Avalanche!

Last summer Stefan and I went down to Bavaria to visit Stefan's brother and do a little sightseeing. His brother was working at one of the huts owned by the German Alpine Club, and we spent some time up there in the Tutzinger Hütte. It was a really lovely spot, situated at the base of a huge cliff, the Benediktenwand, with steep trails fanning off on either side of the cliff. Click here to see last summer's visit. Here's a shot from Flickr showing the front of the hut facing the cliff.

Frank is back working in an office in Munich now, but received word that a massive avalanche had occurred and one building (off to the left in the photo above) is completely destroyed. The main lodge (above) lost all it's windows and is full of snow. The snow tumbled down right where those people are walking and smashed open the windows. Nobody was up there when it happened; it was only about to open for Easter. Spring is avalanche season as the snow melts, and the Bavarian and French Alps are notoriously dangerous this time of year. While the building is owned by the Alpine Club, the furniture, glasses, and other contents are owned by it's manager, Hans. Below left is Frank working the counter this past summer, on the right is what it looks like now.

I feel like you always see images or videos of avalanches occurring on some random snowy mountain, but you never see what happens when an avalanche hits a building, much less what it looks like inside the building, so here are some shots. Notice how it just ripped the paneling off the walls.

Below is a 'before' shot of the dining room. I can't even begin to think of the cost and cleanup effort this will take. Think about all the water damage as snow melts; you can't exactly shovel it off a mountain...

It looks like the avalanche stopped just in front of the main lodge, but still...poor Hans.