The Avalanche That Stripped the Mountain Bare

In February 2019, a backcountry guide named Erik Holsen was leading a group near Rogers Pass in British Columbia when they heard what he later described as "a sound like the earth clearing its throat." Across the valley, an avalanche broke loose from a ridgeline and began its descent. Thousands of tons of snow swept down the mountainside, snapping mature spruce trees like matchsticks, peeling bark from trunks, and scouring every living thing from the slope.…