Flattop Mountain Avalanche
By Craig Medred ADN, 1/93

"2 survive avalanches, 'Adventure' skiers trigger snowslides on north side of Flattop".  The first avalanche that swept the north gully of Flattop on Sunday carried skier Mike Radovan into some rocks and ripped off his right ski.  The second avalanche swallowed him whole and tried to tear off his leg.  "It shattered my knee cap and took a chunk out of the joint," the 21-year old Radovan said from a bed at Providence Hospital on Monday. "The doctor said my knee isn't ever going to be quite the same."  It could have been worse; he could have been dead. 

Only two months ago, an avalanche a few miles away on the south side of Flattop (Peak 3 actually) killed local telemark skiers Bruce Hickok and Geoffrey Radford.  Less than two years earlier, 9-year old Christopher Flood of Anchorage fell to his death in the same gully that maimed Radovan.  "I'm just glad to be here," Radovan said. "I was lucky in many ways."

Radovan and 26-year-old companion Eric Simpson were looking for a little fun late Sunday afternoon when they leaped into a steep couloir that heads down toward Powerline Pass from the 3,510-foot summit of the state's most climbed peak.  The narrow chute drops almost straight down for the first couple hundred feet.  Then it flattens out merely steep terrain.  Most would classify skiing here as extreme.  "I like to call it adventure skiing more than extreme skiing," Radovan said.  "We've done it quite often.  It quite a bit of fun." 

When the gully has good snow, it is a fairly safe run for expert downhill skiers. But the snow blown into the gully on Sunday was anything but good, said Doug Fesler of the Alaska Mountain Safety Center.  "Strong winds made a heavy slab of snow that was on top of a weaker layer and the whole thing was at a nice steep angle," Fesler said. All that was needed was somebody or something to touch off an avalanche.  "Ninety-six percent of all avalanche victims trigger their own avalanches.  In Alaska, anyway," Fesler said. "Eighty percent of all avalanches happen after a storm.  There may not have been a storm downtown (Sunday), but for two days there was a blizzard on Flattop.  A lot of (snow) loading was taking place (in the gullies)."

Radovan and Simpson didn't pay that much attention as they battled their way to the top of Flattop on Sunday in their bulky alpine skiing boots, carrying their skis.  "When we got to the top," Radovan said, "the wind was blowing so hard that a couple times we just had to lay down on the ground to keep from being blown off.  It was blowing so hard it was knocking us off balance."  Radovan decided the best thing to do was get over the side of the mountain fast and hopefully get out of the wind.  "I should have known," he said. "Definitely a bad judgment call. I guess we were up there already, and we just wanted to get down." 

"It's not unusual to have ski skills get way beyond hazard skills," Fesler said.  Radovan jumped into the gully and quickly triggered the first avalanche.  "It kind of sent me into some rocks," he said. "It wasn't a big deal."  The avalanche did, however, rip off one of Radovan's skis.  He yelled at Simpson to tell him what had happened, and then Simpson skied down to join his partner.  Together they headed downhill looking for the lost ski.  They went maybe 20 or 30 yards before they heard the snow break loose.  "We were probably half way down the chute," Radovan said. "We were pretty much out of the really steep.  I can describe (the sound) probably in two ways.  It was like faint thunder like really, really far away.  But really super faint, like a cannon that was miles away.  "As soon as I heard that, I looked at Eric."  And then they turned to see what was coming.  "It was just one big sheet of snow," Radovan