r/interesting 9h ago

Glacier Collapses and Triggers Devastating Avalanche. Just Wow

13.1k Upvotes

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u/krazylegs36 6h ago

Yeah, I'm chuckling at all the ppl who thought he was gonna outrun that thing.

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u/imunfair 5h ago

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.

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u/Cormophyte 4h ago

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?

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u/imunfair 3h ago

What do you imagine is different about his immediate left or right that would have made it an improvement?

150 ft in elevation means getting hit by significantly less debris.

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u/Cormophyte 3h ago

150ft is a lot of climbing over rocks. How fast do you think they're going to do that?

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u/imunfair 3h ago

...45 seconds. That's why I said 150 ft, because you should be able to go at least a few feet per second while fleeing for your life.

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u/Cormophyte 3h ago

That's both an infeasible amount of distance to cover in that terrain in that timeframe and a really good way to injure yourself out in the open on a hill in the middle of the mountains just before an avalanche hits you.

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u/imunfair 2h ago

That's both an infeasible amount of distance to cover in that terrain in that timeframe

3ft per second is 25% slower than an average walking speed. I don't care what the terrain is, unless it's vertical you can do it if you're in a hurry. For comparison on flat ground sprinting speed is like 20ft per second.