Cassidy pulled to a stop just above Tara, her chest heaving and her grin a mile wide. She looked up the slope to where Pete waited, and gave him a wave with her pole. He swiveled his body down the slope and quickly gained speed, cutting a path in the sunlight that had now crept to halfway down the slope. Mark lowered to one knee, following him with his lens as Pete shot by. Puffs of snow-mist shaken loose from his turns erupted into the blue alpine air and evaporated like smoke.
A loud cracking sound exploded like gunfire, and everything happened at once: a fracture line appeared between Mark and Pete, stretching from the ridge to halfway to the trees, and large blocks of snow broke away from the mountain.
“Pete!” Cassidy shouted, but the roar of the avalanche silenced her cry.
Pete was trying to keep on top of the freefalling jumble, his arms spread wide. Even from a distance, Cassidy could see the look of terror on his face.
“Oh my god!” Tara screamed.
The avalanche had picked up speed and was racing towards them.
“Get into the trees!” Cassidy yelled.
Tara pushed off and raced into the forest.
Cassidy knew she should follow her, but she needed to keep her eyes on Pete so she knew where to start her search when the avalanche stopped. But it was coming for her too. She turned to go when a blast of snow and pressurized air hit her like a freight train, and everything went black.
Twelve
Mt. Baker backcountry
January 10, 2016, 11:07 am
Cassidy struggled her feet, hearing the avalanche roar down the mountain. “Pete!” she called out, her ears ringing. She returned to the edge of the trees. The slope had been scraped clean of its new layer of snow, leaving a granular-looking face dotted with chunks of debris. “Pete!” she called again, her eyes sweeping the slope for any sign of him. He could have stayed on top of the slide, she thought. Or there could be some clue as to where he had come to a stop—a ski pole sticking up, his pompom hat. Her breath caught as she thought about what would happen if they didn’t find him fast.
She zipped open her coat to unclip the side belt of her avalanche beacon and turned the dial on its face to receive.
Mark’s voice called out to them while he side slipped down the icy slope above Cassidy. He skidded to a stop just above her.
“We’re okay,” Tara replied, emerging from the forest.
“Everyone turn your beacons to receive,” Cassidy ordered, trying to keep the panic from her voice. How many minutes had already elapsed? One? Three? She knew from experience that people could stay alive under the snow for twenty, even thirty minutes, but those were rare cases. Most people ran out of air after seven minutes, and many people were injured by the tumbling of the avalanche, sometimes fatally.
“Did you see him?” Cassidy asked Mark, her voice shaky.
Mark swept his beacon back and forth in front of him in an attempt to pick up Pete’s signal. “The cloud kind of swallowed him up, but he was on the left side of it.” He pointed to a tree that was missing its middle section of branches. “There.”
The three of them spread out and began to slide down, slowly. Cassidy watched her beacon for signs of a signal. Below her about three hundred yards, the avalanche had decelerated, leaving a giant pile of blocks and mounded snow that Cassidy knew would have already set up like concrete.
A moment later her beacon blipped. “I got him!” she cried.
“Me too!” Tara said.
Mark swiveled left to right while sliding downhill slowly. “Got ’im,” he said finally, his face grim.
The three skiers slid to the edge of the snow deposit. They all removed their skis and continued on foot. Her heartbeat rammed into her ears as the signal continued to strengthen. Her beacon flashed smaller and smaller numbers, indicating that she was getting closer. Her lungs burned with the exertion of climbing over and around the ice blocks, and the anxiety that they may already be too late.
No, she told herself, her eyes on her display. We’re going to find him.
They followed the signals around a giant chunk, then over a hard mound.
“His ski!” Mark called out, and Cassidy turned to see him hand-digging the tip of Pete’s ski out of the snow.
Cassidy’s signal started buzzing, the numbers flashing. She dropped her pack. “He’s close,” she said. Can you hear me, Pete? She imagined him tucked into a ball somewhere beneath her feet, waiting. We’re coming! Just hang on!
She stuck one of her ski poles in the snow and continued walking until the signal faded, then she planted her other pole. Tara and Mark were doing the same, only in the left-right axis, and when they were done, Pete’s position had been narrowed to a square of snow about ten feet wide. Cassidy yanked her probe out of her backpack. How much time had they used up now? It felt like hours but that couldn’t be right. As a ski patroller, Cassidy had participated in many avalanche rescues, some successful, some not. Her crew completed countless drills every season. She had partnered with avalanche dogs and their handlers, with teams of ten, teams of two. She had used every brand of beacon in order to familiarize herself with the particularities of each type. It never took her longer than ten minutes.
But Pete might not have ten minutes.
Tara and Mark had removed and assembled their probes and the three of them plunged the long black metal poles into the snow, hoping to hit something that might be Pete. Cassidy moved forward one step
