Public Safety Film Release
The Proving
Ground
On Mount Washington, the most dangerous thing is often the fall.
25
life-threatening sliding falls on average every ski season
On Mount Washington, the most dangerous thing is often the fall.
MWAC has communicated the long sliding fall hazard for years through forecasts, trailhead signs, and direct conversations with visitors. Those tools remain important. But after years of watching the same mistakes repeat in the same terrain, MWAC Director Jeff Fongemie reached a conclusion: the gap was not awareness, it was understanding. People heading to Tuckerman Ravine generally knew the mountain could be dangerous. What they did not grasp, viscerally and personally, was the specific nature and consequence of a fall on frozen snow.
Text cannot fully communicate what it looks like when a person slides 600 vertical feet over rocks and ice. A sign at the trailhead cannot convey the sound of it, or the speed, or the helplessness of watching it happen. A film can.
"Year after year, we continue to see people make the same mistakes in the same terrain, and the consequences are often tragic and heartbreaking. Traditional warnings and trailhead conversations are not enough. We needed something more powerful, something people could absorb before momentum, excitement, and commitment take over."
Jeff Fongemie, MWACThe Proving Ground was designed to reach people during the trip-planning phase, before they pack their car and commit to the drive to Pinkham Notch. It is built around the stories of people who survived and people who did not. It is produced by Warden Co., an award-winning production company, with the full participation of MWAC staff who lived these events.
Watch: The Proving Ground
When people picture a dangerous day on Mount Washington, they often picture 100mph winds, sub-zero temperatures, or an avalanche. The image makes sense: a mountain famous for the world's worst weather, ravines piled deep with wind-driven snow, and an avalanche center that publishes a forecast every winter morning. But the data tells a different story. Long sliding falls on hard or icy snow have caused more winter fatalities on Mount Washington than hypothermia and avalanches combined.
That fact sits at the center of The Proving Ground, a short film produced in partnership with Warden Co. and released by the Mount Washington Avalanche Center Foundation. It is not a film about what could go wrong on a bad day. It is a film about what goes wrong on ordinary days, on familiar terrain, among people who believed they understood the risk.
"Mostly what I've dealt with for the avalanche center, on rescues, have all been long sliding falls."
Kate Moynihan, former MWAC ForecasterThe film weaves together the testimony of survivors, the accounts of rescuers, and the hard facts of what happens during a fall on a frozen slope with no way to stop. It is available free of charge on YouTube.
This article is the companion to that film. It exists to go deeper: to explain the weather patterns that create the hazard, document what these incidents look like in practice, and give you the tools to recognize dangerous conditions before you are standing in them.
The term used by snow rangers and forecasters is "slide-for-life conditions." It describes a specific and predictable state of the snowpack: a surface so hard, smooth, and frictionless that a person who falls may accelerate uncontrollably and be unable to stop before reaching rocks, cliff bands, or the ravine floor hundreds of vertical feet below.
The physics are straightforward and brutal. On a slope angled between 35 and 50 degrees, a person sliding on hard ice reaches dangerous speeds almost immediately. There is little the body can do. An ice axe self-arrest, which is the standard mountaineering technique for stopping a fall, requires the axe to bite into the snow surface. On ice-hard refrozen snow, it cannot. As one MWAC accident report put it plainly: skiers often overestimate their ability to self-arrest and underestimate the speed at which they accelerate on icy terrain.
This hazard is a product of New England's volatile spring climate. The Presidential Range regularly experiences dramatic swings in temperature across a single week or even a single day. When temperatures rise above freezing and rain falls on the snowpack, the snow becomes saturated and heavy. When temperatures then drop sharply back below freezing, that saturated snow refreezes into a surface that is effectively concrete. The transition can happen in minutes or hours.
Intense sunshine creates a subtler version of the same trap. A sunny morning softens the snow on sun-exposed aspects, creating what feels like safe, edgeable conditions. As the sun moves and shadows cross the slope, that surface can refreeze almost instantly. A skier who descended a run at noon in soft corn may face completely different snow surface at 3 p.m. on the same slope.
