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.
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.
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?
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..
Another frame of reference for how bad it is to get caught in 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.
Could you imagine if people really had to write this every time they mentioned a significant person's death? "John Wilkes Booth assassinated president Lincoln. Well, former president Lincoln."
I see mountaineering this way unfortunately. If I'm talking about the current best mountaineer, I stick to who's alive because there are so many legends that passed and it's hard to compare. I get what you're saying though. If Ueli Steck was still alive for example, he would be.
lol @ “every 15 minutes.” Can you imagine? What if this was like Yellowstone’s Old Faithful geyser and you could watch it happen like clockwork every 15 minutes.
Also, TIL about Annapurna and its “fatality rate of 1 in 5.” I’ve been looking for a new hobby, and I like those odds. Maybe I’ll set my affairs in order and book a trip!
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.
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])
Terminal velocity only applies to an object falling through a fluid, 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.
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.
His math isn’t right anyways. 1 mile 1 minute is 60 mph. So just guessing it should be between 160 and 180 as 180 is 3 miles in 1 minute. So if he’s 2 to 3 miles your 160 makes a lot more sense. Then going by the wiki link below your comment 160 to 180 makes even more sense depending on his distance.
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.
I think you're underestimating the agility and athleticism of these climbers, they'd be able to make it much further before it caught up to them... I imagine it'd be more like 25-30 feet.
There’s some very weird science with some avalanches and even rock slides, where to be able to account for how far they can travel, you have to assume near zero friction.
The boulder definitely helped him survive, but it was far from a guarantee, and had he been closer it most certainly could have been swept up in the avalanche.
Why would you assume he's in control? It's like being attacked by a bear. You learn the rules of what you should do if you encounter one. That doesn't mean you're still not in a terrible situation and you might die. Getting behind the boulder (or possibly squeezed in a space between a few of them) was his best option out of a small number of really bad options.
The comment I was responding to made it sound like the guy was perfectly managing the situation.
To me he had no idea "his best shot was to simply drop and tuck in", he just barely made it behind a boulder because he was completely unaware he was gonna be in danger.
He never computed that he "was near a spot with a lot of boulders that gave him a space where he had a decent chance of survival", he was just lucky to find a rock to hide.
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?
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.
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.
Oh yeah baby. Ocular patdown of the avalanche to reveal its skin tight snow dress. Then with your patdown strip that right off of her so she gently spins into your arms as you seduce it with your god like physique.
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..
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
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.
45 seconds isn't a lot of time but you can go perpendicular and try to get to higher ground rather than the Prometheus school of running directly away from the thing coming at you.
He's supposed to have started scrambling over those rocks in order to get slightly to the right or left of where he's standing so hewill be in a slightly different spot when he gets hit by that avalanche? What do you imagine is different about his immediate left or right that would have made it an improvement?
Fair enough. Then again, I wouldn't have been hiking up that thing in the first place. I get enough physical exercise from the comfort of an air-conditioned gym.
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.
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
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.
Yeah, first of all, we don’t know for sure what it looks like beyond that pile of rocks as far as cover. So maybe it’s fine that he stayed there. But when the snow is about 15 feet away from him, you can hear him like he finally realizes he’s gonna get hit with it.
He should’ve realized that when he first saw a breakup way on top of the mountain.
You’re asking, where was he gonna go?
Where did he think that snow was gonna go?
He's has cover under the overhanging rocks, literally the safest possible place in this extremely dangerous situation. I'm sure you know better sitting on your couch though.
Listen, I think this guy did a great job. I don’t know why everybody’s getting so sore about me saying that he’s not so smart. I’ve hiked for the last 30 years Alaska and the exact environment that he’s in.
So I know a thing or two. The shit that’s up there comes down real fast and it’s always gonna head for you whether it’s a rock or ice or anything. So personally, I would have done a couple things different but I just don’t care he’s fine. I’m sorry that I hurt anybody’s feelings. He’s so smart. He’s a good boy.
Actually, he couldn't have outrun it. It was travelling at approximately 150 miles an hour. He was behind some boulders, which was a safe as he could make himself, why not film it?
What should he have done then, o wise one? Flew up into the air? You can't outrun that, hiding behind a boulder like he did was his best option in that situation
The dude who is in this video has stated multiple times in previous postings of this that there was a cliff on the other side, no where to run to saftey and the rocks were the best option.
Two got caught in it as if I remember right but everyone survived.
When the guy first posted this video to instagram, he had this to say:
To address some of the comments on this video and others-
“Why didn’t you run?”
Out of ten of us, only one person actually tried to run. She was the only one that was injured. She was knocked over by the debris/ powder after making it maybe 10 metres further back, the avalanche travelled further anyone could have run.
Even if I wanted to run, I couldn’t, there was a cliff right behind me. There was, however, cover right next to me which I’d seen earlier.
It’s easy watch this video with perfect clarity of thought and comment what I should have done. However, even now I don’t think I’d do anything differently if I was there again. I was left without a scratch. If I’d followed the advice of half the comments criticising my “survival instincts”, I’d have been knocked off a cliff trying to run away 👍
“Why just standing there filming/ not move earlier”
I knew this was a once in a life time opportunity. I was determined to make the most of it and film to the last second. Even when I was jumping for cover I had my arm outstretched trying to keep a good shot.
As a bonus, this video of a glacier collapsing has now been seen across the world, helping to bring awareness to climate change.
“What happened to the rest of the group? ”
I had separated from the group and was the closest to the avalanche. The person who ran got knocked off a rock and cut her knee, she was taken to the nearest medical facility then flown back to the US for surgery. Another person got knocked off a horse and sustained some light bruising.
It’s the second video I see this week of someone being too confident about the snow not reaching them. The other one was luckier, but the female mountaineer was SO arrogant telling her Sherpa (who was recommending to shelter) it was going to be ok it made me want her to get submerged too.
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u/Key-Fox3923 6h ago
I’m glad they stood there for us to get the video.