Bottomless depth hoar, unconsolidated crystal, snow as faceted as tiny diamonds
—Anchorage Daily News. Reid Bahnson is an avalanche control expert charged with keeping open Atigun Pass, a 4,800-foot-high 4.5-mile cut through the Brooks Range, about 330 road miles north of Fairbanks. The pass is the northernmost in Alaska, part of a 414-mile haul road that creeps beneath 2,000-foot mountain faces and 40 to 50 avalanche paths as it crosses the Continental Divide.'
