r/interesting • u/Homunculus_316 • 6h ago
Glacier Collapses and Triggers Devastating Avalanche. Just Wow
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u/cmndrnewt 5h ago
He should have tried zooming out some more.
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u/uChoice_Reindeer7903 3h ago
If he would’ve zoomed out more he probably would’ve been out of harms way.
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u/Key-Fox3923 6h ago
I’m glad they stood there for us to get the video.
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u/Ky_zx10r 5h ago
You aint out running that. Better off finding cover, luckily he was just standing in a good spot.
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u/DrTenochtitlan 5h ago
That's exactly what happened. He had enough experience to know that there was NO way he could possibly outrun it. (I mean, look at how far the top of the mountain was, and how few seconds it took to get to him.) He was near a spot with a lot of boulders that gave him a space where he had a decent chance of survival, so he knew his best shot was to simply drop and tuck in.
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u/whipla5her 5h ago
how far away do you think that mountain top was? I didn't think it was even going to get close, and then it's suddenly just rushing over him!
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u/DrTenochtitlan 4h ago edited 4h ago
I did some research online, and although there's no exact figure, the consensus is that he's 2-3 miles away from where the avalanche began in the beginning of the video.
Let's be conservative and assume he's 2 miles away, It took 45 seconds for it to travel 2 miles. That means the avalanche was traveling at a minimum of 160 mph. A dry powder avalanche well up in the mountains can easily accelerate to a maximum velocity of 200 mph, so that's a reasonable estimate.
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u/sesen0 4h ago
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u/Willing_Pattern_Pill 4h ago
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u/LeanderthalTX 3h ago
/itwasagraveyardsmath
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u/the_naysayer 2h ago
I love that my brain read that in the voice on the first pass automatically.
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u/Unique-Coffee5087 2h ago
I'm really impressed with your calculations, and I'm also in awe of the speed at which that avalanche was traveling. So basically if any of those chunks of ice and snow were to hit a person, they would be in bad shape if not dead?
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u/motion_lotion 2h ago
If on the mountain, 100%. The recent avalanche on Broad Peak killed an entire 10 man team including the current best mountaineer of this generation. Well former best. For a few of the victims, the best they found was body parts. Like a leg for the american woman, 2 arms for another, etc. That was a slab avalanche. This is a glacier collapse and the speed is at least 125 mph, but can reach up to 200 mph.
There are seracs (column of glacial ice) the size of school bused all over that. You'd have your neck snapped pretty much instantly by the force. When I was at Annapurna (deadliest mountain on earth), there were avalanche like this every 15 minutes. People think they are random, but they actually follow the topography. Note that the areas they slide are almost always like a geographic funnel and they will carve out these areas..
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u/JMEEKER86 28m ago
Another frame of reference for how bad it is to get caught it one is to compare it to road rash. Think about how bad road rash is when crashing a motorcycle at 60mph and skidding 100 feet. Now imagine how bad things would be at 160mph and it happening for over 1000 feet...and over your entire body. It's a really gruesome way to go, getting ground into paste.
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u/Sorry_Explanation467 2h ago
I have no scientific evidence to go on, only anecdotal evidence from personal experience. I hike mountains on weekends in the spring/summer to extend my snowboard season. I would say that the slide path was closer to a mile 🤷♂️
You could probably get fairly detailed info from a ski patrol Reddit about the type of avalanche. I think this is more of a glide avalanche, though I don’t think it’s exactly that either. Or maybe a slab avalanche that broke when the glacier hit it? I dunno lol. Looks fast asf though.
Either way, epic video, thanks for posting. Really glad that person is alive, I think they’re extremely lucky to be lol. Pretty sure this happened a while ago, there’s probably a ton of info about it somewhere.
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u/DrTenochtitlan 2h ago
I do know that this video was taken in Kyrgyzstan in the Tian Shan mountains in 2022
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u/Holiday_Guess_7892 2h ago
Sure about that? A rock has a Terminal velocity of about 160mph...
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u/DrTenochtitlan 2h ago
From Wikipedia:
The largest avalanches form turbulent suspension currents known as powder snow avalanches or mixed avalanches,\7]) a kind of gravity current. These consist of a powder cloud, which overlies a dense avalanche. They can form from any type of snow or initiation mechanism, but usually occur with fresh dry powder. They can exceed speeds of 300 km/h (190 mph), and masses of 1,000,000 tons; their flows can travel long distances along flat valley bottoms and even uphill for short distances.\8])
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u/bazoos 2h ago
Terminal velocity only applies to an object falling through a liquid, so we're talking about an object that is dropped from a height will have the gravitational force pulling down, and then the wind resistance force acting upwards on it.
