It’s a story of disaster, courage, loss – and one improbable miracle of survival. And a quarter-century after the fact, it’s a story ski resort managers and avalanche scientists study as a lesson of the destructive power of Mother Nature.”
- David Bunker of TheUnion.com April 2007

On March 31, 1982 one of the largest ski disasters in US history struck Alpine Meadows Ski Resort in Lake Tahoe, California. For the ski patrolman of Alpine Meadows, avalanche control and rescue operations come second nature, but this time was different, it became emotional and personal to search for their closest friends and ski patrol family. With all of their equipment buried under twenty feet of snow; they utilized anything and everything they could find to dig through the rubble of what was once their base lodge, to find possible survivors. The avalanche tragically took the lives of seven people including the mountain manager, Bernie Kingery, but one life was spared. For five days Anna Conrad was trapped under twenty feet of snow, protected only by the collapsed walls and furniture that had created a small space around her.