Читать книгу Shaped by Snow. Defending the Future of Winter онлайн

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Years later, at my high school graduation ceremony, my principal introduced me in front of an entire concert hall.

“Ayja Bounous had the best bug collection.”

Emitting

When I was a child and my father had retired from being a professional racer to become the director of the Snowbird Ski Team, one of his ski coaches was nearly killed by an avalanche while walking out of the old coaching shack at Snowbird. The shack was at the top of a beginner run called Chickadee, built right at the base of a peak named Mount Superior. As Mark left the protection of the shack he heard a deafening rumble to his right. A churning mass of white had dissolved the face of Mount Superior and was tumbling toward him at impossible speeds. He dove back into the shack rather than jumping in his car. His instinct saved his life. The avalanche took his car over the lip of the road and down onto Chickadee. The small wooden structure, reinforced with large logs, remained intact.

During the summer, the peak’s iconic appearance barely hints at the avalanche risk it poses during a different time of year. Superior is composed of cottonwood tillite, glacial till that’s been pressurized into solid rock, and tintic quartzite, metamorphic granite. The combination of the two creates waves of rust and cream that colors many of the peaks in the Wasatch. Around one hundred million years ago, the North American continental plate, which had previously been traveling east, switched directions, colliding with the denser plate that the Pacific Ocean is on. One plate sunk beneath, nudging the other skyward. The landmass that we consider the western United States was lifted up, one reason why much of the western US is almost a mile above sea level. The collision resulted in an era of mountain making. The iconic waves on the face of Mount Superior, most noticeable in the rusty, tillite formation, are what remains of the ancient mountain range. Since the peak is covered by snow in the winter, this pattern is most prominent during the summer, and adds dramatic movement to the mountain’s stony appearance.