa received from ski patrollers who were there.
The witnesses told Apa that Claire’s partner triggered the fatal avalanche with his skis, and was quickly swallowed by it. But he survived, at least in part because he was about 6½ feet tall and his head remained above the debris.
It’s still a mystery why Claire was in the path of the slide, but the difficulty of hearing and seeing each other amid the wind and blowing snow probably played a part, Apa said.
Seconds after the slide began, it slammed Claire into the tree. When her colleagues dug her out, she was upright, with her back pinned against the trunk. She was facing uphill, Apa said, looking straight at the wall of snow bearing down on her.
Claire probably had no time to react, Apa said, pausing to steady herself before finishing the thought, but she hoped her daughter didn’t suffer. “It kills me to think of her trapped there, scared,” she said.
After hearing about the accident, Apa raced to Mammoth from the East Coast on a private jet provided by the mountain. She implored doctors to keep Claire’s heart beating until she arrived, she said. “I can’t come to a dead body, you have to keep her alive so I can hold her hand,” she begged.
Lisa Apa, left, with her daughter Claire Murphy.
(Lisa Apa)
Apa arrived in time to spend a few days in a Reno hospital with her unconscious daughter. She washed and braided her hair, read her letters from people wishing her well, and thought about what she wanted to say to the other young women on the ski patrol.
“Don’t get out of the snowcat if you’re scared,” she said she told them at Claire’s memorial service and in private conversations. “Go back down the mountain if you think what they’re doing is wrong. You have to say something, you have to.”
But that’s tough, Apa acknowledged, because there are only so many ski patrol jobs in the country, and most of those women had been dreaming about it since they were little girls.
Becoming persona non grata at either of the two big companies that dominate the U.S. ski industry — Alterra and Vail Resorts — could be a career killer, patrollers fear.
Apa said she is still haunted by the possibility that concern for their jobs prevents patrollers from pushing for safer working conditions, and that what happened to Claire and Cole will soon be forgotten.
On a cold, crisp day last week, beneath an almost impossibly peaceful cobalt sky, a reporter skied the Avalanche Chutes with a group of locals including a former patroller and a professional mountain guide who trains clients on avalanche safety.
There had been no significant fresh snow for weeks, so no one was worried about avalanches. Alone on the broad, steep face, the only sound came from the metal edges of skis biting into the hard surface.
The group pointed their skis toward a stand of tall fir trees hundreds of feet below. Some of them had been snapped in half by previous avalanches, one was still caked on its uphill side with thousands of pounds of snow.
And one, just below it, had a recent boot track around its base. A photographer trained his sharp eye on a faded strand of red cloth, light as gossamer, pinned to the trunk at eye level. Dried rose petals hung around it.
