Craig Kelly was snowboarding鈥檚 first true pro athlete. After a highly successful competitive career, he left the championship circuit behind in 1991 in favor of freeriding, the sidet of the sport he loved most. By the end of the decade, Kelly had decided to become a backcountry guide, a path that led him to an apprenticeship position at Selkirk Mountain Experience, a guiding company that operates from a helicopter-accessed lodge in the Selkirk Mountains near Revelstoke, British Columbia. There, on January 20, 2003, an avalanche would end Kelly鈥檚 life and the lives of six of his companions. The Darkest White, out February 27, is the story of Kelly鈥檚 life, death, and legacy. This excerpt details the moment the snow gave out underneath Kelly and a group of SME clients and staff when they were climbing a couloir called La Traviata on the west ridge of Tumbledown Mountain.

Up this high, with the wind blowing into the gully, that upper layer of snow could be five, ten feet deep. A slab that immense is going to rip down the mountain like a runaway freight train, taking anything and everything with it.

During that brief moment of purgatory, fully exposed at the bottom of the gully, assistant guide Ken Wylie had time to think, Maybe we鈥檒l get lucky here. Then a voice from above cried out, 鈥淎valanche!鈥�

When Ruedi Beglinger, head guide and owner of Selkirk Mountain Experience, had topped La Traviata several minutes earlier, he skied immediately east鈥攕etting a traverse to the right, away from the top of the gully upon the gently sloping bench beneath Tumbledown Mountain鈥檚 west ridge. This was standard operating procedure for Beglinger, who didn鈥檛 stop until he was some hundred meters east of the gully, his standard regrouping area, not far from the ski route he used when coming down off the west ridge. It was a nice, protected area to have a sip of tea, enjoy the view, and wait for the other group to arrive.

The first to join Beglinger was Age Fluitman, with Rick Martin roughly 15 meters behind him, then Heidi Biber, Keith Lindsay, and Bruce Stewart similarly distanced鈥攖he line stretched back toward the top of the gully. As was his custom, Beglinger ripped his climbing skins off and quickly connected his split skis back into a snowboard, with Fluitman following his example. That was when Beglinger felt the snow drop beneath him, a massive settlement accompanied by that dreadful 鈥淲humpf!鈥�

At that moment Charles Bieler was just below the cresting summit of the gully, still sprinting upward, still uncertain of why he鈥檇 been spooked a couple minutes earlier into sprinting ahead of his companions up the skin track, but not letting up. He knew he was close when Rick Reynolds, the skier just ahead of him, disappeared over the summit. Bieler had passed Jean-Luc Schwendener 30 seconds before, Evan Weselake a minute before that, and Naomi Heffler he鈥檇 passed on a lower switchback after first feeling that sense of dread, but now, as he was within spitting distance from the summit, the entire group, including Craig Kelly and Dave Finnerty bringing up the very rear of Ruedi鈥檚 group, were only three or four minutes from the top. Wylie鈥檚 group was approximately 20 minutes from the top, so well below.

Some two meters behind Schwendener, Weselake saw a crack shoot across the snow above the ski track. At first he thought it was a bit of surface slough cracking off and sliding into the track, but then another crack opened up between his ski tips and Schwendener and the snow began to move down the mountain. Something was off: the snow wasn鈥檛 spilling down into the ski track. The track itself and Schwendener were moving, Weselake was moving, the entire slope was moving and he was on top of it. It was like the sensation when you can鈥檛 tell if the train or the train platform is the thing in motion. Only this time, he soon realized, it was somehow the platform that was moving鈥攁nd he was on it.

On his side now, Weselake tried to reach for his bindings, knowing that was key to release his skis, at this point only anchors that would drag him into the depths. It was instinct. He鈥檇 thrown his poles away, the slab was breaking up around him, all of this in a matter of seconds. Rule number one from his training kicked in and, as he kicked violently, trying to jettison his skis, he screamed the loudest warning he could: 鈥淎valanche!鈥�

Bieler had just managed to finish his primal sprint, crest the summit, and get his first glimpse of Rick Reynolds when the concussive burst went off directly beneath the tails of his skis. 鈥淚t sounded like the loudest clap of thunder you鈥檝e ever heard in your life,鈥� he says. 鈥淎n explosion. I didn鈥檛 look back. I just rocketed forward, away from the downhill, and just kept going. I was in shock, just skiing for my life.鈥�

Rick Reynolds shuddered when he heard what was, to him, a shotgun blast. He glanced back to see Bieler in full stride flying toward him. He could see the snow cracking behind Bieler, and farther down he could see just the top of Schwendener鈥檚 head, his body still beneath the crest of the terrain. Then both Reynolds and Bieler were thrust forward in a violent jolt that nearly knocked them off their feet. 鈥淚 went down to my knees, had to put my hand out on the snow to steady myself,鈥� says Reynolds. 鈥淚 knew what happened immediately. I鈥檝e seen a big avalanche at Squaw Valley, there was so much cohesion in the snow. The snowpack, it鈥檚 like a rubber band that was under so much tension, getting stretched, or pulled down the mountain, that once it released [cracked] the upper slope that we were on rebounded like a rubber band that had been stretched out to the max, and then cut or just snapped. It recoiled, sprung back, while the slab below slid down the mountain in the opposite direction. That rebound knocked us off our feet.鈥�

Still in fight-or-flight mode, Bieler was scrambling on pure adrenaline trying to regain his footing and not certain if he was getting sucked down the mountain. Reynolds pushed himself back upright and came face-to-face with Bieler, who was breathing hard, wide-eyed and shaking.

鈥淲e just stared at each other for a second,鈥� says Bieler. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 say anything鈥擨 was in shock. I heard people screaming 鈥榓valanche鈥� behind me and I realized I hadn鈥檛 said a word. Not that it would have mattered, but I wish I had.鈥�

The acoustics in the mountains and the energy from the collapse were heard and felt differently depending on location. The skiers closest to Beglinger only felt the collapse and heard the 鈥淲humpf!鈥� while those closer to the gully heard the concussive thunderclap when the snow cracked.

Yelling 鈥淎valanche!鈥� Reynolds waved his hands toward Beglinger, roughly a hundred meters away. Not sure if Beglinger was getting the picture, he became more vocal: 鈥淭here鈥檚 a fucking avalanche! The whole thing went! It鈥檚 big!鈥�

鈥淭he only thing I could see were two little dots in the debris field,鈥� recalls Reynolds, who stepped back and ripped the climbing skins off his skis so he could get down there and help, but steeled himself for what he knew was coming: There are too many people buried, he thought to himself. We aren鈥檛 going to get them all. There isn鈥檛 going to be enough time.

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