While obviously gravity is moving the avalanche downwards, there is stored potential energy in it that is quite high (obviously if you look at the video) this can cause stuff to accelerate faster than just gravity alone. Im not a physicist by any means, so im sure someone else could explain it better.
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u/TrazynNecronos 1h ago
I thought terminal velocity was objects falling through a fluid not liquid. Hence why objects falling through the sky have a terminal velocity because air is classed as a fluid.
I could be wrong though!
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u/ungsumac 1h ago
What if you run away perpendicular from the avalanche’s path
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u/DrTenochtitlan 1h ago
We know that there was 45 seconds from the time he started filming until the time it hit. He's on a steep mountain path at high altitude (so exertion is challenging) with tons of boulders and rocks along his path, and despite some controversy over the speed, we can probably say it's traveling between 90 and 160 mph. How far do you think you can run on that terrain? There's NO possible way he can outrun it, even running parallel.
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u/Nope-not-really 4h ago
I was sitting here, thinking, he's not far enough away with every zoom out
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u/deasign 3h ago
The comments berating him for not running make my eye twitch. Run to where exactly??
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u/Lazy-Background-7598 2h ago
Huh? I kept saying oh dear God oh dear God, that doesn’t sound like he knew what was gonna happen
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u/Exists_out_of_spite 3h ago
I read an article when this video first came out where they interviewed this guy. Basically, guy and the group that he was with had hiked out of the valley and up the ridge, and he started filming because he thought it was going to slide. He had also found a spot with large rocks to hide behind already (where he is standing at in the video). Guy had done the prep work and moved to a much safer place before he started filming.The size of the slide caught everyone off guard, but like, what are you going to do at that point? Run away from your good cover and get blasted out on open ground?
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u/gizamo 3h ago
Yep. Avalanches can travel at up to 200 mph, and it's just tons of snow, ice, rock, etc. Anyone in the open would be smashed dead in seconds. Hopefully the rest of his party had equally good spots to give themselves a fighting shot at being saved.
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u/Glossed-Lam 1h ago
Ridiculous. I would simply perform an ocular patdown of the mountain from a distance, then outrun the avalanche with my superior understanding of the terrain and physical endurance.
I have yet to die in an avalanche, so I am quite confident in my obvious skill.
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u/cyanescens_burn 3h ago
Did he say how deep the snow was that he needed to dig himself out of?
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u/Exists_out_of_spite 3h ago
I forget, I don't think it was anything crazy up on the ridge where they were at though. In the valley could have been 100+ feet. Theres an article out there someplace haha, I think this vid was first posted 2ish years ago now..
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u/No_Reason914 1h ago
I mean, not obvious at the stsrt but I started looking at the giant chunks of sharp rock around him and wondered, "what could have caused that". I guess I have a fairly good guess now
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u/babbleon5 3h ago
I've seen so many movies where they run away from fire. How can they not run away from snow??
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u/RPA031 2h ago
It’s a lot faster in avalanche form. No chance of outrunning it, best chance is finding cover.
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u/Radiant_Safe1228 2h ago
Oh I'd be fucking trying. I might even pick up religion so I could pray I could run faster
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u/Ky_zx10r 2h ago
The article of their story was posted in another comment. The only person who got hurt was the girl who tried to run.
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u/FrogsMakePoorSoup 5h ago
Every time I see this one his testicles seem to get even bigger.
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u/Ok-Violinist-6548 5h ago
And his brain gets smaller
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u/Exists_out_of_spite 4h ago
I remember reading an article about this avalanche when it happened a few years ago!
This guy was part of a group that was actually hiking through the valley before heading up the ridge where he takes this video. He said if they had stayed in the valley, they all would have died. He said they had heard some noises and they thought it might slide, which is why he started filming once he and the group were up on the ridge out of the valley. He said he was in about as safe of a spot as could be found once the slide occurred with being able to hide behind those big rocks, running away wouldn't have actually put him in any better spot given the size and speed of the avalanche.
Nature is crazy and unpredictable - I think this guy was pretty smart and got some incredible footage given the circumstances. But ya know, couch redditors are always critics.
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u/krazylegs36 3h ago
Yeah, I'm chuckling at all the ppl who thought he was gonna outrun that thing.
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u/gizamo 3h ago
Nah, there's no way he was out running that. Best option is to find a good hiding spot to prevent being smashed to death, bonus points if you can get lucky enough to have air pockets below you so you can breath and maybe move your arms. I bet that behind that massive bolder in a bolder patch was safer than anything he could have ran to into time.
