The Frightening, Unsolved and Disturbing Incident of Nine Dead Skiers, page 4

The suggestions of an avalanche or animal attack are very odd. Nothing about the provided information suggests, to me, either of those scenarios. They are both terrifically improbable. First, you need to remember that there were reportedly no bruises or external injuries, but severe internal damage. An avalanche that is near enough to crush your skull and break your ribs is going to not only bury you, but mangle the rest of your body. From www.healthline.com...

A victim who is uninjured and able to fight on the downhill ride usually has a better chance of ending up only partly buried, or if completely buried, a better chance of creating an air pocket for breathing. A victim who is severely injured or knocked unconscious is like a rag doll being rolled, flipped, and twisted. Being trapped in an avalanche is a life-and-death struggle, with the upper hand going to those who fight the hardest. Avalanches kill in two ways. First, serious injury is always possible in a tumble down an avalanche path. Trees, rocks, cliffs, and the wrenching action of snow in motion can do horrible things to the human body. Second, snow burial causes asphyxiation (either obstructed airway or exhausted oxygen supply). A very small percentage of avalanche victims succumb to hypothermia, probably because they succumb to injuries or asphyxia before they have a chance to become sufficiently hypothermic to expire.

There were also 9 visible sets of footprints. I don't need to tell any of you that an avalanche will cover any footprints. If there was an avalanche, it never reached the area they fled from. An impending mountain of snow, close enough to pursuade residents to flee, is going to leave visible damage. If they were running away from a mountain of snow, it seems they terribly miscalculated the real danger, considering that no avalanche ever reached their campground (or the treeline, for that matter).

Shedding clothing due to hypothermia: Did they all stop long enough to remove their clothes and shoes in the tent area, and then proceed to scurry away in different directions? It sounds more like they already had most of their clothing removed (were bedding down for a sleep) and were disturbed by something, causing them to get up and flee without first gathering their clothes or shoes. I suppose we could argue that they developed hypothermia while in their tents, wandered out in a daze and walked toward the edge of the woods, where an avalanche hit them and shattered their bones but failed to bruise or cut their bodies or--assuming the story didn't neglect to mention the major detail of avalanche damage to the trees and surrounding area--destroy any trees. That would be one hell of a case of bad, and weird, luck. If only the hypothermia-while-in-tents part is true, then what is the explanation for the broken bones? You aren't likely to keep walking after your ribs have been broken or your skull crushed, so the ones with severe internal damage were most likely (and with the crushed skull, most definitely) to have lain where they sustained the injuries, barring any postmortem manipulation of the bodies. The individual who climbed the tree, only to fall back to the ground and land next to a fellow skier is an odd detail. I'm not sure what to make of that one just yet.

As for the "animal removed her tongue" argument, I can only assume those receptive to this argument have never seen a wild animal in action or on tv. They are not artful in their method of removing organs. If they sense a warm meal, they don't gather their instruments and gingerly remove the succulent morsel. It's more of a rabid clawing action that occurs.

Now, why slice your tent open from the inside? It sounds like the entrance/exit to the tent was either blocked by something or in view of something/someone and the inhabitants of the tent were attempting to exit it in as furtive a manner as possible (slicing a hole in the tent on a hidden side, perhaps). But this particular detail is not particularly compelling, as a slice through a tent can be had in a number of ways--something falling against or on it, for instance.

This is a really interesting story, OP. Thanks for posting. I wish I had more of an idea of what happened.

[edit on 9/4/09 by paperplanes]