A common and dangerous weather sequence on Mount Washington follows this pattern: a period of time with above-freezing temperatures and rain, followed by a rapid temperature drop back to below freezing. The result is a deeply saturated snowpack that freezes solid throughout, not just at the surface. This produces widespread slide-for-life conditions across all steep terrain, regardless of aspect.
This pattern occurred in the days leading up to each of the major incidents documented in this article.
The elevation and terrain of the Presidential Range amplify this hazard in ways that catch people off guard. Conditions at ravine level are not the same as conditions at the trailhead. A hiker who begins the approach to Tuckerman Ravine in softening spring snow may find the middle and upper elevations locked in ice. Snow that is soft and safe to climb at 9 a.m. can transition to no-fall territory by early afternoon. The higher you go, the faster that transition occurs, and the more severe the consequences of a fall become.
One of the most persistent patterns MWAC staff observe is the expert skier heuristic trap. Many of the people involved in serious incidents are strong, experienced skiers, often with years of resort skiing behind them. That skill and confidence is real, but it can produce a dangerous misalignment between perceived ability and actual consequence. An icy pitch at a resort like Wildcat is steep and challenging. Tuckerman Ravine is steeper, the exposure is vastly higher, and a fall does not care about your ability level. There is no packed groomer below you, no ski patrol sweep, no gradual runout. The terrain does not grade on a curve. Expert technique reduces your chance of falling, but it does not change what happens if you do.
Access to rescue is also far more limited than the trail's popularity suggests. Tuckerman Ravine draws thousands of visitors each year and is perceived by many as a relatively accessible backcountry destination. But it is unmanaged, unmaintained terrain. Helicopter evacuations are frequently denied due to fog and wind. When they are, rescue teams must belay injured patients down steep, icy terrain in litters, a process that can take hours. Transport to advanced medical care often takes the better part of a day.
That point deserves to be stated directly, because the popularity of Tuckerman Ravine can create a misleading impression. Thousands of people arrive each spring. There are trails, a shelter, and a caretaker. On a warm April day the ravine floor fills with spectators and the atmosphere can feel festive. None of that changes what the terrain actually is.
Tuckerman Ravine and the rest of the Presidential Range are backcountry mountaineering terrain. There are no ski patrol sweeps, no groomed runs, no hazard markers, no ropes closing off dangerous sections, and no open or closed signs in the terrain. The hazards that exist on any given day are not mitigated by anyone. A ski area manages risk on your behalf. In the backcountry, that responsibility belongs entirely to you.
No one will tell you a slope is too dangerous to ski or too icy to climb. No one will close terrain because conditions are poor, dangerous, or deadly. The terrain does not open and close. It simply exists, and it is up to every person who enters it to make an informed decision about when, where, and how to travel safely.
If something goes wrong, rescue will not be fast. Extracting an injured person from steep, technical terrain requires a significant mobilization of trained personnel, specialized equipment, and time. In many incidents, it takes several hours just to move a patient to a point where motorized transport is possible. Advanced medical care can be the better part of a day away. This is a reality of backcountry terrain.
Know this before you go. Factor it into your decisions in the backcountry. And if you find yourself at the edge of your ability in this terrain, turning around is always an option. The mountain will be there another day.
The good news about slide-for-life conditions is that they are identifiable and, in some cases, predictable. The following signs and practices can help you assess the hazard before committing to steep terrain.
"The best way to protect yourself is to simply not fall. In practice, this means recognizing icy, hard snow conditions and dialing back terrain choices to match your abilities and provide a wider margin of error."
MWAC Accident Analysis, March 2022It is also worth addressing a common misconception directly. Many people entering Tuckerman Ravine are aware of the risk in a general sense. MWAC Lead Forecaster Jeff Fongemie has spent years speaking with visitors at the trailhead and has observed that the problem is not usually ignorance of danger. It is underestimation: of how severe the terrain is, of how fast conditions change, and of what a fall in that environment actually looks and feels like. That is precisely what this film is designed to address.