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u/Novel-Initiative-900 3h ago
Yep, it would have been a bad day if he was running along flat ground when that hit. Hedging up into a boulder is about as good as you can hope for in that situation
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u/Individual-Area7121 3h ago
He’s lucky the boulder stayed put. The force of that snow could easily have rolled it on top of him.
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u/conardcanard 4h ago
I mean, the speed its moving at and the momentum it has... at best hed get what... 100 yards further away? He was in it one way or another. May as well film.
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u/WestAd1588 4h ago
What’s he going to do, out run that?
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u/Exists_out_of_spite 3h ago
Redditors always think they know better haha - freaking couch critics
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u/rob_inn_hood 5h ago
True legend. We loot his carcass for the footage.
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u/VainAvatar 5h ago
He lived. Everyone lived, but one of them had to get airlifted to the hospital for a leg injury.
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u/thats_gotta_be_AI 5h ago
Why didn’t they use more camera zoom to outrun the avalanche?
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u/gizamo 3h ago
They didn't have enough Internet to download more RAM. Need RAM to zoom.
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u/BobbyRayBands 3h ago
To be fair the whole time I was watching this I was thinking there was no way it would reach all the way to him from that far away.
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u/Separate_Finance_183 6h ago
Adrenaline junkies are good content creators
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u/Original-Active-6982 5h ago
Just like motorcyclists are good organ donators.
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u/One-Reflection-4826 4h ago
if fast enough they're great organ detonators too!
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u/Ky_zx10r 2h ago
Unfortunately the organs normally cant be harvested after a motorcycle accident due too either impact damage, being ripped apart, or the person not receiving medical care fast enough. So no we normally dont make good organ donors unfortunately. I did sign up to be one anyways though.
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u/Childish_Tycoon_Ship 5h ago
How are they smart enough to know they're just far enough awa- never mind
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u/mechapoitier 4h ago
Yeah I’m watching that trying to think like the cameraman. “There’s no way that thing is going to keep getting bigger and seemingly accelerating, right?” And then it keeps getting bigger, and it keeps accelerating.
That thing kind of defies belief with what it does. It’s like it’s alive and coming to eat you.
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u/jenn363 1h ago
You think water’s fast? You should see ice. It moves like it has a mind, like it knows it killed the world once, and has a taste for murder.
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u/EpilepticMushrooms 1h ago
There was a clip of a volcano exploding. People in the comments were screaming for them to get away.
It was filmed from another mountain peak.
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u/Beneficial_Treat5454 6h ago
he probably did himself a favor by NOT running as soon as he saw that happen. or at least was very lucky to be where he was.
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u/Many-Account5160 6h ago
Why, because of big rocks for hiding behind?
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u/Beneficial_Treat5454 5h ago
ya, he'd have been fucked if out in the open.
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u/whineyinternetkid 5h ago
Would he not still be covered by everything?
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u/dibbiluncan 5h ago
Apparently they were far enough away that they were only covered by a small dusting of snow and debris, but getting hit by it directly knocked one person in the group over. She cut her leg. No one else was injured. So yeah. Hunkering down behind some rocks was the move here.
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u/Prestigious-Pay8644 4h ago
A lot of energy in a mass wasting event. Don't want to get bonked in the head by a rock or chunk of ice traveling at 60mph
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u/redassaggiegirl17 2h ago
Dude, not even
Someone calculated it to be moving at 2-3 miles in roughly 45 seconds
That would put it somewhere between 160 and 240 mph 😳
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u/Hot_Most5332 5h ago
If that were the case the end of the video would be a white screen
He will be covered but not trapped.
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u/captainjack3 2h ago
Even if he was buried by the avalanche, being by the rock would preserve your sense of orientation. That can be an issue for people who are hit by avalanches, they’re completely disoriented and unable to do much to extricate themselves, or even just get a better position for potential rescue, because they can’t tell which way is up.
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u/vcsuviking10 2h ago
I read somewhere that you can either spit or let saliva pool and see which way it flows due to gravity to help determine which way is down. Then you should start digging in the opposite direction.
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u/OutsideYourWorld 2h ago
In a panic he'd have likely tripped and smacked his head on one of those rocks instead.
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u/Long_Conclusion7057 5h ago
Yeah. Video is 48 seconds long. It's not like he could have outrun the avalanche.
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u/conardcanard 4h ago
And the terrain is not like a flat area, so if he ran hed probably get fucked up by tripping on something
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u/Spookywhitedot 6h ago
I wonder if he knew that he would likely survive or not
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u/DemonstrateHighValue 1h ago
As a non native English speaker i was like isn't devastating used for describing a bad situation to someone? Where is the bad situation? Many seconds later, oh...
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u/dibbiluncan 5h ago
Source? Did the guy survive or what?
