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National Park After Dark

296: The Deadliest Avalanche in U.S. History. Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest.

National Park After Dark

Audioboom Studios

True Crime, Places & Travel, Wilderness, Society & Culture, Sports

4.84.6K Ratings

🗓️ 5 May 2025

⏱️ 69 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 1910, two trains became stranded in Washington’s Cascade Mountains during a record-breaking snowstorm. After six harrowing nights, a massive avalanche swept them off the mountainside — the deadliest avalanche in U.S. history. More than a century later, one question still lingers: could the disaster have been prevented?

Sources:

The White Cascade: The Great Northern Railway Disaster and America's Deadliest Avalanche,
by Gary Krist (2007).

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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, it's Cassie. And I'm Danielle. And we're the host of Watch Her Cook, a podcast where we

0:06.3

celebrate women who aren't just following the rules, but rewriting them. Watch Her Cook is about

0:11.9

sharing stories of women throughout history who stepped up, faced impossible odds, and showed

0:17.7

the world that their skills, intelligence, and aspirations go far beyond domestic

0:22.4

duties. Join us every week to learn about the lives of women who face the odds and changed history.

0:29.2

Subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. We can't wait to share these

0:35.5

stories with you. Just a reminder, empowered women empower the world.

0:40.3

Now let's go cook.

0:46.3

Human history is marked by our attempts to dominate the natural world.

0:52.3

To hold back rivers, to level mountains, and to build

0:55.9

in the most inhospitable environments. Progress has often been measured by how effectively

1:01.9

we can bend nature to our will with advancements in medicine, engineering, and technology.

1:08.6

But time and time again, it takes tragedy to remind us just how powerful

1:12.7

nature really is. Nature isn't something we can conquer. It's something we're a part of.

1:19.3

We experience natural disasters often today. Things such as devastating wildfires and floods

1:25.2

continue to demonstrate how fragile the illusion of control

1:29.0

really is. And in so many of these cases, the tragedy is compounded by the fact that we saw

1:35.4

these things coming. At the turn of the 20th century, one such tragedy struck in the Cascade

1:41.4

Mountains of Washington State. It was an avalanche disaster that to this day,

1:46.5

115 years later, is still the deadliest in U.S. history. But what makes the story even more

1:52.9

haunting is the lingering question. Was it simply an unexpected event of nature, or were the people

1:59.5

involved responsible?

...

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