Buried: The 1982 Alpine Meadows Avalanche

It's kind of wired felling that watching this documentary when I am working for this resort. And the day I watched this is also the day they close the both resort due to high risk of avalanche. So I stay at home and review this said history. It's not as said as I thought, but it remind me should respect our mother nature more next time when I go to Alpine. Ski or working... The whole documantary has many many interview with the person who experience this accident and many valuable materials. It really helps me understand more about avalanche control and many other knowledge about snow and mountains.

As someone who isn't a skier, but is active in outdoor recreation (I'd rather snowshoe), and lives in the mountains of Colorado, I was keenly interested in this movie when I saw the description. I was hoping for something great, and it is indeed great.

Told from the perspective of the people involved, and with no third person narration, this story unfolds with the events leading up to, and after, the avalanche.

You get an idea of what the people were like at the time, how much they've grown since then, and how much this affected them. They are at times very emotional, but always with a sense of honesty. They were mostly people (around my age, as far as I can tell) who were having a good time being ski bums, when tragedy struck. How they dealt with the tragedy is the main thrust of the story, and it is told with brutal forthrightness.

Even if skiing or winter recreation isn't your thing, this is still a movie to watch.

This documentary tells the story of the 1982 Alpine Meadows avalanche and the rescue effort that followed. The series of storms that led up to the event and continued to dump snow after the avalanche was epic. Most day skiers are not aware of the danger and the huge effort ski area employees make to lessen the danger. Ski patrollers go out in insane conditions with explosives that they toss to trigger the snow packed slopes and produce slides.

The film has won multiple awards on the festival circuit including best documentary at Bend and Austin film festivals. Directors Drake and Siig have done a great job sharing this story.

This documentary had me riveted to my seat. I have always had an interest in this story, mainly because of how it affected our family. My brother-in-law was a professional skier at the time and his girlfriend was at the resort working that day. She became so worried about the weather conditions, so she called my brother-in-law to come pick her up. The avalanche happened about an hour after they left. It was a miracle she avoided the catastrophe that followed. I've heard this story so many times, and I'm glad someone finally did a documentary about it. Thank you to all those who worked so hard in the rescue efforts.

7.0 stars.

This is a semi-memorable documentary about a really bad avalanche in one of the most avalanche prone resorts in the world. What's the big surprise here? It's obvious that something like this was going to happen in such a hazardous location, and yet, the local "experts" figured they had it under control. It's a sad story of the needless loss innocent lives. These things happened a lot in those days, not so much now 40 years later. We don't see nearly as much of these dangerous occurrences in the United States these days. For some reason our safety awareness has skyrocketed ten-fold since the 80's, yet life expectancy hasn't changed. I find that interesting. This film is very well done. I don't watch a whole lot of documentaries, but got through this one just fine.