Snowstruck: In the Grip of Avalanches

By Jill Fredston

Book Overview

Every year around the globe, people cross paths with avalanches--some massive, some no deeper than a pizza box--with deadly results. Avalanche expert Jill Fredston stalks these so-called freaks of nature, forecasting where and when they will strike, deliberately triggering them with explosives, teaching potential victims how to stay alive, and leading rescue efforts when tragedy strikes.

In Snowstruck, Fredston draws on decades of personal experience to take "avalanches out of the statistical realm and into the human one" (Skiing Magazine): a skier making what may prove his final decision, a victim buried so tightly that he can't move a finger, rescuers racing both time and weather, forecasters treading the line between reasonable risk and danger. Fredston brings to life the awesome forces of nature that can turn the mountains deadly--and the equally inexo­rable forces of human nature that lure us time and again into treacherous terrain.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0156032546
• ISBN13: 9780156032544
• Release Date: January 2007
• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
• Length: 352 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.0"

Customer Reviews

Fredston's many encounters and stories all hold lessons for survival.

Author Jill Fredston has worked in avalanche prevention, education and rescue for several decades, trying to keep people and avalanche disasters separate: her account of her experiences in SNOWSTRUCK: IN THE GRIP OF AVALANCHES provides an excellent mix of science, adventure and autobiography as it surveys her experiences. From triggering them with explosives to teaching potential victims how to stay alive, Fredston's many encounters and stories all hold lessons for survival. Diane C. Donovan California Bookwatch

Poetry from a scientist

Snowstruck is a fascinating book from an actual scientific expert involved with avalanche rescue, prediction and study, but it reads more like the great adventure narratives from writers like Jon Krakauer or Sebastian Junger. Smart, exciting, and thought-provoking.

This book is a rush of adrenaline

This book is awesome. Expertly written, Jill can bring you from your living room to feeling like you are there, participating in the avalanche or the rescue. Having had a good friend perish in an avalanche, who in fact, was dug up by Jill and her husband, this book was so intense that while it is normally a book that you would read from start to finish, it was so superbly written that many chapters would make the memories come rushing back, prompting a break, if only for half an hour before being so compelled to read on. I would recommend this book to anyone, outdoor lover or not.

Jill Fredstone "In the grip of Avalanches"

This is a very sincere and frank book coming from the heart. It is not that much about avalanches - it is about people and what drives them to do what they do. I loved it. There are some chapters which were more interesting to me than others but this is because the author had a very broad perspective while I was more interested in some specific angles of the issue.

Science, adventure, autobiography from an avalanche expert

Author Jill Fredston has worked in avalanche prevention, education and rescue for several decades, trying to keep people and avalanche disasters separate: her account of her experiences in SNOWSTRUCK: IN THE GRIP OF AVALANCHES provides an excellent mix of science, adventure and autobiography as it surveys her experiences. From triggering them with explosives to teaching potential victims how to stay alive, Fredston's many encounters and stories all hold lessons for survival.