Long sliding falls are not a new problem on Mount Washington. A review of MWAC incident records going back decades, along with data published in the American Alpine Club's Accidents in North American Mountaineering, makes clear that this is the most persistent and lethal hazard on the mountain. Nearly 150 people have died on Mount Washington over the years. The names of 24 individuals who lost their lives in falls in the Presidential Range are listed below.
The pattern repeats with painful consistency. Warm weather arrives in late winter or early spring, saturating the snowpack. Temperatures crash. The mountain locks up. People who arrived expecting spring corn skiing find a different mountain entirely, and some of them do not make it home.
What has changed in recent years is the volume of people arriving with varying levels of preparation. Backcountry skiing has grown dramatically in popularity. Tuckerman Ravine, as the most iconic and accessible ski mountaineering destination in the East, has seen corresponding growth in visitation. More people in consequential terrain means more incidents, and more rescuers put at risk to respond to them.
The following incidents are drawn from MWAC accident reports. They are included not to sensationalize but to illustrate what slide-for-life conditions produce in practice, and the chain of decisions, weather events, and circumstances that lead up to them.
Hillman's Highway and Summit Cone · March 13, 2016
On the afternoon of March 13, 2016, two separate incidents unfolded on the east side of Mount Washington within hours of each other. Both resulted in life-threatening injuries and required helicopter evacuation. Both were caused by long sliding falls on a refrozen spring snowpack.
The week prior had brought the classic dangerous sequence: extended warmth and over an inch of rain, followed by temperatures dropping to the low teens. On Saturday, conditions had softened nicely in the sun. Sunday was different. Skies were clear but blustery, and any slope that moved into shadow froze almost instantly into what one observer described as firm concrete.
In Hillman's Highway, a party of six experienced skiers stood at the top of the run and discussed what they were seeing. They recognized the snow had changed dramatically from the day before. Two in the group donned crampons and an ice axe and climbed down to assess the rollover. They made a collective decision that conservative skiing technique could manage the risk. The second skier to descend lost an edge on a patch of ice in the narrows. With no chance to self-arrest on the frozen surface, he slid approximately 1,000 vertical feet, striking rocks and ice bulges along the way. His injuries were life-threatening. He was evacuated by helicopter.
The same afternoon, a separate party of three, having pushed hard to the summit, chose to glissade down unfamiliar terrain rather than descend via the trail. One of them lost control. Rescuers reached the scene more than two hours after the incident. The femur fracture had not been stabilized. The patient was partially lying in the snow and had become dangerously cold.
What makes this case study particularly instructive is a detail recorded in the MWAC analysis: the group at the top of Hillman's watched a separate party of snowshoers top out of the same gully just before they began their descent. At least one skier later acknowledged the snowshoers looked terrified by what they had just done, and that perhaps this should have given the skiers more pause.
Chute, Tuckerman Ravine · March 26, 2022
Not every incident on Mount Washington involves a gap in preparation. On March 26, 2022, a 25-year-old skier fell 500 vertical feet in the Chute after a ski binding released unexpectedly in the upper part of the run. The skier and his party had come equipped with crampons and ice axes and had climbed safely to their intended line. The conditions that day were cold and cloudy with no prospect of spring softening.
Video footage of the incident showed the skier becoming airborne for more than 50 vertical feet after striking rocks, then continuing to tumble to the ravine floor. His helmet was cracked in several places. Remarkably, he remained conscious throughout, and after thorough assessment by USFS Snow Rangers and Volunteer Ski Patrol, he was able to walk out with assistance.
The MWAC analysis of this incident contains a point worth emphasizing: even if the skier had been holding his ice axe at the moment of the fall, it is unlikely that a self-arrest attempt would have changed the outcome. The value of this incident as a case study lies in what it shows about the nature of the terrain. An equipment malfunction, an unexpected edge catch, a moment of distraction: any of these can initiate a fall that the mountain will then finish on its own terms.