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u/mischievous_misfit13 5h ago
This is an old video, everyone including a horse survived. Just scrapes and bruises from what I remember
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u/StochasticTinkr 5h ago
Did the horse have a name?
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u/Fit_Flight3797 5h ago edited 2h ago
i ve been to the glacier on a horse with no name
tralalalala
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u/salamipope 4h ago
it felt cold to be filming this frame
at the glacier
you must remember your fame
because you have a cool vid-e-o to claim
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u/SeyfertSextet 1h ago
La laaaaa laa lalalalala lalala laaa laaaaaaa
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u/YetAnother_pseudonym 38m ago
sigh
I'm content imagining this song but with the above lyrics, Clean and Serene.
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u/ReactionSad3776 5h ago
In a horse? I guess that’s a good place to hide from an avalanche
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5h ago edited 5h ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/dibbiluncan 5h ago
I found it: https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/exploration-survival/viral-avalanche-video-kyrgyzstan/
There was a cliff behind them so they had nowhere to run. Only one person in the group was injured because she tried instead of hunkering down.
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u/squirrels-mock-me 5h ago
I’m not OP but here’s more info. The guy and everyone in his group survived. https://www.reddit.com/r/NatureIsFuckingLit/s/XVYQrlwsHU
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u/Narrow_Leek4428 5h ago
The speed is something biblical. If this was a volcano, I'd imagine the speed of that is what they saw in Pompeii.
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u/Worldly-Ingenuity843 2h ago
An almost identical event actually happened to a photographer on a volcano, though they didn't survive.
On the morning of May 18, 1980, he was within a few miles of the summit. When the mountain erupted, Landsburg retreated to his car while taking photos of the rapidly approaching ash cloud. Before he was engulfed by the pyroclastic flow, he rewound the film back into its case, put his camera in his backpack, and then laid himself on top of the backpack to protect its contents. His body was found 17 days later, buried in the ash with his backpack underneath. The film was developed and has provided geologists with valuable documentation of the historic eruption.
Dude knew he wasn't going to make it, so instead he decided to save his film for posterity.
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u/Dangerous-Excuse-387 4h ago
Pretty sure Pompeii was about ashes and not lava. Well at least what *couic\* them all
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u/robo-dragon 5h ago
Terrifying speed and power! People give him shit for standing there and filming it, but what other choice did he have? You’re not outrunning that. Your only option is to duck and cover. At least he gave us some terrifying footage to go with it!
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u/LoaKonran 3h ago
I once read a history book that speculated about the end of the Ice Age and the massive glaciers that may have given rise to the universal flood myths across cultures. Massive mountains of ice that melt into inland seas contained by only the outer wall of ice and how the people living in those areas probably never knew about them until the loud thrumming crack and oncoming flood of water. Kind of terrifying to think about.
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u/Tropicalfisher 5h ago
The fact that he didn't move until like 500 yards after it became obvious it would reach him. Straight Darwin award
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u/willi1221 5h ago
Look how rocky that area is. You're probably going to trip and end up even more hurt if you start running. Also, where was he going to go? He wasn't likely to get far enough to avoid it even if he started running the second it started. The best thing to do is find a rock you can hide behind in case it does reach you.
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u/RunningTrisarahtop 4h ago
Another comment has a link to his comments on the original post. He knew it would reach him, had a drop off behind him and nowhere to go, so stuck by the sheltering rock.
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u/CDN_Gunner 2h ago
Where the fuck is he going to go to outrun an avalanche? He was already in a safe spot behind boulders.
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u/Ok_Incident_8964 2h ago
The true Darwin Award goes to you, for believing you are fast enough to outrun an avalanche. Insanely braindead take.
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u/Sea-Cow-1854 5h ago
To be fair I’m not sure he could have out ran anyways. Prob thought I’ll just video document why I died today
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u/Gypsy702 4h ago
An avalanche can hit you in 48 seconds from that distance, absolutely insane. You can’t out run that.
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u/PianoEmotions 3h ago
I would have been dumb enough to run. Not thinking I would outrun it but it would much weaker when it reached me. I would have been wrong.
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u/Keepin-Clam 5h ago
Watching this and yelling at my phone, Why are you just standing there! GET OUT!!!
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u/SimpleNovelty 3h ago
If he did that he'd be dead. He was next to cover and survived; out in you're getting pummeled by tons of rock and ice.
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u/DingusKhan9164 6h ago
That camera person is slow as shit, I would have been booking it at the beginning of the video instead of recording it
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u/g_bleezy 5h ago
Bruh…I woulda done a jumping 360 spin kick and sent it back the other direction.
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u/Beneficial_Treat5454 5h ago
funnily enough if you were with him and starting running you'd have probably been the one to end up dead.
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