THE DARKEST WHITE: A Mountain Legend and the Avalanche That Took Him, by Eric Blehm
I have no shame in admitting to neither a scintilla of knowledge of, nor any potential ability in, the wildly popular sport of snowboarding. So the unfamiliar jargon and the curious cast of characters in Eric Blehm’s latest outdoor true adventure story passed right over my head.
And yet, this is probably the most unremittingly exciting book of nonfiction I have come across in years.
I found myself reading late into recent nights wholly transfixed by every paragraph, every word — including the line on Page 265 that introduced me to the memorable onomatopoeia whumpf! Apparently, this is the universally accepted term for the terrifying sound of an avalanche breaking loose — and, in this particular case, killing people.
It was January 2003, among the great glaciers of western Canada. Mercifully, there are two quite decent maps folded among the book’s images: The ultracompetent skiers and snowboarders who had been helicoptered to the remote lodge in the Selkirk Range are variously described as being on this ridge, up that couloir and in the shadow of various peaks, and, mapless, it all could have become a mite confusing. But the basic story is simple, and shattering.
On the morning of Jan. 20, the third day of their weeklong high-price adventure, there were two parties intent on a single goal: sliding at breakneck speed down a long and vertiginous slope appropriately named La Traviata — the fallen woman.
To achieve their desired level of thrill, each had to clamber to the top, and the manner and timing by which they did so remains controversial.
The first group, headed by the no-nonsense Swiss owner of the business, Ruedi Beglinger, tramped up in great zigzags, all having applied climbing skins to their boards to give uphill traction. The second party, led by a troubled and perpetually intimidated figure, Ken Wylie (who cordially loathed the Swiss climber slogging through the powder above him), left the shelter of the rocky edge of the slope and tried to follow in the tracks left by the others.
What happened next started almost at the very top, just as Beglinger was taking off his skins and preparing for the descent. He suddenly felt the snow drop beneath him, a massive settlement accompanied by that dreadful “whumpf!”
It was a classic instance of avalanche-generation: Somewhere deep below Beglinger’s feet was a layer of iced-over hard-packed snow — and for some reason the powder on top chose this very moment to begin to slide down it.
A great crack opened up, detaching a huge slab of powder that briefly carried some climbers downhill before they managed to jump free. But Wylie’s group, hundreds of feet below, was now directly in the cross hairs of a fast-accelerating, fast-accumulating, out-of-control ice-crystal bulldozer.
Within seconds they were inescapably snared, the avalanche mowing them all down like bowling pins and burying them deep under tons of cement-hard whiteness, entombing them in utter darkness.
Seven died, all asphyxiated by snow that had been forced into their airways. The tragic event is described in meticulous detail, brilliantly. Not least the moment when the hapless Ken Wylie is found, pinioned in sitting position, and seemingly dead — but then suddenly comes to life.
The last of the bodies to be dug out was that of the 36-year-old American Craig Kelly, the “mountain legend” of Blehm’s subtitle.
Kelly was a supremely talented figure: To watch him speeding with balletic grace down a near-vertical sheet of snow inspires undiluted awe; and the fact that this young man — with a new partner and daughter to care for — had walked away from professional sports (Olympic since 1998, and now vastly popular and profitable) to seek his thrills, most often alone, has a rare nobility.
Craig Kelly was clearly a decent human being, and his death a notable personal tragedy. But despite Blehm’s unbridled admiration, for the average reader the many pages devoted to his memory are of much less interest than those telling of the avalanche that killed him, and the recrimination that followed.
The prejudice of gathering age plays a part in such an assessment, I know. But consider: Mountain sports are really all to do with gravity. My teenage heroes — John Harlin, Tenzin Norgay, Chris Bonington — all worked slowly, with skill and fortitude, against the forces of gravity, pushing themselves relentlessly upward.
But, and significantly I think, Craig Kelly and his legions of disciples did what they did and do in concert with gravity, sliding ever downward, with unimaginable style to be sure — but for what, ultimately? To what end?
Of course, great mountains are dangerous places, for all who do business on their flanks: Avalanches have taken the lives of climbers and snowboarders in equal measure. But to me the choice is stark, pitting the nobility of ambition against the ache for the merely thrilling. Whether to plant a flag on a summit and look with the pride of achievement up into the endless blue — or to risk ending the ride of a life with that terrible airless dark, and that ghastly, immemorial whumpf!
THE DARKEST WHITE: A Mountain Legend and the Avalanche That Took Him | By Eric Blehm | Ecco | 352 pp. | $32