Tuckerman Ravine · March 9, 2024
The week before March 9, 2024 produced one of the most dangerous snowpack conditions the Presidential Range can generate. Mount Washington Observatory set a new record daily high temperature on March 6, and nearly two inches of rain fell over several days. The snowpack lost 12 inches of depth as it saturated. Then temperatures dropped back below freezing on March 7, and the mountain locked up solid.
On Saturday, March 9, the summit recorded an average temperature of 24 degrees Fahrenheit, with fog and sustained south winds averaging over 40 mph. Helicopter evacuation would later be denied due to weather. The snowpack was refrozen and firm, with reduced coverage exposing rocks, deep holes, and ice throughout the ravine.
At approximately 2:30 p.m., a party of two who had ascended Left Gully and crossed the top of the ravine toward an area above the Lip both slipped and fell approximately 600 vertical feet to the ravine floor. MWAC Snow Rangers and Volunteer Ski Patrol, who had been preparing to leave for the day, were alerted and arrived within minutes. Among the bystanders already on scene was a critical care physician, who assessed that one patient had sustained injuries incompatible with life. The other was in critical condition and required immediate evacuation.
Because helicopter transport was denied due to fog and low clouds, rescue teams belayed both patients in litters down steep, icy terrain to Hermit Lake. The process took approximately one hour. Before that evacuation was complete, a third patient was reported injured from a separate long sliding fall in Hillman's Highway. All rescue operations were not completed until approximately 10 p.m. that night.
This incident was the catalyst for The Proving Ground. For Jeff Fongemie, MWAC's lead forecaster, it was a moment of clarity: "This was the moment that made clear we needed to do more. It pushed us to think bigger and try a different approach. If this film helps save even one life, it will be worth it."
These incidents do not end when the patient reaches the hospital. The MWAC forecasting staff are not only avalanche professionals. They are also first responders, trained and required to lead rescues on the mountain. They are on scene at the worst moments. They do the work of stabilizing patients in steep, icy terrain, organizing volunteer teams in the dark, and making decisions under pressure about how to move a critically injured person off a mountain that does not cooperate.
Professional skier Caite Zeliff, who grew up in the Mount Washington Valley and developed her ski mountaineering skills in Tuckerman Ravine, put the terrain's character plainly: every time you enter the bowl, there is a crossover to ski mountaineering because of the technicality of the terrain. That technicality is not always visible from the trailhead. It is not apparent in photographs or social media posts from bluebird spring days. It reveals itself when conditions deteriorate and the margin for error disappears.
The incidents leave marks on the rescuers as well as the rescued. The 2024 fatality was not the first serious incident that MWAC staff had responded to, but it carried a particular weight. A young person with a promising future was gone. The injuries were beyond what anyone on scene could address. For the forecasting team, the grief was professional and personal at once.
That grief became the engine for this film.
Long sliding falls are one of many serious hazards you can encounter on Mount Washington in winter and spring. Rapidly changing weather, avalanches, ice, and navigation challenges all demand attention and preparation. To learn more about what to watch for and how to manage these hazards, visit our Springtime Mountain Hazards page.
The most powerful thing you can do after watching this film is share it. Send it to your touring partners before your next trip. Bring it up in the group chat when someone is planning a spring day of backcountry skiing. Make it part of your pre-trip conversation the same way you would discuss the avalanche forecast or your planned descent route. One of the best ways we can inform people of this danger is through the awareness that it exists and normalizing the conversation around it. In this case, you, backcountry skiers, are our greatest asset.
The Mount Washington Avalanche Center Foundation is the nonprofit partner that makes this work possible. Your donation funds public safety education, film projects like The Proving Ground, avalanche education scholarships, and the resources that keep MWAC forecasters effective and safe on the mountain.
The Mount Washington Avalanche Center is a partnership between the MWAC Foundation and the U.S. Forest Service. All donations support the Foundation's educational mission.
This project was made possible through the generous support of individuals and organizations who believe in the power of education to save lives. We are deeply grateful.