San Diegans witnessed the weekend avalanche on Mammoth Mountain that buried eight people and launched a massive six-hour search for possible victims.
“For the first hour on the mountain all you heard were hoots and hollers,” said Elise Wetherell.” Then afterwards it was just really quiet.”
Wetherell and her husband, Mike, got to Mammoth Friday night after the long drive from their La Jolla home. They were excited to take advantage of the new snow produced by what they described as the storm of the season.
While waiting for a chair lift, they heard a loud blast – what Mammoth Mountain calls their routine avalanche mitigation.
On Saturday, that routine practice triggered an avalanche of snow that rumbled down the mountain and took snowboarders and skiers by surprise.
“It happened too quick from the time we saw it, it was only two seconds, until it had already plowed through everybody,” said Mike Wetherell.
The avalanche released on the Climax ski run traveled down Upper Dry Creek and finally ending at the bottom of Chair 5 just after 10 a.m. Two guests and six employees were temporarily buried in snow but were able to free themselves, according to a resort spokesperson.
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The powder cloud covered 100 meters, according to the resort.
San Diegan Hunter Wanket was also on the mountain and said he saw the avalanche from above.
“You know it was about 30, 40-feet high. It hit us while we were on the chair lift,” Wanket said.
Unable to help anyone from the chair lift, the snowboarders recalled the sounds.
“All you could hear were people calling out for each other like calling out for your dad or somebody’s name and it was really intense,” said Mike Wetherell. “That was eerie, yeah,” Elise agreed.
The mountain closed for the rest of the day Saturday, set to reopen Sunday.
