Snowcat mechanic Mike Alves was outside his maintenance garage when he heard the roar of a jet engine barreling toward him. He looked up to see 100ft trees snapping like twigs. It was 1982 and this was the worst blizzard in Lake Tahoe’s history; it had already snowed 11 feet in 7 days with wind gusts of 120 miles per hour. In a split second, millions of pounds of snow hurtled down the side of the mountain demolishing the Alpine Meadows base area buildings and burying the parking lot. A crew of 150 volunteers spent the next five days digging with hand shovels during the unrelenting blizzard, pulling seven dead bodies out of the snow. With one missing person still unaccounted for, they never gave up hope for a miracle.