Mammoth Lakes Ski Writer Survives French Avalanche

Nathan Wallace had just sat down on the sofa with his girlfriend, snuggling in for a cozy afternoon at their ski chalet in the French Alps.

Then his world imploded.

“Suddenly the windows turned black and a cloud of snow came in,” he said Wednesday. “We were thrown into the corner and the roof collapsed.”

Cowering under broken beams, the 28-year-old ski writer from Mammoth Lakes, Calif., and his girlfriend, Alicia Boice, 21, waited for two hours before hearing the crunch of footsteps nearby.

They were among more than 20 people pulled from under tons of snow Tuesday after the worst avalanches in 91 years struck near the southeastern ski resort of Chamonix. At least 10 people were killed, including four children, and 17 chalets were destroyed.

Twisted metal from smashed cars and splinters of wood from crushed chalets jutted from hills of snow Wednesday. The frozen crust was so hardened by the end of the day that rescue workers had to resort to drills and heavy machinery to bore through it.

Wallace and Boice had huddled on the floor by a closet, grabbing warm clothes as they prepared for the ordeal ahead.

“Luckily we were in a good spot at the time of the avalanche,” he said. “If we’d been in the kitchen or the bathroom, we’d be dead.”

Both were expert skiers and had experienced avalanches before--but never one like this.

“This was more like a Californian earthquake,” Wallace said, his arm stitched and bandaged after the ordeal.

Rescue workers used sensors and dogs to search for the dead and the missing. A 12-year-old boy was found shivering in the snow. His parents, both dead, lay nearby. A 4-year-old girl was among the four children killed.

The bodies of a French ski guide and his girlfriend were located under a drift, but remained beyond the reach of rescuers, worker Blaise Agresti said. Their chalet was ripped from its foundations and “exploded,” he said.

The 12-year-old boy was being treated for hypothermia at Chamonix Hospital, and police said his life was not in danger. The child was not identified.