Martin Scorsese has signed on to produce a new film that will depict one of the deadliest avalanches in US history. The Oscar-winning filmmaker will co-produce the drama along with action flick producer Randall Emmett and Jared Drake and Steven Sig, who were behind the 2021 Netflix documentary Buried, which examines the fateful events of the Alpine Meadows avalanche.
On March 31, 1982, a 3,200-foot avalanche ripped through Alpine Meadows in Tahoe after a massive snowstorm that had caused the ski resort to close. It buried eight people and killed seven, flipping snow cats and destroying buildings in its wake.
In the 2010 book about the disaster, A Wall of White, Jennifer Woodlief writes about ski patroller Larry Heywood and his team who rescued 22-year-old Anna Conrad Allen after she had been trapped for five days underneath the snow.
According to reporting by Deadline, the film titled Wall of White will tell the story through the eyes of Allen, who lost part of her right leg and left foot in the accident, and is set to begin production later this year.
The tragedy reshaped avalanche forecasting and mitigation methods at ski resorts across the world, and led to the formation of the Sierra Avalanche Center. Today, inbounds avalanches aren’t unheard of – just last year, an inbounds avalanche struck Palisades Tahoe, formerly Alpine Meadows, killing one – but they’re extremely rare.
Though it’s not typically recommend to ski inbounds with avalanche gear, if you plan to use the resort infrastructure to head into sidecountry or backcountry terrain, you should prepare with avalance safety training and learn how to read an avalanche forecast. Carry (and know how to use) and avalanche beacon, probe and shovel, and consider investing in a ski backpack with airbags such as the POC Dimension Avalanche Backpack.
